How is webOS 1.1 Treating You? 92
Fri, 31 Jul 2009 9:22 am EDT 
Here at PreCentral.net we all cheered for the much-improved Exchange support and revived iTunes syncing baked into webOS 1.1.0 for the Palm Pre, but as it turns out the extra baking burned the OS in a few spots, creating new bugs and glitches in various apps.
We’ll start off on a positive note by pointing out one of our favorite undocumented features in webOS 1.1: text selection in Memos is improved. You can now double tap on a word to select the entire word (or tap-tap-hold to select more words), or triple tap to select the entire paragraph; this functionality does not appear to have migrated to any other apps. Only problem is, a single tap results in no cursor placement – you have to do a slow double tap (about half a second) to place the cursor. This, of course, makes moving around slightly more difficult, and updates aren’t supposed to make things more difficult.
Of course, many homebrew hacks were broken down, including the extra launcher pages, universal search additions, and persistent landscape email mode. Most can simply be reapplied, but when the underlying application is updated, the hacked/modified files will also be overwritten. There’s a growing list of affected hacks over in our forum, and the homebrew community has been updating their patches and apps to work with 1.1.
Something about the update also temporarily crippled the WHERE application, though they quickly worked with Palm to push out a WHERE update a few hours after webOS 1.1 landed.
Whether this was a bug or a choice on Palm’s part, the notifications display method has changed. When the device is active, a new email or message just bings and puts the requisite icon in the notification bar instead of a temporary large heads-up bar with a preview of the notification. While this may be good for battery life, this somewhat deflates the unobtrusive part of the notifications by making me stop what I’m doing and tap the notification bar to see more than just “you have a new email.” At the same time, some users are receiving notifications of new emails already received when viewing that same email, which is frankly just odd.
There are also reports of now-poor battery life, though the majority are reporting similar or better battery life than their pre-1.1.0 phones. And of course, there are the scattered cries of bricked Pre phones and some stuck in an infinite reset loop. If that’s you, our heart goes out to you, we know all too well how much being there sucks.
That’s some of what we’ve noticed and heard of so far. How is webOS 1.1 treating you?
92 Comments
Was expecting more. If palm thinks they can add emoticons to text messaging and compete with everything iPhone is doing, they're sadly mistaken. Com'on Palm, step up the game a little. Let's show what this phone can do.
It does seem a little faster, but like most i haven't noticed anything that is significantly better.
Like my man at the top, i'm just waiting for video...oh and a way to forward text messages
I tried the new email a memo feature. I get an error message because it is not able to send. When I clear the error, it just shows up again. I don't know if it is continuing to try to send, but I cannot seem to get it to stop. Very annoying.
HAve you taken your phone into Sprint to get it looked at or exchanged? I would...that is basic functionality. They are really good to work with..at least where I am located.
I have noticed the one when reading an email, the alert reappears. We browsing seems a bit slower...but not too bad. Every now and then, when opening the browser, it likes to flip to landscape mode...even when I am olding it upright...and it takes a couple of screen taps to get it back to portrait.
We do have to keep in mind...we all chose to be on the bleeding edge and get the Pre...and I was expecting some of these tyes of issues. The most important feature of the phone, making a receiving calls is still flawless for me...unless I am in the boonies with no reception, and that is a Sprint thing, not a Pre thing.
My messaging is super screwed up. when i send a message, instead of it turning black when it sends, it just remains gray, but the person i sent the message to receives it, so i know that it is sending.
How do I change the network settings?
Does making this change, impact the voice roaming capabilities? I have a weekend getaway that is located in an area where I roam onto Altell's(now Verizon) network.
My Pre shuts down intermittently
I am having the same issue. Every once in a while it will just turn off after I finish a task or SMS. Very strange.
My battery also seems to be draining faster. I am not 100% positive about this since I only had the phone 1 week before the update. Finally, the Pre is very sluggish from time to time. Opening and switching pages on the Launcher can be a real chore.
I am seriously thinking of taking it back tomorrow for a new one.
Oh yeah, that's happened a time or three, too...
Yes -- twice since I upgraded to 1.1 I found that my Pre was just completely shut down. I had missed calls, etc. I had to power it back up and go through the really long Pre boot process (longest of all the major contenders on the market). But until 1.1, I never cared -- because I had never had to boot it since I activated it.
Still love the Pre, though!
I had that problem after a few weeks of having the Pre. The shutdown was caused by loose battery. I would use my phone and the next time I try to use it, it would be off. It annoyed the crap out of me before I figured this out. I put a few layers of scotch tapes to the opposite side of the battery contact pushing it a little closer to the contact and I never had it shutting down on me again. You guys can give that a try.
Volume indicator got stuck on-screen, but that resolved after a couple resets, a battery pull and finally a full charge. Crippled the phone while it was happening, though, since the vol indicator is right over the launcher. Center button press would bring up launcher for a millisecond, but otherwise had no access to anything.
Other than that, it's been fine.
Volume indicator got stuck on-screen, but that resolved after a couple resets, a battery pull and finally a full charge. Crippled the phone while it was happening, though, since the vol indicator is right over the launcher. Center button press would bring up launcher for a millisecond, but otherwise had no access to anything.
Other than that, it's been fine.
I'm liking the new firmware. It runs a bit faster in some areas like pulling up the messages app. I think the already good call quality is even better. Webpages seem to render a little quicker too. It does shut down intermittently and is a bit quieter on notifications which I don't like. Hopefully it is still a work in progress. I'm sure they are working hard to add new feattures and improve existing ones.
Overall 1.1 has been good but I am having a couple of issues..
1. I get the notification of emails when I am reading them already.
2. Sometimes my email will not render at all and I have a blank area where the text should be. This seems to be tied to my browser as neither will render a page until I shut them both down or sometimes even reset.
3. Much of the time I try to MMS a picture it does not get to the recipient. The text is gray in the SMS app but there is no way to select it and hit "resend" or something.
Overall 1.1 has been fine. Browsing might be slightly faster, but I am still disappointed with the overall sluggishness of the phone. I was hoping more speed improvements were in the works.
The Pre has a powerful processor and a great design; is the software implementation that inefficient? My wife's iPhone 3GS is spectacularly fast and responsive. This has a huge impact on the overall experience using the phone. For example, the Pre's calendar app has a better interface, with fewer touches needed and more intuitive navigation. But the iPhone is so fast, even though I having to navigate more screens, I can still get things entered faster on the iPhone than on my Pre.
I love the architecture, aesthetics, and general usability of the Pre, but when is takes 2-3 seconds to move between calendar pages, I get frustrated!
Since day 1, I have only had 3 major beefs with the Pre.
(1)The annoyingly loud in your ear while your on the phone notifications. -Which still hasn't been fixed.
(2)Poor Battery life. -It's better, not as good as my old Q9c, but I have come to terms with carrying the charger around. This phone is worth it.
...and
(3) When browsing the internet in landscape (don't we always?), if you clicked a link that opens in a new window, it would be in portrait which sucked, because it took about 4-5 times of flipping the phone to get the page in landscape. Half the time setting your original page in portrait! -Well 1.1.0 certainly fixed that. It was a very welcome change.
All in all, for me, a non-business user, I love what 1.1 did, and if there were no future updates (I doubt that's the case), I would be content with my Pre. All I'm missing is those damn notifications to be quiet while I'm on the phone!
Tthe experience has good so far. Just a few bugs on my end:
Anuone notice a change in how to set the ringtone? Before you could tap the desired one from the ringtones list and then swipe it off the screen for it to be set. Now you tap the desired ringtone and then swipe back to the main menue of the sound/ringtone setting for it to be set.
Battery seems to be my main concern I took it off thw charger at 9am and its already at69% before 1.1 my battery would last me from 9am to 11pm with about 20% remaining?? Hope palm fixes this! :(
To be honest, for what I do, I haven't noticed any changes at all with the update.
I very few complaints after 1.1. My battery lasts significantly longer than it used to.
My only gripes aren't with 1.1, but with Palm/Sprint practices... Why are the abilities to add pages to the launcher or read emails in landscape or forward texts locked? i don't see wut they gained from this.
I've unlocked those abilities thanx to the help here, but i'm sure most pre owners don't know about this site, or have any interest in rooting their phones.
Battery seems to be my main concern I took it off thw charger at 9am and its already at69% before 1.1 my battery would last me from 9am to 11pm with about 20% remaining?? Hope palm fixes this! :(
Only problem is, a single tap results in no cursor placement
Had not seen any real difference with the upgrade. Could use a little battery life as I use wifi when I'm inside. Guess a bigger battery is in order.
While overall the update improves things a bit, I'm surprised at the lack of dramatic improvements from Palm in 2 months time.
I really appreciate that I can set a calendar alert now with zero minutes lead time. I appreciate the few speed improvements I've noticed. The browser seems noticeably faster, but since the 1.1 update took away the user's ability to open links in a new card when browsing, my web use is now slower overall.
I remain surprised at the minimal access to various sounds and alert settings, and the unreliability of the calendar and SMS alerts is especially surprising. I'm shocked how thoroughly Palm has ignored the importance of previous customers' access to historical Palm data (like 8+ years of Memos) and provides such a sub-standard PIM experience overall. If Palm doesn't deliver a great PIM, who will? Apple & RIM sure don't!... yet.
Is the device impressive and multi-tasking worthwhile? You bet! Is it great hardware and an impressive interface? A BIG yes! Is it still usable, even though it's buggy? Yeah. Is Palm living up to expectations? In some areas 1000%, in other areas, not at all.
C'mon Palm... you can do it! Step up to the challenge, fix the weak areas (while you keep the good stuff working). - And until you do, we're all rooting for you!!
(pun intended)
I haven't updated to 1.1, and don't plan to. (I disabled forced updates after 1.0.4 took away the ability to install packages from email, security hole or not.) I use the "open link in new card" feature way, way too often to give it up and really couldn't care less about emoticons. Give me a video camera or voice recorder in the update and I'll think about it.
I have the same "MMS never gets to recipient" problem that someone else above reported, but I'm not on 1.1.
Did I miss something? Is there a Homebrew that gives you extra launcher pages? If so, which one? Thanks in advance.
I purchased a Pre 45 days ago. I bought a $30 cover to protect it, have gone out of my way to protect it, and due to the update my phone was in infinite reset like many others. Now I have to be given a refurbished phone because of Palm's update? I didn't pay $300 for the phone, $36 for activation, $30 for a cover, $7 a month in insurance, and $100 total phone bill every month to be given a refurbished phone after 1 1/2 months. I'm very upset.
Have not had a single issue since the 1.1 update. It has been solid! No regrets updating to it. Very much enjoy the emoticons even if we have to type them out manually.
I love the updates to the PIM. Finally able to do searches in the calendar has returned my scheduling to the normalcy of the Treo. I am no longer missing all thise appointments prior to this change. I am also no longer missing credit card payments now and timesheets now that the Task app has been updated with allowing Repeating tasks to be made and the ability to sort by priority. Fixinf that was HUGE relief. Alsoproviding alarms for the Birthday & Anniversary dates I specify in the Contacts manager prevented me from missing my loved ones Birthdays last week!!! Boy I owe you for not getting my ass kicked for that Palm. Am REALLY looking forward to seeing what the next update fixes now that these business critical ones are fixed.
Noticing a weaker battery now after 1.1. barely making it through an entire work day. Txt msg & email alert sound seems lower. Other than that I'm glad palm is pushing out updates so quick so maybe the next update will bring some fixes for the average user.
My Exchange service still doesn't work. I am still getting the same old error about making sure the date/time are right. This was the one thing I was looking forward to being fixed in 1.1 and the one thing I cared about that didn't get fixed. Bah
Also, the lack of being able to copy things in emails is rather annoying and should have been addressed in 1.1. Not to mention the crap with the Sprint car chargers not starting to charge the phone until they have had the screen off and been inactive or whatever. I can't plug in my phone with the Sprint Navigation open and have it start charging. Thats a little ludicrous.
Certainly, there are positive aspects to v1.1 (HTML e-mail Reply/Forward format stripping bug resolved). However, I have experienced a few negative aspects.
1) When the screen is locked, notifications appear as normal. However, immediately after you drag the "button" to unlock the screen, the notification minimizes to an icon and you have to touch it just to see the notification. This behavior change requires extra effort just to see and interact with a notification that was already displayed while the screen was locked.
2) Odd lag in seemingly random places. The Pre acts as though there is something running in the background consuming CPU cycles causing apps to be less responsive. Random things are laggy, not just menus. Switching apps, bringing up the launcher, pressing on a notification icon, launching an app, etc. Restarting the phone does not necessarily help.
The new update resolved much of the issues regarding my phone.
The car charger now actually charges
I can sync podcasts and songs much better
The interface is snappier
The email sync is much better
All in all it makes for a real good experience.
They still need to improve the Music app by leaps and bounds (including podcast support) but for now I'm am really happy with the device.
I could be wrong, but I think the snooze has changed from 5 minutes to 10 minutes. Which really messed with me the first few mornings before I realized it. Dammit I want my 5 minute snooze back, shouldn't that be just a setting that I choose?
like it. but still issues with poor media syncing not sending music into a "music" folder and little things that are important to me. like i think there was an issue with the genre setting. not positive cause i keep having to wipe the audio from my device cause it's syncing strangly. but i think it has the genre go directly to song titles or albums. i hate that. my ipod don't do that. i've got too many songs for that. and i sure as hell don't know the albums some of these are on. should go to artist, then album then song.
Everything seems to be fine since the 1.1 update. If I notice the OS operating a little sluggish. I close out some apps (mostly multiple web pages). Also I try and close out of my apps when the phone is going to be idle. Can't wait to see what is in store when we hit 2.0. I would like to see more notification tone options w\o homebrew, better copy & paste, and a spell check. However, I know these will come with time and I am willing to wait. I have not experienced any of the issues that are stated above. However, I have not rooted the Pre, nor have I installed any homebrew as of yet. I think my first attempt at installing a homebrew app will be the ITunes Remote, possibly this weekend.
I have the Motorola S9-HD stereo bluetooth headset. Prior to 1.1 I had to have the music player or Pandora open as the active card for the controls on the headset to work.
Since the 1.1 update I can skip tracks, go back, play/pause, and adjust the player volume when I have other cards active and the player is just in the notification line.
Thanks Palm.
Personally, I love 1.1, as it makes the whole phone render and load EVERYTHING a lot faster and has made me love my Pre so much more. However, I do have that email problem where it notifies me of emails that I JUST deleted on my laptop. Furthermore, batter life was I guess supposed to have gotten better, but actually got worse for me and is not as go as it was pre-1.1
Overall though, I would take both of those problems over not having 1.1 at all cuz 1.1 has just made my Pre experience that much better. Plus emoticons hellz yes!!!
was excited about the new "Email memo..." feature, because I thought I could use it to update Evernote without select/copy/paste. But I was very disappointed when I tried it because it ran all the paragraphs together. Useless.
The cursor-placement problem in memos is a little annoying, but I'm adjusting to it.
I'd really like to see a "Select All" option on the edit memo! Swiping screens and screens full of text is getting quite old!
Other than that, I'm fine with 1.1.0. I haven't noticed any of the notification annoyances, so thanks everyone for mentioning it, now I'll probably notice them!