Turn off the screen while on Touchstone [webOS 2.x] 6
This tip is only for devices running webOS 2.0 and higher
One of the biggest frustrations webOS users have had since the Pre was released was that you were unable to completely turn off the screen while your phone was on a Touchstone. The Homebrew app Brightness Unlinked emerged with a feature to turn the screen off while on the touchstone, but that app unfortunately does not work with webOS 2.0 or greater (well it technically still works by shutting your screen off, but it just doesn’t allow you to turn the screen back on). Luckily, webOS 2.0 brought with it a new feature that will allow you to turn the screen off while on the touchstone just by pressing the power button on your device. Unfortunately, this is often a short-lived victory because once you get a notification, the screen turns back on.
As of right now, the only way to keep the screen off is to put the phone in airplane mode before you turn off the screen. However, this will obviously prevent phone calls, emails, text messages or anything else from arriving on your phone during that time, so we do not advise you doing this if you are reliant on that data.
6 Comments
It's wonderful that we are getting tips pertaining to the webOS 2.x environment, really.
Too bad we're not getting webOS 2.x phones actually released to the unwashed masses.
You can use Sconix's ModeSwitcher (found in Preware) to set a mode so that at night on the touchstone you don't get banner notifications. Then it stays off all night, but you can still get phone calls. I have it turn the notifications back on in the morning so they're there when I wake up.
Let's not forget Quick System Tasks which works great for me for turning off the screen on the touchstone (with v1.45).
Quick System Tasks is a life saver when it comes to the touchstone. It's a great interface for handling other simple functions like en/disabling Bluetooth or WiFi.
At least for Palm Pre(-) users you can use 2.1. Palm has allowed an open enough platform that one with some knowledge can still update their phone. I'm pretty happy about that being a Pre(-) owner and now running 2.1. Other phone providers aren't as flexible and if you want the latest greatest you have to have the latest greatest hardware. Though it may still be a hack. Thinking about it on HP/Palms they could restrict the community a lot more in such areas but we don't see this. Running 2.1 has allowed me to also see that 2.x could not be for the masses on older devices, it needs newer hardware though it works great for me, it's not something I as HP/Palm would feel great releasing. Instead my focus would be on newer hardware and offering something that take full advantage of newer hardware to offer that experience. I don't understand the entitlement Palm users seem to think they have, no one expects to run the latest Android on the G1, instead you go and buy the best hardware, the same with Windows or any other OS. Why then do users expect updates from a Device that's almost 2 Years old and EOL? Time too move on, like the rest of the phone community has no issues doing.
My GSM FrankenPre 2 will allow me turn the screen off from Touchstone Exhibition, and when I get a notification of SMS or email, the screen does not come on. The light flashes, but that's it.