Mobile Phone News

We know that Palm plans on having webOS 2.0 out of the door this year — and that it’s “aggressively” cranking on its hardware roadmap — so they’ve got to be in the later stages of testing at this point if they hope for any retail launches in time for the holidays, right? On that note, the developer responsible for the webOS flavor of Foursquare has noticed both webOS 2.0 entries and references to a new, previously unheard-of device codename “Roadrunner” in his app’s logs on webOSroundup’s Metrix analytics service; it can all be faked with enough effort, of course, but it would make a lot of sense for Palm’s peeps to be testing new hardware and software with some of the more popular apps in the Catalog. For at this time, we’re categorizing this one in the “totally plausible” category until we hear differently — question is, what form is this Roadrunner gonna take?

webOS 2.0, ‘Roadrunner’ device showing up in app logs? originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Palm’s touting that webOS 1.4.5 is at this time out and about, though its support page for the version is a wacky hodgepodge of Sprint and SFR versions of the update — perfect for French expats living in the good ol’ US of A, we suppose. Odds are very good that this new build isn’t plan to blow you away, but hey, an update’s an update: you’ll get “minor fixes and enhancements” for use with the PDK, a text field fix for the browser, a “rare problem” involving podcast downloads, and that’s about it. The optimist in us wants to believe that the utter lack of innovation in this latest update is a sign that most of Palm’s brain trust is invested in engineering fresh hardware at the moment — right, Palm? Right?

“A robot is a thing that does…” Verizon / Google / Motorola are taking their ad onslaught to new heights and in a new direction, with three new ads (which will hit “soon,” according to our tipster), two of which actually show off Android functionality. It’s a bold new vision for a hyperbole-filled, guytastic campaign which shows no sign of letting up, and seems more than anything to be the complete antithesis to Palm’s coma-inducing spots instead of an antidote for Apple’s everyhipster sensibilities. Check out the three new DROID ads after the break.