Google Voice is now open (and free) to everybody, so if you haven’t signed up yet now’s your chance to get the best darned online voicemail, text-message, and call-redirection service out there. There’s also a darned-slick web interface for the whole thing that works quite well on webOS devices.

Of course, if you really want to use Google Voice to its fullest, you need a native app for it. We once had several of those that worked nearly as well as Google’s own app does on Android, including my personal favorite gDial Pro. Unfortunately, way back in February a sad coincidence of changes in Google Voice’s API and webOS’s functionality has seriously hurt the chances of any Google Voice app for webOS working without intervention and help from Google, Palm, or both.

We once mentioned that you could suggest a feature for Google Voice and one option was a "Palm application." We’re hoping that some of our readers will go suggest that Google and Palm make friends and make Google Voice work again on webOS (and, hey, we wouldn’t complain if Google Maps got an update). By "some of our readers," we mean "executives at Hewlett Packard" – in case that wasn’t completely clear.

Source: Google Voice Blog

Android Central sends word that Adobe is touting that Flash 10.1 for mobile is finally done, finished, and has been released to their partners – including Palm.

Flash Player 10.1 was also released to mobile platform partners to be supported on devices based on Android, BlackBerry, webOS, future versions of Windows® Phone, LiMo, MeeGo and Symbian OS, and is expected to be made available via over-the-air downloads and to be pre-installed on smart phones, tablets and other devices in the coming months.

In other words, the pressure is apparently on Palm now to ensure that Flash appears in the App Catalog and right quick. Our feeling: even if using Flash for games doesn’t pan out as well as some have hoped, at least we can all stop waiting for it to arrive.

Source: Adobe; full press release after the break

Thanks to everybody who sent this in!

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webOS tablet rumors have come in several flavors since the big HP buyout announcement: tantalizing hints from HP execs, dubious rumors, and winks from chipmakers to name just a few. It has us thinking: webOS clearly needs a few more features and functionality before it can be tablet-ready. Sure, webOS apps that are mostly built in HTML, CSS, and Javascipt may scale quite nicely, but some of the can and should be rewritten to take advantage of the extra screen real estate. There’s also the virtual keyboard issue – webOS will need one in order to work on a tablet. 

There’s plenty more to think about once you start thinking about the iPad: should a webOS tablet auto-rotate so you can use it at any angle? If so, what do you do about the gesture area? Put it on all 4 sides? Plus, although we’re hesitant to mention it given the history here, it seems crazy for a webOS tablet to ship without a proper document editor.

What other tweaks, changes, or additions do you think webOS needs before it’s tablet-ready?

In an article over at cnbc, we read that a security consultant firm called Intrepidus has performed a year-long review of security on webOS and have come away ’shocked’ at the holes they’ve found. Chief among them was a remote exploit based on sending a simple SMS messages that gives the attacker the ability to gather all sorts of nefarious information.

It’s important to note that ‘the original security issues discovered have been addressed and resolved by Palm.’ However, the company suggested that their methodology could be repeated in other contexts to discover more security holes. At core, Intrepidus appears to allege that webOS’ security issues stem from the fact that it’s essentially a web-browser-based system and so therefore vulnerable to many of the same issues that have plagued desktop browsers for years.

In a comment within the article, Palm notes that they have a good track record of responding quickly to vulnerabilities and can’t ‘address vulnerabilities that are not responsibly reported to us.’ That last a not-so-subtle reminder about the tension between telling a company about a security hole privately and publicly releasing it to gather greater attention for the problem.

We briefly overviewed webOS’ security from a high level back in September but there are always holes to be found and filled. Last year Palm, true to their word, showed remarkable agility at patching up various security issues related to the OS and the App Catalog. In fact, Palm has included security updates and fixes in ten OS releases for webOS since launch.

Folks are already talking in our forums – what do you think? Nervous? Calling FUD?

Thanks to subzero80 for the tip!

Update: Intrepidus Group has posted up examples of the SMS injection ’sploit, along with some pretty strong words regarding their thoughts on webOS security:

As we started to pry a little it became quite apparent that Palm’s new WebOS platform was riddled with some pretty dangerous bugs. These bugs can all be traced back to that fact that WebOS is essentially a web browser and the applications are written in JavaScript and HTML. This also means that WebOS applications are subject to the numerous web applications vulnerabilities that any seasoned penetration tester would be all too familiar with. We were also quite surprised at how quickly these vulnerabilities were discovered. Within a matter of hours we started to uncover a number of low-hanging-fruit vulnerabilities that would be considered quite dangerous under even the most forgiving of standards.

They also have a snark-filled video showing that the issues with webOS 1.3.5.x – all of which have been remedied by Palm in 1.4 and beyond. Video embedded after the break and steel yourself for some vitriol.

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Launched at the beginning of February, Palm’s Hot Apps competition promises to award $1 million to the top free and paid apps in the Palm App Catalog. Since then, the competition has chugged quietly along, but today got a boost in the arm from Palm. The newly-launched PalmHotApps.com lets you, me, and anybody else with one of those fancy-pants web browser things hop onto the interwebs and track the competition for themselves.

The website breaks down both halves of the competition, paid and free apps, listing the most-downloaded free apps since the start of the competition (currently lead by MojoJungle’s The Helicopter Game) and the highest-revenue paid apps since up to this point in the competition (YouView’s Visual Voicemail at the front). The site also tracks the progress of apps qualifying for the Hot Apps competition, rating their change in ranking from day-to-day and listing up-and-coming apps.

We also have gotten a better idea of what it’ll take to qualify for a piece of the Hot Apps pie: More than 11,625 downloads for a free app, or more than $513.81 in revenue for a paid app. Of course, that number is bound to rise over the remaining 78 days of the competition, but it seems that the barrier for entry is rather low for the time being.

A Hot Apps refresher: The most-downloaded free app between February 1 and June 30 will win $100,000, the #2-21 free apps will be awarded $10,000, and #22-221 will win $1,000. The highest-revenue paid app will net $100,000 at the end of the competition, while #2-21 will get $10,000, and #22-221 will win $1,000 apiece. That’s $1,000,000 total, split amongst 442 developers.

Oh, and if that June 30 date doesn’t seem right, that’s because Palm has extended the end of the Hot Apps competition from May 31 to June 30!

The webOS 1.4.1 news is flying fast as furious. As Arne Hess notes over at the:unwired and as we noted a little over a week ago, Mobile Hotspot doesn’t look to be exclusive to Verizon any longer. O2 Germany customers who update to webOS 1.4.1 should be able to download the Mobile Hotspot application from the Palm App Catalog and use it to tether their Pre phones much more easily than what was previously available.

Update: scoutcamper writes in to let us know it’s now appearing in O2 UK’s App Catalog.

More on webOS 1.4.1: webOS 1.4.1 release notes, webOS 1.4.1 arrives for O2 and Movistar customers in Europe.

WebOS Repair Utility hit the big version 2.0.  After several months since v1.9, this update will come as a welcomed release for many, especially as v1.9 only supported webOS 1.3.5.1 Sprint/Bell devices and webOS 1.3.1 European devices.

Here’s the full change log from the WebOS Repair Utility forums thread:

v2.0 – March 15, 2010
- No longer version/carrier restricted
- Grabs stock md5sum list from selected webOSDoctor
- Fixed diff generation
- Added safeguards to prevent/deal with connection errors
- Improved scanning efficiency
- New md5sum reader class
- Dynamic webOSDoctor downloader (like in WebOS Quick Install)

Obviously the biggest improvement, by far, is that it’s no longer carrier/version dependent.  Previously, users would have to wait for  WebOS Repair Utility to be updated for every new device and new webOS OTA update. This was both annoying for users and annoying for the developer, me. With v2.0, this restriction is gone and WebOS Repair Utility will now work with any carrier/version, as long as the webOSDoctor matches that carrier/version.

Better yet, now that md5sums are grabbed from the selected webOSDoctor, if you used MetaDoctor to create a custom webOSDoctor, you can repair your custom webOS build with that same webOSDoctor.

Lastly, the third biggest change was the improved connection handling. Previously, there was the dreaded "Error 5". In short, WebOS Repair Utility will reconnect when such a disconnect is detected. An update long-anticipated, for those who previously experienced this error.

The end result of v2.0 is a much stabler scan, that only took about 10 minutes on my device. WebOS Repair Utility is now available in its PreCentral forums thread, and as always, is free.

Oh, daylight savings time changes.  You wreak havok on our sleep schedules and evidently, our phones. A number of users (this blogger included) have been experiencing odd behavior from their phones with today’s time change.

One bug users are noticing is that the time displayed in the top bar is different than that of what’s shown on the lock screen and in the clock app.  The issue doesn’t appear to be affecting the  functionality of the core PIM apps, as calendar entries and emails are all showing the correct time stamp.  The other issue being reported is less benign, and users in this forum thread are finding that calendar entries are shifting a full hour ahead of the actual time – a major inconvenience to be sure.  

Toggling airplane mode or performing a reset has been found to remedy the issue in both cases for some, though the issues have persisted for most of those who have been experiencing them. 

So while we get to the bottom of what might be causing this, let us know in the comments: have you experienced any DST bugs today?

Thanks to everyone that sent this in!

Or, “Why we didn’t see webOS 1.4 yesterday as was rumored.”

With multiple carrier partners, Palm’s update schedule for webOS has a tendency to leak out, especially from Sprint. Rarely has the leaked date lined up with the actual release, but before now that hasn’t been a huge deal. We’re writing this to address the consternation in the comments and forums over the fact that the webOS 1.4 update was not pushed out on the 15th as had been leaked.

Updates to webOS are a multi-step process between Palm, developers, and carriers. We’ll break down how it all works after the break.

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Mobile World Congress will be getting underway tomorrow in Barcelona and Adobe’s going to be on hand to show off the latest version of Flash 10.1. Not only will the new Flash be shown running on Android and webOS devices, but if we’re reading Adobe’s words correctly, attendees to MWC will actually be able to try it out for themselves. Our own Dieter Bohn is headed to Barcelona to partake in the craziness that is the Mobile World Congress, hopefully he’ll be able to get a hands-on with this newness. If not, we’ll should be able to all get our hands on webOS Flash soon enough anyway.

Thanks to akitayo in our forums for the tip!