webOS 2.0 SDK getting limited release starting today

By on Aug 31, 2010 at 2:33 PM
General August 31, 2010

Finally! Palm has announced that they will begin to roll out the webOS 2.0 SDK — in a limited capacity — to developers starting today. The company isn’t talking about what webOS 2.0 will bring to consumers, but they are touting some of the major overhauls and additions that developers can look forward to. Some of those improvements include:

  • Exhibition for Touchstone– Exhibition will allow developers to code their applications to perform custom actions when your webOS device is plugged into the Touchstone charger. If you have a Touchstone on your bedside table, and want your custom alarm program to be activated when the device hits the charger, this is now possible.
  • HTML5 Improvements — The HTML5 abilities of webOS will be improved with geolocation support and offline caching among other niceties.
  • Deep JavsScript access– Developers will be given access to lower level JavaScript functions. This will allow program creators to control a plethora of low-level I/O data.
  • Just Type feature — Palm has decided to give “universal search” a new tagline, Just Type. Just Type will have an API open to developers that will allow them to harness the functionality using their applications own data. The Just Type feature will also have something called “Quick Actions.” Our understanding of this feature is typing something like: “send tweet I love webOS” will result in said Twitter message being pushed out without the application ever being opened.
  • Stacks feature — Stacks is going to allow actions taken within the same workflow to be grouped together into cards. If you are in an email and click on a link, the browser card and email card will be “stacked” together. You can custom order cards into stacks if you wish but by default webOS 2.0 will be doing this for you.

This all sounds really, really promising. We just hope this snazzy sounding OS is paired with some new hardware… and fast. Hit the read link to read the good news yourself.

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18 Comments

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  • Swagger

    It’s about time. WebOS is great and needs to grow.

    • mangenius

      In my opinion definitely the best OS out there. Hope the hardware is sexy and allows for it to take off

  • The Truth

    This is really impressive stuff coming from Palm. Looking forward to 2.0.

  • Norm

    Yaaaaawwnnnnn…

    My VZW Motorola DROID overclocked at 88.3 ghz running Android OS 3.2 kills this.

    • javierE186

      Dude if your coming into a webOS post to talk about big red then there must be a reason either you want webOS on your droid or you scared that w/ HP webOS is going to become number 1…..b/c guess what I have an iPhone 4 and an EVO and their OS’ are way behind webOS

  • Bald Guy

    Now all we need is an XM / Sirius app!!!!!!!!!!!

  • eddie b

    Webos on an htc phone!!!

  • zack

    I have to admit, WebOs is an awesome looking and feature packed OS. I just wish the hardware wasn’t so meh, and that the the UI wasn’t so slow and choppy. But if they get those fixed I might be interested.

  • SBD

    They really need to knock their next smartphone out of the park and not let RIM-like hardware design digression enter their R&D. Hardware-wise, I hope HP/Palm is working on bringing a high-class device to compete with the heavyweights (Apple, HTC, Moto, Samsung, etc.) starting with a BETTER BATTERY! I had a Sprint Pre and traded up only because of the hardware and battery. The software in my opinion is still the best out there. Still underrated and poorly promoted. webOS is what iOS should have been out of the gate without the crappy Pre hardware. To me iOS STILL isn’t where webOS 1.1 was after week one of its release. I’ve had RIM, WinMo, iOS, and S60. I miss none of them compared to webOS.

    • Phoneatic

      Completely agree. I’ve also had pre, hero, iphone, winmo 6 and blackberry and the WebOS still ranks as number 1 from UI perspective.

  • Modern Man

    Wow, wow and more wow. Having used the latest Android & Blackberry OS’s… I can say this is by far my prefered device.

  • JM

    I miss the old iPaq PDAs…hopefully they will be as innovative with hardware for new smartphones as they were then.

  • Mike W

    As a developer, I’m excited to see this hitting the scenes (heh, see what I did there?). But, I find myself saying “That’s all?” For developers these changes are excellent and definitely fit their 10-15 year OS plans with web languages at the center. For consumers though, I don’t see what will be a big enough change to bring them back. I hope we will see more announcements as new hardware lineups are introduced. Good luck HP/Palm!

    • Si

      These are not all the new features, nor are they the biggest new features. They are only the features that developers need to know about for their apps for the time being. There will be more front-end features closer to release.

  • Si

    Your understanding of Quick Actions is not 100% correct: Users will not type “send tweet I love webOS” – rather they will type “I love webOS” and one of the options appearing on screen, along with Google search etc, will be an option to Tweet.

  • Bugs

    Love the “Just Type” feature. Will it also work with Facebook updates as well? Love WebOS.

  • RAS

    I really like WebOS, just not the lame devices Palm puts out. Maybe HP can shake things up.

  • Foxtrotuniformcrescendo

    Hopefully they’ll get some nice hardware, too. I’ve got a Pre Plus and the software is great. Everything I’ve read about the software of the iPhone just makes me see “well, webOS does it better.” over and over. However, the Pre was ruined by terrible hardware- my battery could barely last a few hours without dying after a few weeks, and a lack of support for it by developers who completely overlooked it caused its downfall. I’m hoping that webOS will be more popular.

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