HP Palm webOS Operating System

Introduction
The Palm Pre is a multimedia smartphone designed and marketed by Palm with a multi-touch screen and a sliding keyboard. The phone was launched in the USA on 6 June 2009 with Sprint, in the UK on 16 October 2009 with O2 and is the first to use Palm's new Linux-based operating system, webOS. The Pre functions as a camera phone, a portable media player, a GPS navigator, and an Internet client (with text messaging, email, web browsing, and local Wi-Fi connectivity).

The Full User Guide
There is a 344 page manual available in PDF here.

Locking/Unlocking The Pre
The Pre can be set to lock the screen to prevent accidental phone calls, this is done in the "Screen & Lock" section.

Official App Catalog
Lots of good stuff here already. On the Pre, go to the 3rd Launcher page and press on 'App Catalog'.

Data Syncronisation
The Palm Synergy feature brings your online accounts together on your phone in one simple, logical view. Any changes you make on your phone or on the online accounts are updated automatically in either location. Sync your phone with Google, Microsoft Exchange, Facebook, or back up to your Palm profile account. Or set up accounts with all three!

Music
Plug in the Pre to a PC via the USB cable; create a new folder on the Pre called 'music' and then copy your .mp3 albums in there. Take out the cable and launch 'Music'. It will take a few seconds for it to scan all the files and sort them. Check out my Linux shell script to embed ll the ID3 tags including album cover art!

Photos
Plug in the Pre to a PC via the USB cable; create a new folder on the Pre called 'photos' and then copy your pictures in there. Take out the cable and launch 'Music'.

Videos
Plug in the Pre to a PC via the USB cable; create a new folder called 'videos' and then copy your .mp4 files in there. Take out the cable and you are good to go... launch 'Videos' and enjoy! :-)

Email
Type in your email address and password then click OK. It will most certainly fail first time, but choose Set Manually and put in your IMAP (or POP3) and SMTP settings.

Here are the settings for setting it up to access a Windows Live Hotmail email account:

* Mail type: POP * Incoming Mail Server: pop3.live.com * Username: your full email address * Password: your password * Port #: 995 * Encryption: SSL * Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.live.com * Use Authentication: ON         o username: your full email address o password: your password o Port #: 25 o Encryption: TLS

If it does not work first time, disconnect from your WiFi connection (if you are) and try again.

Developing Applications
If you intend to develop applications for the Pre you will need to install the Mojo Software Development Kit, this requires you to register at the Palm SDK Site.

There is no native SDK for Linux or Apple users so you will need to install VirtualBox. For a guide on installing on Linux and Apple click here. The Linux guide is squarely aimed at Ubuntu/Debian users but can be installed under Gentoo with tweaking.

Useful Links
Palm Pre Official UK web site.

PreCentral Source of advice and Homebrew applications.

Palm Pre Blog Source of technical specifications.

Butterscotch.com Lots of information from Jay Goldman (The Mobile Guy) and the team.

Developer Official Palm Pre App Development Web Site.

webOS Internals Wiki site with advice for building your own apps.

Wikipedia Wikipedia Page.

Palm, Pre and Synergy are registered trademarks of Palm, Inc.

Papercuts
While we love the Pre and webOS it is still a young system and occasionally you will find little niggles, these are papercuts.

If you a personal account with O2 (non-business) to retrieve your balance you are required to send a blank text to 21202. Unfortunatlely the Pre does not allow you to send a blank text, so you need to a at least one character to your text message.