webOS 1.6.0 pushed to legacy devices, promising “performance enhancements and permanent destruction”.

For the first time in months, an over-the-air update has been pushed to legacy devices, updating anything previously running webOS 1.4.5 to webOS 1.6.0. Officially, it provides the following upgrades: “miscellaneous performance enhancements and permanent destruction.”
We downloaded the update as soon as it was available and put it through its paces right away. Read on to see what we found.


Once the update was fully downloaded, performance on our Verizon Pre+ seemed much snappier. In order to install the update, we needed to reboot the device, which took only 1 minute 42 seconds, rather than the 2 minutes 25 seconds of the same phone on 1.4.5.
However, within thirty seconds of rebooting, the device melted into a pool of flaming metal and silicon.
A few posts from the PreCentral forums confirmed our problem. “i installed the update this morning and it booted up and then flames started shooting out of the headphone jack,” posts forum member NvrGnnGvYP. “within a few minutes the plastic housing had melted and i was left with a couple of scorch marks on my table.” “after i got out of the burn ward the first thing i did was call sprint’s customer service line”, posts forum member zacky59. “they said that any pre that had been upgraded to version 1.6.0 wasnt covered by warranty. luckily i heard they were getting the pre 3 so thats ok.”
An official statement from HP confirms the intention of the update. “HP no longer supports legacy devices. We recommend that you upgrade to a webOS 2.x device, while they are still available, in order to enjoy the full speed, power, and utility of our revolutionary operating system.” "Alternately, the HP iPaq-brand PDAs are still sold at the HP Wireless Center and will continue to be supported after webOS 2.x devices are decommissioned." “Any hardware problems experienced following an installation of the webOS 1.6.0 update are no longer covered by our warranty. We recommend that you purchase a new device.”
Once again, however, many webOS users find that the homebrew community has already developed a feature months before HP officially introduces it. Here at Fake PreCentral we have noticed that a device running the SR71 kernel as well as FreeTether will in fact get ten degrees hotter than a device that has been updated to webOS 1.6.0.