Palm Unveils Mojo SDK and Mojo Application Framework

At the Consumer Electronics Show last week in Las Vegas, Palm unveiled its latest handset, Palm Pre, which runs on the company's next-generation operating system, webOS. Recently, the manufacturer released the Mojo SDK, and the new Palm Mojo Application Framework based on the HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript standards widely used by web developers.

According to the company, the new window-based OS integrates the simplicity of a browser. The user experience is leveraged through multitasking capabilities, allowing applications to run in the background and easing the switch between applications in a single step. Moreover, it can also deal with interruptions and events without losing context.

Palm states that Mojo is meant to offer developers an easy way to build applications that would feature gesture-based navigation, transitions, and scrolling. At the same time, the webOS' notification system can be used to alert users without the need of interrupting them. Through Mojo, developers will be able to enhance the local storage capacity of HTML5, providing data access even when users go offline. Moreover, a JSON-based message bus can be used to tap into a wide range of device services, including contacts, calendars and location.

In addition to the Palm Mojo Application Framework, the SDK offers sample code, documentation, and development tools. There is an Eclipse-based IDE included, while users will also be able to choose from a range of tools to build webOS applications. The Mojo is also reported to allow for data from an existing PDB file to be transferred to a new webOS app through various ways.

Palm announced that the Mojo SDK is at the moment in private prerelease, but that it would become available as a free download from the Palm Developer Network later during this year. At the same time, the company stated that more information on its software would be provided for the developers willing to build webOS applications.