Palm Pre WebOS 1.3.1 update available now, a day early

November 14th, 2009 by

Richard Lawler

webOS 1.3.1 was always destined to come alongside the launch of the Pixi, but it's surprised us by showing its face a day early. No app catalog bombshells here, but there are a slew of other fixes and updates that should make users experience a great deal smoother. Is this the update that finally unlocks access to the GPU and provides the speed boost Pre owners are waiting for / advances the iTunes chess match another step? We'll let you know once our unit reboots, for now here's a few highlight's from Palm's list of changes:

Yahoo! now appears as a Calendar/Contacts/instant messaging synchronization account.
You can forward a text or multimedia message by tapping the message > Forward.
A new option is available for restarting the phone: press and hold power > Power > Restart. The prior restart method (Device Info > Reset Options > Restart) is still available.
Widescreen videos (including YouTube) now display in widescreen mode on the phone by default, instead of being cropped.
If you tap to play a YouTube video embedded on a web page, the YouTube application launches and the video plays in the app.

Filed under: Cellphones