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Palm App Catalog Glitch Locks Out WebOS Users
hazmat2k writes "Palm's App Catalog appears to have suffered a meltdown of sorts, with users of Palm Pre, Pixi, Pre Plus, and Pixi Plus handsets reporting that after having downloaded a new title — whether paid or free — no aftermarket software would run properly. The issue remained even after fully erasing and restarting the phone; in fact, the apps were still installed even after that process was completed. Core functionality — calls, messaging, and data — were all unaffected. Palm acknowledged the issue on its blog, and later said that it had been fixed."
At least important services were unaffected. My iPhone drops my calls, sometimes won't handle data and when it hangs, no call gets in. If you're buying a phone it's nice that at least the important stuff still works, and that while I'm playing on my device I won't miss critical calls or messages.
It was 'down' for more like 16 hours, depending where you live. Just rolling back the date made everything work fine. It had the appearance of simply being something like an expired certificate. No biggie, but inconvenient if you happened to want a new app this weekend.
at least this had a fail safe that made the basic stuff still work.
The most likely root cause is an expired certificate. I'd hardly consider that an Achilles heel.
after having downloaded a new title – whether paid or free – no aftermarket software would run properly
Not true. The software just downloaded would not run properly, but all other aftermarket software previously installed was unaffected.
I don't have problems with dropped calls on my iPhone 3G. Why? Before I purchased it, I made sure that AT&T coverage was excellent in the areas where I use it (and it is). If it wasn't, I'd have an Android phone now. Moral - Don't buy any phone if the coverage where you are mainly going to use it sucks.
I don't believe this is a very accurate description of the problem. Here is the issue in a nutshell: You couldn't install or update apps from the App Catalog. Period. Everything else in the phone was unaffected. The beauty of the webOS ecosystem is that homebrew (encouraged by Palm!) was completely unaffected. You could still go open, tinker, futz and fuss with the phone all you wanted to through things like Preware or webOS Quick Install. Even if HP decided to shutter Palm tomorrow (which isn't going to happen with all the hype around tablets these days) the homebrew community would continue to thrive. It is an open Linux platform after all.
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