webOS 2.0 Promises Many New Features

Palm, and now HP after the acquisition, has introduced some new features for developers to take advantage of in webOS 2.0 that should make the platform enticing and more scalable. Some of the new features of webOS 2.0 introduced would definitely help HP/Palm in creating a tablet that would make it scale to the larger screen and take advantage of the additional screen real estate with much aplomb, especially when compared with the slew of Android tablets that are hitting the market and rumored updates and upgrades to the iOS iPad tablet.

Though Palm hasn’t introduced the eye-catching, jaw-dropping consumer features yet, the short list of developer features behind the next-generation of webOS looks really good, and here are some of the features:

1. Stacks: An update to the cards interface for multitasking, stacks should help users sort cards by groups. Each stack can have a number of cards, such as an email stack for unread emails. This will definitely help users multitask and reduce confusion and time wasted into organizing their cards while multitasking.

2. Just Type Universal Search. Palm’s opening up its universal search to allow users to search for contents within third-party apps. There’s also a new Quick Actions, which will allow users to update status messages, search websites, or compose SMS and email messages without having to even open up the app(s).

3. Synergy. Synergy is Palm’s way of synchronizing contacts, calendars, and more into their own cloud computing ecosystem, and now Palm’s opening up Synergy to developers. Imagine opening up an IM app and having your buddy list pre-populated. Nice.

4. Exhibition Dock Mode. Similar to the dock mode on the Motorola Droid/Droid X/Droid 2, where once dock, the device will be able to display finger-friendly, relevant information, exhibition mode should give webOS devices the same capabilities once the phone/tablet is connected to a Touchstone charger.

There’s more to come and more to get excited about webOS. Hopefully, we’ll see some fantastic new hardware to come along with the re-tooled mobile OS.

Casey Pham
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: webos