Agile Animal Inc.

webOS 1.3.1 Released

Today Palm released webOS 1.3.1. If you hit their support pages you will see a list of the release notes.

What was fixed.

I had personally reported several issues when if came to the sync of emails and calendars. With one exception (see the what is not list below) I think they have fixed it all. Not a moment too soon - I was ready to give up on the platform due to the email related issues.

In summary: + Email messages still push even when your account hits 50 messages (FINALLY!) + Calendars now still sync even with special characters and notes. + Exchange related issues seem to be resolved.

I have noticed that the platform is a bit more responsive in certain situations, but generally speaking the speed increases are not as dramatic as previously suggested. Applications still take too long to launch.

What was not.

I hear that iTunes support is still broken. I don’t use it myself so I can’t confirm this.

More importantly Google Calendars (for Google Apps accounts) only sync over EvDO. So if you want your calendar to update you will need to turn off WiFi and then sync. If forcing update doesn’t work try editing your account settings and simply type in your password again - this got things syncing again for me.

The Punchline

If your calendar won’t sync, turn off WiFi and try again. And don’t hold your breath for iTunes support.

Everything else with the platform should be fixed.

WebOS

Let’s face it, as cool as it is, the WebOS is really a beta. It has been out for 6 months and has not been thoroughly tested. So things are breaking.

For me there were two major issues that were killing me:

• My hosted Google Apps GMail would just stop working.
• Calendars would just stop syncing.
  

After searching and hacking and playing I found the following four things fixed just about everything.

Four (plus One) Tips to Keep Your Pre Happy

Until the WebOS is fixed here are four tips that will keep things going with as few issues as possible:

• Setup your GMail account in Calendar, not Email.
• Don’t use ActiveSync - Use IMAP - where possible.
• Archive messages out of your Inbox - keep the total count well below 50.
• Only use LETTERS and NUMBERS in your calendar appointments.
• bonus: If sync is not working disable WiFi and reboot.
  

Google suggests the first tip and they are right. The Pre will fill in the settings for Email when you add the account in Calendar.

While you may be tempted to use Exchange support there are some email bugs with it. I’d steer clear and use IMAP if you can. Hopefully this will be fixed soon - Palm knows about this.

If you hit 50 messages in your Inbox you are dead. No more messages will come. Keep your Inbox clean.

Calendar syncing WILL stop if you add things like a comma or even a question mark. Sad as it is only numbers and letters. This has been reported in Palm’s forums and I know that a bug has been filed as well.

I had trouble again with sync tonight and I found that in addition to all the other steps what really did the trick was a couple reboots with WiFi disabled. Not sure why this worked.

I Don’t Like Magic Fixes…

As annoying as these workarounds are I still like the Pre. It is the best iPhone alternative on the Market right now. I think the competition will be good for Apple.

That is not to say I am ditching my iPhone. But I do like the Pre.