HP TouchPad gets WebOS 3.0.5 update
The TouchPad tablet may be down and out, but still far from dead. HP this Thursday has posted a new update to its official blog happily informing TouchPad owners that a WebOS update is now available.
The long-rumored version 3.0.5 update will add small enhancements and features to the already impressive and unique WebOS UI. The full list of changes, as listed on hp.webos.com, is below:
- Faster switching between Day, Week, and Month views, and faster event display in Calendar.
- Faster scrolling when reading an email message.
- Email attachments are now saved with draft messages.
- Added sender photos and IM presence indicators in Email.
- Improved stability when watching video in the Web app.
- Improved handling of MP3s that are transferred from a computer using USB Drive mode.
- Added a dedicated view of contacts available for a video call, for quicker setup of a video call.
- New alert when video quality might be lower because of network issues.
- When typing, pressing the space bar twice inserts a period. This can be toggled on and off.
- Auto-correction can be turned off directly from the onscreen keyboard.
- Added support for HTTP Live Streaming.
To update a discontinued 2011 tablet in 2012 with new features and bug fixes is quite surprising to say the least. Still, it shows that HP has some faith left for the Palm-developed mobile operating system. The future of WebOS is now open-source, however, so it will be up to the community to provide the long legs required to keep it afloat. As of now, HP intends to return to WebOS, but only after they have released tablets running Windows 8.