Sprint Releases 1.4 Update to webOS: Videocam & Editing, Email Upgrades are Here; Flash 10.1 Awaits Adobe

webOS 1.4 upgrade notification

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been hitting the “Upgrade” button on my Pre several times a day ever since February 17th, when the rumors started flying about the imminent drop of the webOS 1.4 upgrade. Now, all of the anticipation is over—if you’re on Sprint or Verizon in the U.S., or on O2 U.K., O2 Germany, O2 Ireland, or Movistar in Europe.

Installing webOS 1.4

webOS update installed - whew!

The download to the Pre is about 39MB, so it takes awhile (especially now, with many Pre owners trying to download at once, I suppose). The download, unpacking and validating procedure took about a half hour or so for me on Saturday afternoon. Now, to hit the “Install Now” button—it’s 12:45 p.m. Let’s see how long the install takes. So now the screen says, “Installing Update—Do not remove battery.”

At 1:04 p.m., the phone begins rebooting itself. At 1:10 p.m., it finally finishes. It boots up fine. Whew!

So, what’s new in this release, and how well does it work? Here’s the link for Palm’s detailed explanation of the changes in webOS 1.4. We’ll go over a few aspects of the new upgrade in this article, and save some others for the next post.

Snappier Response

The Pre startup card for the Email app.

That was the first thing that struck me when I began navigating through the menus in search of the camcorder app (which we’ll discuss next time). The webOS just seems more responsive than before. No matter whether I was opening up an app, or flipping from card to card through the open apps in Card View, or erasing emails in the Mail app—everything just seemed to respond faster to my touches, swipes and flips.

Also, this release features a new system of “startup cards” that appear when you tap an icon, while you are waiting for an app to load. I think this new feature may contribute to the perception that the wait time to load an app has decreased, simply because your attention is diverted by the startup card in the meantime. Or maybe that’s just me—I’m easily entertained.

In any case, the snappier response of 1.4 makes the OS a much greater pleasure to use.

Video Capture and Editing

There is so much to cover with the new video capabilities of webOS 1.4 that I’m going to give it special attention with its own separate article, probably in the next day or two. Meanwhile, here’s what Palm says about the new feature, just to whet your appetite for next time:

Camera

You can record video whenever and wherever inspiration strikes with the new camcorder feature in Camera. After recording a video, you can edit the clip in Videos, upload the video directly to YouTube or Facebook, or send the video by email or multimedia message.

Videos

• You can upload a recorded video to YouTube or Facebook on the web.
• Videos you record appear in the Video roll folder.
• You can edit recorded video. You can also delete recorded video, video copied from a computer, or video received as an attachment to an email message.
• You can attach a video to an outgoing multimedia message.
• If you tap the option to share an uploaded video, you have the option to send the link via email, text message, or Facebook.

A Note About Flash

Palm says that it has made webOS “flash-ready” with the 1.4 update. Now we wait for Adobe to finalize Flash 10.1 for webOS and release it for availability in the App Catalog, where you’ll be able to download and install it at your leisure. And when will that be?

“Soon.” That’s as close as I can get. Sorry.

Email

Wow, where to start in here?

If I had to choose the coolest update to the Email app, I guess it would have to be the new ability to tap and hold a phone number in a message body until a menu appears displaying options to either “call”, “text” or “add to contacts” (if the number is not already in your Contacts database). If the message body contains an email address and you tap and hold the address, a menu appears displaying options to “email” or “add to contacts” (if the email address is not already saved in a contact).

The same type of functionality is available from the subject line of an email message: Tap a phone number in the subject line of an email message to dial it, or tap a URL in the subject line to open the web browser to that page.

What a timesaver this will be!

That’s all I have time for today. Here’s a listing from Palm’s change log page of all the new features in the Email app:

You can customize calendar notification sounds in Preferences & Accounts. The options include Mute, System Sound, Ringtone, and Vibrate. The Ringtone option includes new notification sounds to give you more customization choices.



New Email sorting options

A new Sort application menu item allows you to sort the message list in any email folder. The sort options are By Date, By Sender, and By Subject. Tapping the currently selected sort option changes the sort from ascending to descending or descending to ascending. Tapping another sort option sorts by that option in ascending order.

When you receive a message with one or more attached files, the first file to be fully downloaded opens automatically.

You can tap a phone number in the subject line of an email message to dial it, or tap a URL in the subject line to open the web browser to that page.

If the message body contains a phone number and you tap and hold the number, a menu appears displaying options to Call, Text, or Add To Contacts (if the number is not already saved in a contact).

If the message body contains an email address and you tap and hold the address, a menu appears displaying options to Email or Add To Contacts (if the email address is not already saved in a contact).

You can sign in to an email account with a domain of up to six letters (such as .museum or .travel).

For POP email accounts, a new preference lets you choose to delete a message on the phone when it is deleted on the server. The default is that messages deleted on the server are not deleted on the phone.

If you forward a message that contains attachments, and the attachments are not downloaded, the Email app first downloads the attachments and then forwards the message with the files attached.

In an Exchange account, if you delete one or more attachments to a received message and then forward the message, the Email app no longer includes the deleted attachments with the forwarded message.

You can successfully move a message from the Trash folder to the Inbox in a Yahoo! account.

If you send a message with an attachment from a Hotmail account to another Hotmail account, the message is sent correctly with the attachment.

If you send an email that contains periods from an SMTP account, the periods display correctly in the recipient’s email application.

If you reply to an email message with a large number of recipients, the reply screen opens scrolled to the message body so you can begin typing the reply text right away.

If you search a Global Address List for a contact in the Email app, the app returns the same set of search results as if you were searching in Contacts.

Special characters display correctly in the subject line of a received message.

If you are working in one application and perform an action that opens the Email application—for example, by tapping an email address in Contacts to compose an email message—when you complete the action, the Email application displays full-screen (not as a card).

This release offers improved account setup for Yahoo and Gmail hosted domains.

You can select and edit text from a message that you are forwarding.

This release includes multiple performance improvements in Email, including improved handling of message replies and forwarded messages and quicker response times to gestures.