In its official blog, Palm has announced the webOS 2.0 beta and revealed a number of its key features. The upcoming Palm’s webOS 2.0 is scheduled to be available by the end of the year.
There’s no word on new webOS devices yet.
Key features of webOS 2.0 beta after the jump.
Stacks
Palm’s groundbreaking card metaphor made multi-tasking on a handheld device easy and intuitive for the first time. webOS 2.0 takes it to the next level by grouping related cards in stacks, reducing clutter, and making it even easier to move quickly between tasks.Just Type
We’ve renamed Universal Search to Just Type and extended it to do much more. Quick Actions makes it easier than ever for your users to update social status, set reminders, add items to a shopping list — or do whatever it takes to get things done in the context of your app.Exhibition
Exhibition is a webOS 2.0 feature designed to inform, entertain and delight you while your device is docked. Set your device on the Palm Touchstone Charging Dock, and it will enter a special full-screen mode optimized for passive enjoyment and utility. While a handful of compelling Exhibition options will be built into webOS 2.0, but we’re counting on you and your fellow developers to make Exhibition truly great. You can add Exhibition support to an existing app, or build something new just for Exhibition.Synergy
In webOS 2.0, we’re opening Synergy up to our developer ecosystem. You’ll be able to develop Synergy connectors for Contacts, Calendar, and Messaging — and later, for other webOS data types as well. Using the new Synergy APIs, you can let your users:
- Connect to your chat or IM network from the webOS Messaging app
- Access their personal contacts, their favorite businesses, or your community’s shared address book from the webOS Contacts UI
- View and manage their personal and shared calendars, keep track of their favorite sports and entertainment events, and more, from within the webOS Calendar app
JavaScript Services
Roll your own services with Node.js: The popular Node.js runtime environment is built into webOS 2.0, which means that you can now develop not just webOS apps but also services in JavaScript. The active Node ecosystem is on hand to provide community support and a rapidly growing library of modules that you can use in your webOS services.PDK Plug-ins
Today, you can use the webOS Plug-in Development Kit (PDK) to build games and immersive apps in C/C++. But the feature that gives the PDK its name—the ability to build C/C++ plug-ins for your HTML/JavaScript/CSS apps—is still in beta.This feature will exit beta in webOS 2.0, opening the door for you to distribute apps that incorporate PDK plug-ins. Using plug-ins, you can more easily port app logic from other platforms while leveraging the Mojo Framework to give users a familiar interface and integrate seamlessly into webOS.
HTML5 Enhancements
webOS 2.0 adds a number of new HTML5 features and enhancements, giving you more tools to work with when building apps and sites for webOS.Don’t think that this is all there is to webOS 2.0—these are just the highlights. We’ve added a lot of features that will give your apps more power and flexibility than ever. We’re excited about what webOS 2.0 has to offer, and we think you will be, too!
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