Palm webOS 2.0 beta out now for developers

Palm is promising the 'biggest WebOS update yet'

Palm has released the latest incarnation of its webOS operating system to the developer community, promising a host of improvements including enhanced support for multi-tasking and HTML5.

The firm said in a blog post that webOS 2.0 is the "biggest update yet", offering new features for consumers and developers alike. A full release will be out before the end of the year, but many of the features seem to be ready now.

These include Stacks, which is aimed at multi-tasking users and adds the ability to group related 'cards' into stacks.

These stacks are simple to manage, according to Palm, and let the user drag and drop related tasks together, making it easier to switch between them. The system will automatically stack cards "when it makes sense".

"As a developer, you don't need to do anything special to take advantage of Stacks. New cards resulting from user actions in your app will automatically be grouped with your app's main card," said Palm.

Just Type has been refreshed to make it easier to find information whether on the device or online. The tool now extends into social applications with Quick Actions.

"With WebOS 2.0, whenever you want to do something on your phone, whether it's emailing, texting, searching or almost anything else, just type," said Palm.

Developers are being encouraged to build hooks into the operating system now in order to give Palm users a good experience when using their sites.

The company suggested that developers should define their own Quick Actions, as this would make 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".

Perhaps of more interest to developers will be the increased support for JavaScript and HTML5, and the fact that Palm has opened up Synergy as a way of "synchronising handset data with the ecosystem".

The firm said that this will let developers build connectors for apps including Contacts, Calendar and Messaging using palm APIs. This could enable a stream of features, including instant messaging, chat, and shared and personal calendars.