Palm's webOS over-the-air firmware update process explained
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Jun 16th 2009 4:22PM
posted Jun 16th 2009 4:22PM
For most Pre owners, updates to the operating system happen silently and with little drama -- just the way Palm and the average user likes it. For the more inquisitive of us, though, Palm is offering a detailed breakdown of how the updates get pushed down to the phone and under what circumstances. For starters, you've got to be on EV-DO or WiFi, because 1xRTT (in addition to being ridiculously slow) would block incoming calls when active. Furthermore, you've got to be rocking at least 30 percent of your battery juice. Unless you update manually, the phone will check all by itself every 7 days, and if it finds something, it'll grab it within 2 days during periods when you're not using your data connection (wouldn't want it ruining the user experience, after all). The download typically gets dropped into non-user accessible storage, but apparently, Palm has a contingency plan in place if an update is truly massive -- if that happens, it can steal some user storage with your permission. As we've mentioned, once you have the download, the phone requires that you install it within 7 days; if you don't, it'll auto-install the next chance it gets. Quite a process, isn't it?[Via Palm Infocenter]
thrilling.
Thats nice, but how is this news?
not cool
Breaking news! McDonalds announced process for making hamburger. Video at 11.
Well, I find this interesting. If I don't want Palm/Sprint messing with my homebrew by breaking my firmware, all I need to do is keep my battery below 30% at all times!
Jeebus, what happened to this being a place for gadget freaks? I'm going to have to be a jerk and assume that everyone who yawned at this is more worried about the color of their phone than its functionality :).
Worried about the color more then functionality? I have a BlackBerry, nothing means more to me then functionality.
I still fail to see how people find this news....
For one, we all know that PALM and Sprint are pushing OTA updates. Why would you buy a phone (like an iPhone) that can be carrier, or manufacture supported for OTA updates that both manufacture and carrier dictate you will have on phone, if you are not willing to have said updates?
Second, if it means that much to you to have a phone that is easily hacked, and not killed by sneaky OTA updates, then get something like Android or BlackBerry (where YOU decide what you want to install).
Third, this IS a gadget site, so stick to the actual gadget, not some lame ass news story about "oh by the way, OTA updates are gonna piss people off". Umm.. NO. If I wanted a run down of how Palm and Sprint operate, Id read the flipping manual.
Translation: I'm not interested, so if someone else is interested, then they are somehow mentally deficient. It is a valid article, though I'm not sure if any of it is NEW news as none of this was info that we didn't already know.
blog (noun): an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called Weblog, Web log
last i checked, this was a blog, not a news site. this is related to mobile phones/gadgets so i see no problem with them posting it here. this is something the author thought was interesting and i found it interesting too as someone who has a WinMo phone that likes to kick me offline to search for emails or download MMS messages. if you guys don't like these kinds of posts then you should either not read them (title wasn't a clue as to what it was about?) or read your tech news on CNN or something.
first, Palm is basically saying this is a v1.0 (1.02) and it needs to be updated, so they will do it.
Second, i love how people come to engadget and decide what type of blog this needs to be. Thats like me walking into your house to take a dump and complain about the size of the bathroom. Go the f*** home if you dont like it.