14 DAY TRIAL // On Sunday, Sunnyvale-based mobile phone maker Palm announced that the 1.3.1 version of webOS, the mobile platform present on its Pre and Pixi devices, has been just released for users in Europe. It comes shortly after the 1.3.1 flavor was released for users in the US, something that happens just before the Palm Pixi was pushed on the market on the airwaves of wireless carrier Sprint.
Here's what the handset vendor has to say about the new release: “Palm Pre customers on Telefonica networks in the UK, Ireland, Germany, and Spain can expect an automatic update to webOS 1.3.1 soon. No action is required; your over-the-air update will take place when you have WiFi or 3G coverage within the next few days. Highlights of the update include: - support for LinkedIn contacts and Yahoo! calendar and contact information in Palm - improvements in e-mail and messaging, such as the ability to forward messages in the Messaging app - a new Facebook for Palm app - more options for using your Palm Pre in corporate EAS environments.”
For what it's worth, the list of enhancements the new webOS flavor comes around towards Palm Pre users seems to be a very long one. According to the guys over at palminfocenter, one of the main fixes included in the update is related to SIM incompatibility issues for the unlocked German Pre. On the downside, some problems with the update already emerged, it seems, and the access to the App Catalog has to suffer from it.
The changes delivered by the new software version for Palm Pre are probably different from one market to another and those interested in learning more details on what is new can do so here for the UK and Ireland, here for Germany, and here for Spain. If the release follows the same pattern as in the US, we should soon hear about Pixi arriving on shelves on the Old Continent, so stay tuned.