So the new Palm platform cat has been let out of the bag although, for the moment, developers must look but not touch. All Palm will say for now is that you can build your apps with JavaScript, HTML and CSS, not much help if you’re looking to build an app for their new WebOS any time soon. The new moniker for their development platform is the Palm Mojo Application Framework. There’s also the Palm Mojo SDK to be released later this year.
From the Palm developer website we learn the following:
Mojo will enable you to:
Build applications with gesture-based navigation, transitions, and scrolling
Use the WebOS notification system to alert users without interrupting them
Leverage the local storage capabilities of HTML5 so that data is available even when users are offline
Use a JSON-based message bus to tap into a wide range of device services, including contacts, calendars, and location
Other hints include the use of Eclipse as the base platform for their Integrated Development Environment. Discussions with Palm representatives at CES offered a few more details. The Palm Pre will use a tool called Synergy to sync various information stores on your local device and on the web. For instance, you can tag individual contacts with information from Facebook and Google mail. Calendar information can also sync with multiple services.
On the messaging front there’s a nice innovation around message threads. Messages from a specific contact can be threaded across delivery mediums, meaning you can see a conversation that started out as an e-mail and transitioned to an SMS message and then on to an instant message conversation. You can also send messages using any of the supported mediums with essentially the same interface. Instant message support includes Aol’s AIM and Google Talk.
Palm’s WebOS supports multiple simultaneous application execution. Every active application is presented to the user with something that looks like a playing card. Touch screen gestures can scroll through all the cards, or you can close any application by flicking the card toward the top of the screen. Touching a card expands it to the entire screen. The front of the device has a single button to take you back to the home screen.
For a full list of hardware details check out the Palm Pre website. Highlights from a developer’s perspective include things like a TI OMAP 3 processor delivering “laptop-like” performance. Internal storage amounts to 8GB with no slots for external storage. There’s a micro-USB connector for charging and data transfer. Wireless connectivity includes 802.11 b/g and EVDO-A. A built-in GPS receiver gives precision location, and a 3 MB camera with flash delivers decent images. One innovative new capability is the inductive dock for recharging the Pre simply by placing it on top.
What’s unknown at this point is how a developer will take advantage of things like gestures and multi-touch. Since the underlying OS is Linux, it’s pretty safe to assume there will be support for multiple programming languages such as C++ and Python. Porting existing apps will be somewhat problematic depending on what the underlying user interface is based upon. Palm will hopefully deliver more information in the near future to help give the developer community a good feeling about investing time and effort on this new platform.
