10 must-have free Palm webOS apps
A smartphone is only as good as its apps. Here are 10 free ones to supercharge your shiny new Palm phone.
Evernote
Evernote is a fantastic system for storing and organizing all sorts of information — Web pages, e-mails, documents, photos, screenshots, videos, text notes and more. As you add items, they're cataloged so you can search for them later. You can also add tags to any note to aid in searching.
Evernote's webOS app lets you scroll backward through your notes, starting from your most recent, and read or edit them. But its real strength lies in letting you add and tag new notes from wherever you happen to be; the app syncs with your main Evernote account automatically in the background, subject to Internet connectivity.
Just click the "+" sign and you can write a text note, or take or import a photo, which will be analyzed for any text it contains when your notes are synced to the main site.
Evernote's apps on other smartphone platforms also allow voice notes to be added, a feature that's not available in the webOS app. Palm did not expose the microphone to third-party app developers for its webOS devices; here's hoping that the company will eventually do so and that voice notes will come to Evernote on the Pre and Pixi as well.
Google Calendar Search
Although the Palm Pre and Pixi integrate seamlessly with Google's online calendar, the calendar is not integrated with Palm's Universal Search function, so there is no way to search for particular events in the calendar.
Google Calendar Search from VivaLV Software allows webOS users to search their Google or Google Apps calendar and go directly to that event's "Day" view in the Palm calendar. Searches can be set to look for upcoming events, past events or both, and to find both event titles and descriptions.
Pandora
The streaming music service Pandora has become the darling of music fans everywhere for its ability to create custom music channels on the fly based on listener preferences. Seed it with the names of a few bands you like, and it starts playing music from those and similar musicians, making it ideal for discovering new music.
The Pandora webOS app puts the service in the palm of your hand, allowing you to import your saved channels from Pandora's Web site or create new ones. For immediate gratification, a "Buy this song" button links directly to the Amazon MP3 Store app that's built into webOS.
The audio output from Palm's Pre and Pixi phones is phenomenal and makes Pandora sound great (provided the Wi-Fi or 3G signal is strong). Plus, you can listen in the background while working in other applications; Pandora puts music controls (play/pause, thumbs up/down) in the phone's notification area so they remain accessible while you're using other apps.
TweeFree
There are several Twitter clients available for the webOS platform, but few of them are free. Of them, the best is Delicious Morsel's TweeFree, which offers the usual timeline, @ mentions, direct messages, favorites and search in a clean, elegant and intuitive interface.
Users can select one of two themes, white on black or blue on light blue, as well as which photo service (TwitPic, TwitGoo, YFrog or Img.ly) to use and what kind of retweet style they prefer. A "Twitter Trends" view allows you to see what the top topics are on Twitter, with explanations drawn from What the Trend to cut through the noise and tell you what everyone is really tweeting about.
A $2.99 upgrade offers a location-based "Nearby" stream, as well as the ability to read and add to Twitter lists.