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The quest to get thinner, stronger, faster, and healthier with webOS Nation and Mobile Nations continues! We’ve survived two whole weeks! And while some of us have faltered — due to illness, travel, or simply the lust for burgers and fries — we’ve also rebounded and renewed our commitment! We’re feeling better. We’re looking better. And our community is doing better than ever! It’s the age of eHealth and eFitness — or iHealth and iFitness — where the phones and tablets we love have gone beyond being communications and computing tools and have started playing more and more crucial roles in all aspects of our lives. We don’t just listen to music or chat on the phone while jogging anymore. We use the data our devices collect to measure our progress, motivate our activities, and manage our mobile lives. We recorded a special edition of Superfunctional chock-full of tips to stay motivated and stay moving. But on to week 3! Once again, we're setting reasonable, attainable goals, and we're going to take advantage of our awesome community to make sure we attain them. As always we're running everything through our Health and Fitness Forum to keep us focused, keep us accountable, and keep us keeping on! Oh, and we're still giving away a TouchPad Bundle, an Xbox 360 Kinect, and more! Weekly drawings for an TouchPad Touchstone. We’re giving away 4 total, one each week! Grand prize drawing for a 32GB TouchPad Bundle (includes Touchstone, Bluetooth Keyboard, and Folio Case)! Bonus prize drawing for an Xbox 360 Kinect (Check out ZEN and TECH for details). So get into gear, head into the forums, and get moving for week three! View the full article

In our very first edition of Themed we took a look at webICS, a theme that applied an Android 4.0-layer of Ice Cream over the webOS UI. A lot of theming work is done to make one device look like another - this blogger at one point had a Windows XP-running Tablet PC outfitted to look and generally look like Mac OS X. webOS themes are no exception to this make-it-look-like-something-else, uh, theme, and some are more ambitions than others. webOS Nation forum member fraincs took to the forums with a theme of his that's a work in progress, but it's one that we couldn't help but find interesting. He's taking webOS and reskinning it to look like something unexpected: Windows 8.Yeah, the next generation Microsoft operating system for desktop, laptops, and tablets. The work-in-progress theme doesn't throw a layer of blocky flat Metro UI onto your TouchPad, and it's not likely to ever do that. What it does to is reskin the aspects of webOS like the Quick Launch bar, Just Type search box, and phone app emulator to give them a Windows 8-inspired appearance. That means flat color boxes and square corners, very much in opposition to the rounded corners and heavy gradients that give webOS depth where Windows Metro is flat. While the Windows 8 theme is a work in progress right now, we couldn't help but give it a once over. If you're feeling the urge to do the same, go ahead and jump into the forums to check it out. View the full article

The tablet wars are heating up! Apple is getting set to announce the iPad 3 next month. BlackBerry is going to release a major PlayBook OS update any day. The Kindle Fire is hot as is the Transformer Prime in a sea of Android tablets. And Windows 8 tablets are getting ready to enter the battle. With so much going on we wanted to take a moment and find out where you weigh in on the tablet wars. We have five quick questions (and one bonus) that will take you less than a minute. Hit the link below. Take the Survey! View the full article

Yesterday HP CEO Meg Whitman spoke at the HP Global Partner Conference in Las Vegas, touching on HP's multi-year commitment to webOS. It's stuff we like to hear - that even though it will take a lot of time and investment, HP will stick with webOS over the long term. And then Whitman went and said that webOS has an opportunity for adoption with Google's recently-approved purchase of Motorola. The idea is that the Google+Motorola hook-up could eventually lead to Android become closed source or a closed system as the two entities become more closely tied. While we have little doubt that Google will eventually play a strong hand in the planning, design, and execution of Motorola's portfolio, we also have little doubt that Android is going to go away any time soon, a point we discussed at length yesterday. We don't need to go over again the points behind why Whitman's statement was off base. What we do feel the need to touch on is the attitude that could bring about such statements, the attitude that for webOS to succeed, Android must falter. read more View the full article

Kevin, Phil, Derek, Daniel, and Rene discuss RIM's new CEO and what it means for BlackBerry in 2012, the unstoppable Android, iPad 3 vs. Windows 8 tablets, Chinese working conditions, and apps and your privacy. This is Mobile Nations! Our podcast feed: Audio | Video Download directly: Audio | Video Subscribe in iTunes: Audio | Video Subscribe in Zune read more View the full article

It was just yesterday morning that HP outed their new Isis browser for webOS and the QtWebKit rendering engine, and now our favorite webOS homebrew team is buckling down to make it work on current webOS devices. While the Isis webpage says that the browser is compatible with webOS 3.0.5, the currently released set of Enyo code does little-to-nothing-at-all when installed on a TouchPad. Mostly because all it does is install a new undetectably-different UI skin (if that) on top of the currently existing web browser. We can't exactly recommend you waste your time doing that. The QtWebKit engine is where it's really at, and that'll take some more doing to make it happen. Just so happens that WebOS Internals Chief Rod Whitby and WebKit guru and former HP webOS WebKit coder Donald Kirker (also of Internals) today had a call with HP to discuss their strategy for taking Isis and the QtWebKit tech preview and installing it on current TouchPads. We chatted with Whitby about what this means and he confirmed that since "all the Isis and QtWebKit items are open source now, there are no legal barriers to releasing a package in Preware" that would install this stuff onto current devices. Of course, there are some hurdles to overcome, and Whitby expects it to take at least a few weeks to get this done. But considering that they had a call with HP to discuss the strategy on how to make this happen, it stands to reason they'll have HP's support in making it happen. We're glad to see HP already working with outside groups as part of the Open webOS project, and also happy to see Rod already flexing his newly-anointed Community Development leader muscles. Source: WebOS Internals (Twitter) View the full article

webOS and Android both have something very fundamental in common - they're based off of the Linux open source kernel. Up until the decision to go open source, Palm and then HP used a custom proprietary version of that kernel to power webOS, but with the OS going open source over the coming months, HP's changing over to the Linux Standard Kernel instead to open up webOS to the wide world of, well, other devices (since HP's not currently making their own). And that brings us to today, when webOS CTO Sam Greenblatt tweeted the following: "All drivers of Android will be included in Linux kernel 3.3 the LSK. Isn't that interesting?" Yes, Sam, that is interesting. The merger of Android and Linux kernels with version 3.3 has been going on for a while, but mostly in the circles that are frequented by the uber-techs: the Linux Foundation. They're incorporating a lot of the open source drivers from Android into the open source Linux Standard Kernel, the end goal being to make it easier to install Linux and its derivatives on a wider range of devices. So what does this mean for Open webOS, now that it's poised to adopt the Linux Standard Kernel? It means that it will be easier for end users to install webOS onto a wider range of devices and get greater support for the hardware inside. Of course, there are plenty of things you can expect to not have support even with Android drivers getting rolled into the kernel. For one, the cellular radios in Android smartphones are powered by proprietary drivers from the manufacturer and won't be included in the Linux Standard Kernel. Still, it's a big step forward for making it easier to install webOS and other Linux-derived operating systems on a whole universe of Android-powered hardware. Source: CNXSoft; Via: Sam Greenblatt (Twitter) View the full article

HP CEO Meg Whitman took to the stage at HP's Global Partner Conference in Las Vegas today, and what she said was both encouraging and left us with our mouths hanging wide open. According to reports from the event, Whitman reiterated HP's commitment to webOS as an open source platform, stating that "it will take 2-5 years to fully play out" the impact of webOS on the mobile ecosystem. So HP is committed to webOS for the long haul, that's a good thing. But then Meg went a little off the rails, suggesting that Google's now-approved purchase of Motorola Mobility could lead to Android going closed source in the future, opening the door to licensees for webOS. We'll be the first to admit that such a scenario is the dream sequence of events for HP and Microsoft, but it's not going to happen. The only way Google makes money off Android right now is by serving ads to mobile websites and through apps. That's it. Unless Google could dramatically grow Motorola device sales to cover the hundreds of thousands of daily activations Android sees today and in the future, Google has no reason to take Android closed source. Now we have no doubt that Google is going to play a strong role in the development of Motorola's Android products going forward, and that no doubt will worry and irritate other Android licensees. Could that drive them to adopt Windows Phone and webOS to mitigate the risks posed by competing with a supplier? Sure, that could happen. But we don't see anything as drastic or insane as the closed source switch-up Whitman is suggesting. Source: PCWorld, Business Insider View the full article

You're typing away on your TouchPad, pounding out a good paragraph or two in response to an email from the boss. You look it over, noticing that you wrote horde instead of horse, and you're not certain Carl would appreciate being compared to a band of barbarian warriors. No problem, it's just one letter, an easy fix. You tap on the screen, right above the d. The cursor lands after the s. You tap again and it's after the e. Another tap puts the cursor a llne above, smack in the middle of the word interspace… wait, that's supposed to be interstate. If you own a TouchPad and have typed, well, anything on the tablet, you've run into this situation. Truth is, for as awesome as the webOS 3.0 virtual keyboard is, webOS is lacking so pathetically in cursor placement that even the BlackBerry Playbook is laughing at us. iOS lets the user tap-hold-and-drag to pop up a magnifying loupe to refine their cursor placement. Windows Phone users can move the cursor just by tap-hold-drag. Android can be a bit of a crapshoot, with some phones have physical or virtual arrow keys on their keyboards, others requiring you tap-tap-tap like a TouchPad to get the cursor where you want it (Android 4.0 supports tap-and-drag, but with only one device out so far it's hard to say what other manufacturers will do). Heck, even our good ole' Pre, Pixi, and Veer smartphones have cursor placement, albeit by the less-than-obvious hold-opt-and-drag method. Our enterprising homebrew community took the initiative to address this problem by adding arrow keys to the TouchPad keyboard, but the average user shouldn't have to resort to patching their device to address a fairly regular occurrence. We'd honestly be perfectly fine with a Windows Phone-style tap-hold-drag implementation, no fancy loupe or bubble required. But if you want to get fancy, we won't argue, so long as it works. Have your own thoughts on this webOS Wish List entry? Of course you do - the comments are below. Surely you have your own ideas as to what ought be on the webOS wish list, and so we've created a forum thread just for what has proven to be an awesome discussion. View the full article

Our webOS phones have not been known to have the greatest capacity when it came to battery life, no one would argue otherwise. While there has been improvement between each version of webOS and iterations of devices, they typically would not make it a full day with normal moderate use on a single battery, without of course charging intermittently during the day. Luckily for owners of the original Pre series up through the Pre 2 there were some options for extended batteries, or simply spare batteries that were all interchangeable with one another. This helped people to swap batteries throughout the day as needed, or with the use of the larger options that were available; requiring a larger replacement cover. Then, there was the announcement of the Pre 3 which was larger than its predecessors and required a new battery. Not a big deal, surely there would be the same battery options available as in the past once the phone would be released, right? Only that did not exactly happen, and a full on release never came about. The official release of the HP Pre 3 was limited to Europe right around the time HP announced ceasing all webOS hardware production. Luckily, devices that were headed for AT&T stores and even a few Verizon branded devices made it to eBay. The problem here was, how would those of us with this device get a spare battery without purchasing a spare Pre 3 to go with it? What about getting a larger capacity battery? Who would want to make batteries for a device that really was never released in full force? What would someone do when the stock battery inevitably lost its useful capacity to hold a charge? Purchasing a spare Pre 3 just for a battery isn’t really a cost effective solution. Seeing that there were a lot of Pre 3’s hitting the market, either via eBay or importing from Europe, caught the attention of Mugen Power Batteries. Now, we all know Mugen is no stranger to creating batteries and have made spare and extended batteries for the Pre and Pixi in the past. Mugen decided to get in touch with the community and find out just how much interest there really was in spare and/or extended batteries for the Pre 3 by setting up a survey. It didn’t take long, since it was only a matter of hours before Mugen announced enough support to produce both an $46.95 “SL” 1400mAh battery and a rather massive (by Pre standards) $98.95 “XL” 2800mAh Battery, which includes a larger back cover. Pre-orders for these batteries were opened in December. Stock Battery Mugen "SL" 1400mAh For reference, the stock battery that comes with the Pre 3 is rated at 1230mAh, certainly nothing to write home about, but it does the job. These new Mugen batteries would give a boost of roughly 14% and 128% for the “SL” and the “XL” respectively. These batteries began shipping earlier this month and they kindly set us up with some batteries to test out and review. Up first we will take a look at the “SL” 1400mAh battery. I will note that the 1400mAh battery was being detected as being 14060mAh, 60mAh more than it is marketed as having. Who doesn’t like freebies right? Per Mugen’s recommendation I let the battery run through a couple cycles of letting the battery fully charge, and discharge to below 10% before charging again. Even during this calibration stage I noticed the bit of improvement that it was giving. Once this stage was done, I put it through its paces using it as I normally would on any given day. I had the typical background tasks running; Exchange syncing, Gmail, another email accounts checking at 30 and 1 hour intervals, Twitter keeping tabs in the background, sending texts, browsing the web and more. What I noticed was that on average I was seeing what would amount to an extra hour or 2 of use. I had roughly 10% or more capacity higher at any given time than the stock battery. This doesn’t mean I could go a full day and into the night without a charge let alone last even the day under heavy usage. What it did give me was a bit more breathing room and the ability to have a spare battery if the need arose. It was certainly worth it to me. What would I do if the stock battery failed or simply wouldn’t charge anymore? Another nice thing about this battery is that it is the same physical size of the stock battery, so it fits right in and I had no issue with charging on the Touchstone. I will say that this battery is a no brainer for any Pre 3 owner. This battery would be the go-to battery for many as it’s aimed as being a replacement or spare to the stock battery. Additionally, who doesn’t like a bit of capacity enhancement without needing a new back cover? The rest of the community must feel the same since it also took the lead for best sellers of 2011 according to Mugen. Mugen currently has the “SL” battery on sale for $44.95 and you can receiving a 7% coupon code if you “like” them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter at @MugenBatteries. .wp-flattr-button iframe{vertical-align:text-bottom} View the full article

You know who you are. You're the one that lives and breathes webOS. You've racked up hundreds of dollars in App Catalog charges, use your TouchPad more than your laptop, roll with your own custom-coded kernel, and have a stash of spare Pre3 phones and TouchPads in safety deposit box for a rainy day. Or you just happen to find webOS fascinating and love using it and just want a chance to write about it on the best webOS blog with the biggest readership and most awesome and engaged community you'll find on this side of open source. By now you've likely figured out what topic we're introducing here - we're looking for new, exciting, and engaging souls to write for webOS Nation. webOS is obviously near and dear to our hearts here, so it really helps if it's the same to you. We're looking for hardy individuals who love (and sometimes hate) webOS apps, those that can hack through Enyo code like a mutant combination of Bear Grylls and Chuck Norris, or those that know the webOS community better than the back of their own hand. What we're not looking for: columnists, editorialist, or angry badgers. It's important that you be able to dedicate time to this endeavour. For this to work we need a few dedicated souls who can take the time to write at least a few times a week. We won't lie, the pay won't be good enough for you to quit your day job anytime soon, but for the chance to get paid by writing about something you love, is there anything better? Okay, there's bacon, but this is a very close second. Here's what to do: send an email to [email protected] with the title of "writer [your full name here]" as the title. Except, you know, put your full name in the space where the brackets are. Your email should include some information about who you are, what you love about webOS, and a link to your webOS Nation forum profile. You should also include two plain text samples of your writing about webOS (show some variety if you can, review an app and rewrite one of our awfully-composed news items if you so like). Do not send us attachments, links to Google Docs, or smoke signals. Also, you must be 18 years old or older - we appreciate your enthusiasm, dear youngster, your time will come. Derek's going to be evaluating these applications personally, and he gets angry when directions aren’t followed. We do appreciate creativity, and there's plenty of space for creativity within these bounds - go out of these pretty wide bounds and we're apt to skip over your application. Interested? You made it this far into this rambling call for writers, so clearly you are. Follow the guidelines set out above, get your applications in by February 29th, and come a day in the near future you might just find yourself writing for the world's best webOS site in the world. View the full article

Georgia and Rene discuss sex and dating tips for Valentine's day, whether you're single, broken up, just starting a new relationship, ready to get serious, or been together forever and looking for new ways to re-light the sparks. This is ZEN and TECH! Our podcast feed: Audio | Video Download Directly: Audio | Video Subscribe via iTunes: Audio | Video read more View the full article

Today saw the release of HP's February code commitment from the Open webOS roadmap. Also on the roadmap for this month was the governance structure HP intended to implement for the open source project, and as we had anticipated and hoped, HP has adopted a model based on "the Apache Way." In essence, the Apache model the same basis of the ethos behind WebOS Internals. HP's take on the model will be such that anybody is allowed to submit code to the project (which itself will be segmented into multiple sub-projects), with each sub-project overseen by a Project Management Committee "comprised of committers elected from within the project's community." This PMC will also be responsible for their project's release strategy and distributions. There will also be a board and corporate officers to guide the PMCs, though they are still "expected to act individually." The PMCs will also be expected to guide their projects to meet the core criteria from HP and follow the "legal, branding, and infrastructure related requirements" of the Open webOS project. So it won't be a complete free-for-all. To start the committers that comprise the PMCs will be appointed from HP - you've got to start somewhere. From there the PMCs will "use a system of meritocracy as a guide for adding contributors" to the project. The level and quality of your involvement will dictate the views of your contributions, which could see you move from a layperson contributor to the mighty level of committer. Doer to decider. The Open webOS board will be announced in April, but in the meantime HP has set forth the leaders of each PMC. webOS CTO Sam Greenblatt will be the Overall Project Owner (no surprise there), Manish Patil will lead Open webOS, Matt McNulty will be in charge of Enyo (no surprise there either), Leonid Zolotarev is the lead for webOS WekKit, the Kerenl and System Manager lead has yet to be announced, and we're proud to say that WebOS Internals chief Rod Whitby will be leading the Community Development side of Open webOS (which he probably would have done anyway). Press release after the break. Source: HP webOS Developer Blog read more View the full article

Today HP is delivering on the roadmap they laid out last month and releasing all at once their February commitment. On the docket are the UI widgets needed for Enyo 2.0 app development, how webOS will integrate JavaScript core, and the new QtWebKit-derived Isis web browser. JavaScript core isn't exactly something we can illustrate (though we were previously told to expect a significant performance boost as a result of trading it in place of the current V8 JavaScript implementation). The UI widgets for Enyo 2.0 are also up for a release, following last month's release of the Enyo 2.0 source code. What's interesting is the new implementation of WebKit taken by the webOS team. Under the lead of former Nokia Meego VP Ari Jaaksi, HP has adopted QtWebKit (developer and open sourced by Nokia) as the new engine behind webOS. Seeing as webOS is based around web technologies, this change will affect the entire OS. It is said to "offer unrivaled speed and standard compliance" for both the browser and Enyo apps, which is a change from the partial standards implementation we've had to deal with for the past few years of webOS. QtWebKit will back up the new webOS browser, which just so happens to be named Isis. Yes, another Greek gods reference, this time to "the ideal mother" and matron on nature and magic. HP's internal benchmarks have fount Isis to be "extremely responsive" in comparison to other popular browsers, with extensive support for HTML5 and CSS3. Said HP: "Standards-compliance is important to developers because they can use technologies like Enyo to develop cross-platform web applications that already work well on webOS." We couldn't agree more. In a surprising move, given the industry move away from such things, Isis will also provide "enhanced support" for "legacy products" such as Adobe Flash and other plug-ins, even though this won't be an X11 environment. We're glad in a way to see Flash support provided, but still uncertain about the future of mobile Flash given Adobe's abandonment of the project. HP's delivering on their commitments for the Open webOS roadmap, and just so happens to do so on Valentine's Day. Are we in love? Not sure, but you might be able to describe us as slightly smitten today. Press release after the break. Source: HP webOS Developer Blog read more View the full article

Little known fact: Chinese checkers is neither checkers nor Chinese. The game originated from 1892 Germany, and was itself an evolution of a square American board game caled Halma. But that doesn't matter, because you can now play it on your TouchPad, thanks to the Chinese Checkers game by PJ Nation. As any Chinese Checkers ought to do, it supports up to six players, human or computer, and in our experience is quite skilled at kicking our butts to all six corners of the board. Feel like getting your butt kicked by the computer, or just want to kill time with a partner (or five)? Good, because we've got fifty copies to give away! Contest: We have 50 copies of Chinese Checkers to give away. Just leave a comment on this post to enter. Contest ends next Sunday at midnight US Eastern Time after which time we will select 50 random entrants to win. Please only leave one comment, multiple entries won’t count. Promo codes are only valid in countries serviced by the App Catalog, and users must be running webOS 3.0 or higher with the latest version of the App Catalog. View the full article

We're not going to sugar coat this one - the camera on the Pre3 is the best camera to grace a webOS device, and it's okay. It's not great, but it's decent. But it's saddled with the same camera app that webOS has had since practically day one. You can toggle between video and stills, cycle beetween auto, on, and off flash, and hit the shutter/record button. Missing, in comparison to competing smartphone platforms: using the front camera, multi-exposure HDR photos, a timer, white balance, automatic panoramas, and much much more. Truth is, the webOS camera app isn't built to handle these features - adding a camera switch button to the TouchPad Go's camera app crashes the tablet. The camera app needs an overhaul so users can at least do their best to make up for the shortcomings of the sensor. Our suggestion is to utilize Enyo - put in a pull-out settings tray where users can access all of this more advanced stuff plus the everybody-does-it-because-it-looks-cool basic filters (sepia, black-and-white, pop colors, etc). And if the user doesn't want that stuff, they don't have to touch it. And while we're at it, something's frustrated us for a long time when taking pictures with webOS smartphones - the image fills the entire screen, going under the shutter button. This isn't in and of itself a problem, except that the camera takes 4:3 ratio photos and the Pre series smartphones have 3:2 and 5:3 screens, meaning the top and bottom of photos are always cut off when trying to frame things up. Everybody else has solved this by framing the entire image on the screen and putting primary controls off to the side - there's no reason webOS shouldn't either. Have your own thoughts on this webOS Wish List entry? Of course you do - the comments are below. Surely you have your own ideas as to what ought be on the webOS wish list, and so we've created a forum thread just for what has proven to be an awesome discussion. View the full article

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Mobile Nations Podcast Feed Mobile Nations on iTunes Mobile Nations YouTube iPhone & iPad Live 279: AT&T throttling, quad-core, and WD-40 Google disables prepaid cards in wake of Google Wallet exploit Galaxy Mini 2 appears, offers modest improvements at low-end Unannounced HTC device emerges sporting ICS, Verizon 4G LTE BlackBerry DevCon Europe Keynote w/ new RIM CEO Thorsten Heins! Introducing "Battery Saving Mode" - A New Feature coming to BlackBerry OS 7.1 A look at the redesigned BlackBerry App World UI coming with PlayBook OS 2.0 Get paid to upgrade to a new BlackBerry? If eligible, YES! HP introduced the Veer, Pre3, and TouchPad one year ago today HP's Android TouchPad kernel released, still never existed Whitman receives $16.5 million performance-based package for 2011, one dollar salary Apple iPad 3 announcement event rumored for first week of March Make your iPhone photography more striking with the “rule of thirds” Tweetbot vs. Twitterrific vs. Twitter: iPad twitter app shootout! iOS 6 and privacy: How Apple should draw inspiration from Android for better in-app access permissions Lumia 800 white version announced and hands on LG Miracle Gen-2 Windows phone revealed Nokia takes Malaysia by storm with Lumia launch View the full article

Just a few days ago we were looking back at one year since HP had announced the Veer, Pre3, and TouchPad and marveling at all that had happened in just the preceding 365 days. But webOS Nation reader Tim O'Brien pointed out something pretty crazy that hadn't even occurred to us: this February also marks the ten-year anniversary of the Treo smartphone. That's right, a full decade ago the world finally got its hands on the first Palm OS-powered smartphone from Handspring in the Treo 180. How state-of-the-art was this smartphone? The Treo 180 had a 2.8" 160x160 16-scale monochromatic resistive touchscreen and a full QWERTY keypad (the 180g had a Graffiti area in its place) over top of a blazingly fast 33MHz Motorola DragonBall VZ MC68VZ328 processor, 16MB of RAM and 4MB of ROM. It was 2.7 inches wide, 4.3 tall, and a slim 0.708 inches thick, and weighed in at a featherweight 5.18 ounces thanks to its steel blue plastic shell. The Treo 180 ran Palm OS 3.5 with deep phone integration thanks to Handspring's VisorPhone software. While the Treo 180 wasn't the world's first smartphone - that honor technically goes to IBM all the way back in 1992 (Ericsson was the first to market a 'smartphone' with the Symbian-powered R380 in 2000, and Palm teamed up with Kyocera to release the Palm OS-powered 6035) - it and the BlackBerry 5810 released a month later were the devices that really kicked off the idea that a smartphone was more than just a niche product for high-flying CEOs. So happy tenth birthday, Treo 180. We've come a long way since February 2002, and it's thanks in large part to your pioneering ways. View the full article

While every webOS device comes with some kind of speaker, the TouchPad is the only one whose speaker is adequate to fill a (smallish) room. On the phones, even the rear speaker struggles to put out enough volume to allow sharing of music or other audio in a space with moderate or higher background noise. Given that webOS phones all support both standard 3.5mm headphone/speaker jacks (the Veer admittedly needing an adapter) and Bluetooth speakers, there are numerous options for boosting the sound so others can enjoy it too. Unfortunately, most of those external speakers are far less portable than the phone itself. There are, though, some speakers that offer both powered amplification and portability. One of these is the Naztech N15 3.55 Mini Boom Speaker, which additionally operates as a standalone MP3/WMA player (it accepts microSD cards as removable storage, and has minimal controls for music playback and track navigation). While the Naztech's design and standalone player capabilities are pluses, however, its minimal amplification power makes it a poor choice for webOS devices. Naztech has done a nice job with the design of the N15. It folds to the size and shape of a flattened golf ball, with a recess for storing the non-removable (and very short at 2-3 inches) 3.5mm audio cable. Along the periphery of the speaker are the standalone music player controls, a miniUSB (not microUSB, unfortunately, meaning it cannot share charger cables with a webOS device) port, and the microSD slot. The play/pause button doubles as the power button for the speaker, and a blue LED lights up when the unit is powered on. Note that although the track forward and reverse buttons double as volume controls for standalone play, they do not affect volume when the N15 is connected to an external sound source. According to Naztech, the N15 provides 2 watts of speaker output, and its 3.7 volt lithium ion battery charges (via a powered USB port or charger) in 4 hours. Naztech does not provide any play time details, and our testing did not extend to battery life. read more View the full article

The App Catalog on the HP TouchPad might not have the most expansive selection in the tablet space, but it's got some pretty decent apps in it. One of those is the free USA Today app, which provides a slick interface for accessing the news site's stories. And as it would turn out, it's a relatively popular app. From a leaked slide from an internal USA Today presentation, we've learned that the USA Today app for TouchPad has been downloaded 250,000 times, which isn't bad for a platform that might have over a million devices on market. While that pales in comparison to the 2.9 million downloads for the iPad, the webOS tablet app handily trounces its Android tablet competition. All standard Android tablets (excluding the Amazon Kindle Fire, because while it's based on Android, it's not a "true" Android tablet) combined have netted a total of 130,000 downloads. That's on tablets from multiple manufacturers who are still standing behind the product. Heck, HP's defunct tablet has managed to clock more app downloads than Windows Phone as a platform. read more View the full article

So it turns out that this week is App Catalog Access Week for the webOS Wish List. We already touched on the need to expand the App Catalog to more than the less-than-a-dozen countries currently covered and revamping the app promo code system with global and shorter codes. Now it's time to supplement the current app-based promo codes with promo codes based around the one thing that makes the world go round: money. HP has already demonstrated the ability to create monetary App Catalog promo codes - TouchPad early adopters received a promo code for $50 in apps back in August. The infrastructure is there, and it's already been exercised on a mass scale. The only thing missing is the ability for average Joe users to create their own App Catalog gift cards. We'd like to propose two types of gifting for the App Catalog. We know that the chance of there being physical App Catalog gift cards like there are for the iOS App Store is practically nil, so we're totally cool with this being all digital. The first type is the monetary type, where through the hpwebos.com website users can create an App Catalog gift card for whatever amount they want and send it to a desired user. The second is the ability to gift a specific app, which one would be able to do through the website or through the App Catalog app itself. both would quite simply generate the appropriate promo code and email it to the recipient with appropriate flavor text about what it is and who sent it to them. read more View the full article

Wow! Its hard to believe that it's already been a whole year! View the full article

It hasn't been that long since we kicked off our name change, and as promised, 2012 is bringing more than just a new name to the site. Last night our extraordinary team pulled off a combination site redesign and back-end overhaul. The goal of the redesign is simple: give webOS Nation a clean and modern look that is both easy on the eyes and the browser. For the most part things haven't changed from the user perspective, though you should be able to access our much more functional mobile site with webOS devices now. Also, commenting now works across the full range of webOS devices - huzzah! As always with a redesign like this there are bound to be some hiccups or tweaks to be made. If you notice anything off kilter, please sound off in the comments. Or just drop us a note about how awesome this all is, that's cool too. Enjoy the new site! View the full article

The quest to get thinner, stronger, faster, and healthier with iMore and Mobile Nations continues! We’ve survived the first week of Mobile Nations Fitness Month. We’ve set our goals and whether we achieved them (yay!) or are still working on them (take that!), we’re feeling better and doing better because of it. And we’re getting tons of great feedback. This might just be the year where mobile and lifestyle fully come together, where eHealth and eFitness — or iHealth and iFitness — finally start making the impact we’ve all been waiting for. It’s gone from being a token arm band case to being an entire ecosystem of highly specialized companion apps and accessories. We recorded a special edition of ZEN and TECH with CrackBerry.com’ Kevin Michaluk, where we answered a lot of questions, cleared up some big misconceptions, and went over a lot of dos and don’ts to get things going. Also Kevin produced the single greatest (or most terrifying) fitness video in the history of YouTube. Watch his Sexy and you know it workout. So let’s keep it going! Once again, we’re setting reasonable, attainable goals, and we’re going to take advantage of our awesome community to make sure we attain them. We have a special edition of our Superfunctional podcast coming your way this weekend to help keep you motivated. Since it's a new week, we've got a new Fitness Month thread in the forums to keep us focused, keep us accountable, and keep us keeping on! Oh, and we’re still giving away a lot of great prizes! Weekly drawings for an TouchPad Touchstone. We’re giving away 4 total, one each week! Grand prize drawing for a 32GB TouchPad Bundle (includes Touchstone, Bluetooth Keyboard, and Folio Case)! Our ZEN and TECH podcast has also added to the pot with an Xbox 360 Kinect giveaway, so be sure to enter that as well! So hurry up and jump into the forums and pick your goal for week 2. Mobile Nations fitness month continues! View the full article