UK Palm Pre owners can now feel suitably modern as the webOS 1.3.5.2 update has rocked into town.
The main news with the OS update is that Brits can finally get the most out of the App Catalog, which now offers background downloading and the the possibility to manually pause, resume, and cancel downloads.
More importantly, the ruddy annoying restriction on the amount of space given over to apps has been lifted, so Pre users can start downloading with gusto, and a handy Bluetooth tethering capability has been added.
Other fixes promise nippier switching between days in calendar, new email account and editing features, improved battery life, the possibility to download new OS updates over a 2G (1xRTT, GPRS, EDGE) data connection, support for animated GIFs in the browser, a fix for playing .3g2 files, and better handling of prepaid SIM cards.
Here’s the full SP from Palm:
webOS 1.3.5.2 – Release date: 11 January 2010
New applications – NONE
Feature changes to existing applications
App Catalog
App Catalog significantly improves the application download experience.
A user can now download multiple applications simultaneously.
Downloads continue in the background if the user moves away from the download screen.
A user can manually pause, resume, and cancel downloads.
A user can also download all available updates for the user’s downloaded applications with a single tap.
App Catalog automatically resumes downloads in cases where a download was paused because it was interrupted—for example, if a user moves out of network coverage and then moves back into coverage.
Users can now take advantage of the full storage capacity of the phone for downloading applications. This gives the user more control over how to allocate the phone’s storage space across applications, music, photos, and other media. Downloaded applications are now stored on the phone’s USB drive.
App Catalog lists search results based on an improved search algorithm.Calendar
In Day view, switching between days happens more quickly.
This release fixes an issue in which the Calendar app displayed no events for any account after a user synchronized Calendar with an Exchange account. With this update, Calendar events now appear correctly after an Exchange sync.Date & Time
When the user has network time zone enabled, a city and country are no longer displayed.Device Info
A user can perform a full erase by pressing and holding Sym + the orange/Option key + power for 10 seconds.
A user can now edit forwarded text for all email account types.
When the user sets up more than one Yahoo! email account, the account names displayed in Account List view include the associated email address so that the user can distinguish them.
If an account mailbox is too full to send messages, after the user frees up space in the mailbox on the server, the user can send the messages successfully.
The default email signature no longer includes the macron over the “e” in “Pre,” so that the product name shows correctly on a recipient’s phone.Messaging
If a user deletes a conversation with a contact, new conversations with that contact are now correctly displayed in Conversations view.Phone
The Phone app offers better handling of prepaid SIM cards.Regional Settings
If the user switches the language to a locale that uses a different time format from the current locale, the time format switches automatically.Screen & Lock
When the screen is locked, the time displays in a new font.System
Users can now take advantage of the full storage capacity of the phone for downloading applications. This gives the user more control over how to allocate the phone’s storage space across applications, music, photos, and other media. Downloaded applications are now stored on the phone’s USB drive.
This update improves battery life in areas of poor wireless network coverage.
If the user is working in an application that supports landscape mode (such as Web or Videos), notifications now appear at the bottom of the landscape screen.
After a user signs in to an existing Palm profile, applications the user installed from App Catalog are restored in the background. The user can use other features of the phone while the apps are being restored.
Swiping to delete a list item that contains a link no longer causes the link to open in the web browser.Updates
After taking the 1.3.5 update, users can download future updates over a 2G (1xRTT , GPRS , EDGE ) data connection by opening Updates and tapping Download Now.Web
The web browser now supports the display of animated GIFs.
Audio files with a .3g2 extension play correctly as audio files, not video files.Security
This release includes a security fix to the dev portal. Credit to Kris Siegal for reporting the issue.Individuals interested in contacting Palm to report suspected security issues can find more information at palm.com/security.
too little too late? The Pre seems to be slipping off the radar somewhat in the UK. Perhaps it has done better in Europe..the German market seemed to like it for instance