Details of webOS 2.0 released; SDK in limited release
HP’s purchase of Palm is old news now; what everyone is waiting for next is the next HP product featuring Palm’s webOS, or the next major release of the OS. To those hankering for a look into the future of webOS, we now have a first look at what will come with webOS 2.0, and Palm has released a beta SDK of the same on their site for interested developers.
The new features Palm has showcased are juicy indeed. Palm has improved on its paradigm of cards as a task management system. In webOS 2.0, related cards (related applications / tasks) will automatically be stacked together. So if you’re checking out website opened from a link in your email app, both the browser and email app windows will be stacked together. You will have the capability to manage your own stacks.
webOS 2.0 also makes its Universal Search even more useful and powerful. It has changed in scope from just searching to searching and performing actions, and has renamed it “Just Type”. With Just Type, you have all the feature of Universal Search, with the added bonus that you can now issue commands, called “Quick Actions”. Simple tasks such as updating you social network status, creating messages etc. can be accomplished without launching an app using Quick Actions. Application developers will be able to expose their app’s data to Just Type so that it is searchable. Developers can also create their own actions for use with Just Type.
Palm’s webOS already had powerful system called Synergy which allowed one to pull in data from social networks and other web sources to populate their contacts, calender and messaging. In webOS 2.0 Palm will open this feature to third party developers, so they they too will be able to extend Synergy and add connectors to their own services, enabling them to be used directly from the Contacts, Messaging and Calender apps.
Palm Pre was the first phone ever to feature wireless charging using the Touchstone Charging Dock available for an additional charge. For those using this mode of charging, Palm has added the Exhibition feature, which will let developers create applications which will run while the phone is in charging. Palm believes this mode will be useful for applications to display updates, tickers and slideshows.
The PDK (Plug-in Development Kit) for webOS never really left beta, however with webOS 2.0 Palm will finally open applications to use PDK Plug-ins. Since webOS 2.0 applications aer built using web standard technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) using the PDK is the only way to incorporate existing native code. Such code can be used to ease porting from other platforms, or to use native code for CPU-intensive tasks.
The popular Node.js framework is included in webOS 2.0 making it possible for developers to create services in Javascript in addition to standard applications. Finally, HTML5 support in webOS 2.0 has also been much improved with the inclusion of Web Storage, Geolocation, and offline mode for applications (Application Cache).
If you’re interested in checking out the webOS 2.0 SDK, it is currently in limited release. You can apply to get early access from this page.