On Monday, Palm set free its lastest WebOS update for the Palm Pre, bringing quite a number of new features to the smartphone and addresses several security issues.

If you haven’t received it already, Palm WebOS 1.2 will arrive as an over-the-air update to your smartphone over the next few days. Notable additions include the integration of LinkedIn contacts, the capability to download songs from the Amazon MP3 Store over a 3G connection in addition to Wi-Fi, and cut and paste for Web pages and e-mails.

Other highlights include being able to search within e-mail folders, download files from the Web browser, and the capability to pause podcasts. We’re still awaiting the arrival of prepaid apps, but it looks we’re getting closer since you can now store credit card information on your Palm profile so you can purchase apps in the future.

For a full list of included updates with Palm WebOS 1.2, check out Palm’s support site. Most notably absent from this update, however, is any mention of a fix to the iTunes synchronization, which was broken by iTunes 9.0. We’re still waiting for the WebOS 1.2 to arrive on our Palm Pre, but let us know if the media syncing is still truly disabled and share your experience with the update in the comments below.

Source: Cnet.com

The largest book retailer in Canada, Indigo Books & Music Inc. has announced that its new Shortcovers eBook service is now available for highly anticipated Palm Pre, which allows Palm Pre owners to read popular eBooks from major publishers including Random House, Harper Collins, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Harlequin on their beloved Palm Pre handsets.

“We’re excited to make Shortcovers available on Palm Pre. Pre’s high resolution screen and innovative design make it a great eReading choice for consumers,” said Michael Serbinis, President of Shortcovers. “We are committed to providing eBooks to consumers on the mobile device they already own.”

“We developed Pre for people who want an intuitive phone that helps them stay connected to their entire life – not just work or play,” said Pam Deziel, vice president, Developer Marketing, Palm, Inc. “eReaders are incredibly popular right now, and with Shortcovers, Pre provides a great reading experience for our customers.”

According to the company, the Shortcovers eBook application is available for free on Palm Pre as part of the on-device beta App Catalog.

Source: Mydigitallife.info

The Palm Pre is capable of connecting to high speed 3G data networks and WiFi connections, with those capabilities Pandora is a perfect fit. Just like other popular mobile platforms the Pandora Palm Pre application is a must have download for music lovers.

Pandora is known for excellent music streaming capabilities, thankfully that excellence translates very well onto the Palm Pre with a host of features that will keep most audiophiles happy for days.

From the moment you launch Pandora you’ll quickly realize why it has become an instant hit, the options available are all layed out in extremely easy to navigate menus that are optimized for touchscreen use. After a station is chosen and launched the Pandora Application will show the name of the artist for each song as they are playing, the albums name and the artist name along with any album artwork available. Users can then also choose to thumbs up or thumbs down a song just as they would on the Pandora PC application, while also pausing songs and forwarding on to the next song if they choose to skip a tune.

Sometimes simply hearing a song isn’t good enough, for those occassion you may want to bookmark a song or better yet buy it! Using the “now playing menu” users can easily bookmark the currently playing song or even the artist so they can hear more from that artist. They can also choose to ignore the song for one month. Using the menu options users can easily tailor their playlists to their own preferences while also purchasing songs for device and MP3 player use.

Finally this application allows users to check out “artist info” this info section is the typical artist biography information you would find on sites such as Rollingstone.com. Simply choose the artist info tab or the song tab to learn more about the artist or a specific song. You can even thumbs up or thumbs down an artist after reading their info page.

Finally the Pandora Palm Pre App is fully integrated with your online Pandora account, simply enter your login information and your already created stations will be available for instant listening. Of course you can also easily create new stations based on songs you hear and even specific artists and artists that sound like them.

The Palm Pre Pandora Application is a solid app that is not only free, it’s extremely effective. Whether on a 3G connection or slower connections , this application worked well and the screens were intuitive enough to use that no instruction was needed.