TamsPalm – the Palm OS / web OS Blog

Don’t ask me what the mobile FireFox team is doing – but it most certainly isn’t helping their market share in mobile. Vendors like Opera have made a killing off Windows Mobile and Symbian…and the folks at Mozilla’s have just released their first final FireFox mobile version.

Believe it or not – it is targeted at Maemo:

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Firefox is currently supported on Nokia’s Maemo5 platform and is available for download on the Nokia N900. Users can download and learn more by visiting Firefox.com/mobile. Visit the FAQ for more information.

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Even though I don’t want top be accused of mindless ranting, one question comes to mind: WTF. Why does the Mozilla Foundation release its first-ever browser on a platform which essentially has 5 users world-wide? And why not on a platform like WM?

Ideas, anyone?

As quite a few of you are visiting the Tamoggemon Content network via notebooks, I felt that the announcement below could be important – Mozilla has just released a new release candidate of FireFox 3.6, which promises to be even faster than the current beta or 3.5 editions.

According to the official announcement, the following improvements can be expected:

Firefox 3.6 (built on the Gecko 1.9.2 platform) introduces several new features for users and developers:

* Users can change the browser’s appearance with a single click using Personas.
* Firefox 3.6 alerts users about out of date plugins to keep them safe.
* Changes to how third-party software integrates with Firefox to increase stability.
* Improved automatic form fill provides better options from your form history.
* Open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames.
* Support for the WOFF font format.
* Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time.
* The ability to run scripts asynchronously to speed up page load times.
* Support for the HTML5 File API
* Support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies.

In case you still use an outdated version of FireFox (or, even worse, IE) – hit the link below ASAP. The improved speed (and increased battery life) definitely is worth it:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-rc.html

The Tamoggemon Content network lives off you, its readers. Sometimes, we get back truly great comments…such as the one below by Robert.

He had the following idea for handling the application flood:

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A couple things that can be done is 1) you can have a block button so if you don’t like an app you can block it and never see it again…and/or a block publisher button. 2) a report button and if the app gets say 4 reports then someone at Palm reviews the app and if its crapware they then delete it. This is kind of the best of both worlds. I can block apps I think are junk, or apps I’m not interested in which will streamline the catalog for me so I can better see apps I am interested in. If enough people think an app is junk they can report it…and Palm gets final judgment in case some people click the report button to be spiteful for some reason. This also makes it so anyone can make any app they want without the full on app police like Apple has.
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Sounds sensible to me – what do you guys think?

As the web gets more and more interactive (AJAX, anyone?), having a fast JavaScript engine is one of the key elements in delivering a good web experience. On the desktop, browser makers work hard on optimizing their JavaScript engines due to public scrutiny – in mobile, this effect has not taken place so far.

Our friends at NS Basic Corp’s have performed a little benchmark of the various browsers, and ended up with the results outlined below – faster means higher score:

Anybody of you surprised by any of the results?

So far, all we knew about Bada was talk. It would be able to do x, y and z – but nobody knew how the critter would look.

This has now changed – feast your eyes on the shots below:

via hdblog.it

So far, very little is known about Samsung’s bada operating system. Will it be fully programmable? Will it be Java only? Will it support Flash?

PhoneScoop claims to have received some news from Samsung. First of all, the critter’s UI will be a Flash-based form of TouchWiz called TouchWiz 3.0 – but programming still takes place in C++.

When it comes to further features, most buzzwords are implemented:

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Other capabilities include support for service-centric features such as location-based services, social networking, device sync, content management, and commerce services. Samsung also said that the platform will be highly customizable by network operators, so they can make it their own.

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Release info goes as follows:

… reiterated that the first handsets should hit the market in the first half of 2010. Samsung plans to use Bada on phones in markets worldwide, though it will launch across Europe first.

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Further info, anyone?

Access Co’s Garnet VM offers people who dislike smartphones a PDAesque experience on a Nokia Nxxx web tablet. It has actually done this for some time, and was met with general happiness.

The product has now been updated to “beta 5″ – while still not final, Access claims compatibility with more than 80% of Palm OS applications currently on the market.

More can be found at the URL below:
http://www.access-company.com/products/gvm/index.html

P.S. According to various sources, the N900 is not supported currently.

The official Palm App Catalog seems to be grown now. Last night a lot of new app’s were submited and updated. But a large part of this app’s who are released are “one-off quiz apps from Europa Pictures”. Well, at precentral.net you can check the full list of the new and updated app’s!

Ah, btw: We’re at Tamoggemon’s are soon ready to publish our first Palm webOS app. So stay tuned!

Gartner has recently released figures predicting the operating system marketshares in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Even though these figures must always been taken with a large grain of salt, enjoy the chart below:

Air Hockey – that’s the Name of the first paid webOS App in the Palm App Catalog. You can download the little game in your App Catalog on your webOS device for $1,99. To get further informations about the game, click here.

Air Hockey Pictures:

Well, I’m excited about other upcoming Apps in the future. For Palm I hope the App Catalog will grow soon with paid and freeware Apps. We at Tamoggemon are working at the moment on a (Fan-)App for Metal and Hard Rock Fans. Stay tuned – We’re going to publish the Metal Fan App soon as possible!

Flash, or rather the lack thereof, has been an issue for mobile devices for some time. So far, all we had was a lackluster Flash Lite player and a bunch of empty announcements.

A recent press release from Adobe promises the following:

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today unveiled Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 software for smartphones, smartbooks, netbooks, PCs and other Internet-connected devices, allowing content created using the Adobe Flash Platform to reach users wherever they are. A public developer beta of the browser-based runtime is expected to be available for Windows® Mobile, Palm® webOS and desktop operating systems including Windows, Macintosh and Linux later this year. Public betas for Google® Android™ and Symbian® OS are expected to be available in early 2010. In addition, Adobe and RIM announced a joint collaboration to bring Flash Player to Blackberry® smartphones, and Google joined close to 50 other industry players in the Open Screen Project initiative.

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The video below shows the upcoming version of Flash in action on a Pre:

As of now, this is all we know – stay tuned for further info as we get it!

Palm’s webOS currently lacks third-party applications, for which a compatibility list could be generated. Instead, added functionality comes in the shape of unofficial patches – which obviously are even more vulnerable to “OS updates”.

Fortunately, webOS developer dBsooner has taken on the gigantic task of maintaining such a compatibility list – it currently looks like this:

* AppLauncher
o Add/Remove Pages (Updated 9/29)
* Calendar
o Default to Month View (Updated 9/29)
o Default to Week View (Updated 9/29)
* Camera
o Shutter Sound On/Off Button (Updated 10/01 by egaudet)
o Volume Keys to Capture (Updated 9/30 by dBsooner)
* Clock
o Hidden Clock (Updated 9/27)
* Contacts
o Add a message tone selector (Updated 9/30 by egaudet)
* Email
o Confirm Delete (Updated 9/27 by egaudet)
o Enable Landscape (Updated 9/30)
* Frameworks
o Smiley Face Sym Box (Updated 9/30 by egaudet)
o Virtual Keyboard (Updated 9/29 by egaudet)
* Luna
o Add Date to Top Bar – No Year (Updated 10/01 by egaudet)
o Battery Percent and Icon (Updated 9/30 by StoneRyno)
o ++Disable Charging Alert Sound (Updated 9/27 by egaudet)
o ++Enable Dev Mode Icon (Updated 9/27 by egaudet)
o Keytoss Keyword Search (Updated 10/01 by egaudet)
o ++More Icons Per Row 4×4 (Updated 9/28 by PuffTheMagic)
o ++More Icons Per Row 5×4 (Updated 10/01 by StoneRyno)
* Messaging
o Character Counter (Updated 9/29 by HattCzech)
o Clean Timestamp (Updated 10/1 by StoneRyno)
o Contact Multitone (Updated 9/30)
o Enable Landscape (Updated 9/27 by egaudet)
o Timestamp Messages BuiltIn Method (Updated 10/1 by StoneRyno)
* Nascar
o ~~++Hide Nascar App (Updated 9/27 by egaudet)
* Phone
o Enable Dialpad Haptic Feedback/Disable Sound (Updated 10/1 by dBsooner)
o Enable Call Duration in Call Log (Updated 10/1 by dBsooner)
o Disable Alerts During Call, Enable After (Updated 9/30)
o Radio Power Adjust (Updated 9/30)
o States Matched to Incoming Calls (Updated 9/30)
* Phone Prefs
o Roam Control (Updated 9/27 by egaudet)
* Screenlock
o Enable LED Notifications (Updated 9/30 by dBsooner & Jack87)
o Longer Standby Times (Updated 9/30 by egaudet)
* Sounds & Alerts
o Add Message Sound Selections (Updated 9/30)

++ denotes those patches that need to be moved to a different category.
~~ denotes patch needs extra unneeded “replacement” removed.

Hit the link below for the latest version:
http://forums.precentral.net/web-os-development/…

Score one – our prediction was spot-on. Version 5 of Opera Mini will bring the long-developed tab support. The picture on the left is from the vendor; I will do a detailed review as soon as I am back in the office.

Opera Mini 5 will furthermore add the following features to the browser:

• Password manager
• Speed dial for favorite web sites
• Better touchscreen/keypad UI

The product is currently available as a beta – hit the URL below for further info and let us know how it goes:
http://www.opera.com/mini/next/

Opera’s recent announcement of an “upcoming product which would change the mobile web browsing experience has caused quite some dust.

Opera has now clarified what we will be looking at:

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Before the weekend a teaser on www.opera.com/next appeared. It was claiming that “The next generation in mobile browsing” is coming very soon. The product is Opera Mini 5 and a beta is coming very, very soon. Good times, good times…

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As of this writing, nothing is known about specific features (tab support??) – stay tuned for further info as we get it!