Small Business

Update Your Palm Pre with the New WebOS Patch

By Dave Johnson

Updated on: June 22, 2009 / 9:01 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

The Palm Pre has only been available for about 2 weeks, but Palm has already patched the OS with some minor updates. You can check out Palm's release notes for the webOS 1.0.3 release, but I've got the stuff you need to know, including a hugely important caveat for all you Microsoft Exchange users out there:

Calendar

Events created in your Google calendar -- either in Calendar on your phone or in Google online -- that contain a symbol or accented character in the event name can now synchronize. Previously, including a symbol or accented character in an event name prevented the event from synchronizing.
Changes made to Google events on the phone now sync with Google online within a few minutes.
The sync interval for Google events has been decreased from every few hours to every 15 minutes.

Clock

If you create a weekday alarm on a weekend, the alarm sounds only on weekdays. Previously the alarm would sound on the weekend also.

Contacts

Changes made to Google contacts on the phone now sync with Google online within a few minutes.
The sync interval for Google contacts has been decreased from every few hours to every 15 minutes.

Email

Power performance in areas where wireless coverage is sporadic or unavailable has been enhanced.
Non-SSL Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) mail servers are now supported.

Other

Miscellaneous updates for Email, Phone, and other applications

Now I can already hear you saying, "Look! They fixed Exchange Server connectivity!" But alas, they only solved problems for a few folks. You might recall that I complained that Exchange didn't work for me, and it's still true. The reason I can't connect to Exchange is because my IT department requires that the device enforce a password, and since Palm chose not to enable that flag in the Pre, I still can't see my corpnet e-mail.

Ah, well, at least Palm patched that horrific weekend alarm problem.