Google has launched a new mobile version of Google News, designed specifically for current-gen smartphones: the iPhone, Palm's WebOS phones (the Pre and Pixi, so far) and Android phones.

Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and Symbian already had their own Google News page, so its only fair for the new kids on the mobile block to get in on the action, too.

Google's pretty vague about the changes in the official blog post, but it looks like they've just managed to do more with the same amount of screen real estate. Navigating between sections is easier with the new layout, and you can now customize your Google News the same way you've been able to in a full desktop browser.

Snow Leopard, the next generation of Apple's OS X operating system, is ushering out a lot of old technology. It's the first version of OS X that won't run on a PowerPC processor, and now Apple has announced that it will no longer sync with Palm OS devices.

While this might look like a slap in the face to Palm after Apple blocked the Palm Pre from sneakily syncing with iTunes earlier this summer, it's probably unrelated and unsurprising.

Palm OS is being phased out, and the Pre doesn't run it - it uses WebOS - so this is hardly a move by Apple to hurt an iPhone competitor. In fact, Apple had to write a Palm syncing feature into its own iSync software because Palm stopped updating its sync app for the Mac.

If you're still using a Palm Centro or Treo, you might have to look for some third-party sync options, but this doesn't affect Pre users.

Palm has begun accepting applications for third party applications for WebOS that could eventually end up in the Palm App Catalog. The program is still in the early stages, but here are the details for the beta program:

• Developers can submit free or paid apps
• Developers will get 70% of any revenue from sales
• The program is only open to the US for now

Palm reserves the right to reject applications for pretty much any reason. Officially, apps need to have "acceptable performance and response time" and be written for WwebOS, and the web browser. But what exactly is "acceptable?" And Palm also says applications should be "useful and engaging to users," which seems pretty subjective. My favorite requirement? Applications need to have an "appealing design."

Still, it seems likely that the Palm App Catalog will start looking a bit more substantial soon.

In other news, RIM is making it easier for BlackBerry users to find an download programs from the Blackberry App World store. In addition to using the application on supported BlackBerry devices to find and download applications, you can now visit a web-based version from any browser.

In order to actually download applications, you'll need to enter your email address and the store will send a download link to your mobile device.

[via Gizmodo]

Not even two weeks after Apple's iTunes 8.2.1 update removed iTunes syncing capability from the Palm Pre, Palm has announced an update to webOS that adds several features and restores syncing. A few of the new features are business-oriented, including improved Exchange AccessSync support (remote wipe, PIN/password improvements, and better certificate handling). webOS 1.1 also includes "person reminders" that pop up a message when a person calls you, making sure you remember things you wanted to talk to them about.

Of course, the main thing that's going to be reported about the webOS update is the ongoing tussle between Apple and Palm over iTunes sync. Pre owners and Apple fanboys are now waiting to see when the other shoe will fall and Apple will disable syncing again. Just in case that happens, Pre owners might want to check out a third-party app that can handle syncing for the device.

In what will no doubt become another game of device authentication tennis, Palm webOS 1.1 fixes what iTunes 8.2.1 tore asunder: sync with the Pre. Yep, 1.1 is hot off the networks and ready for a hefty 87MB download. I like how Palm's notification states "We'll download it over the next couple of days when your device is idle and a high speed network is available." There's that background magic at work! Your move, Apple.

Oh, apparently there are bugfixes and fancy things like remote wipe and auto-lock added in this update. Like you care while syncing all those torrented episodes of The Office, right?

[via PreCentral and Engadget]

Yep, time to fire up the code editor of your choice and get crackin' on that explosive "app market" the mobile space is all abuzz about. It seems Palm finally had enough of the paltry offerings in their App Catalog for the Pre and opened the SDK and documents to any fool crazy enough to write a list app, tip calculator, etc.

Palm's blog post about this momentous occasion offers some dates for webOS meetups and conferences, handy if you're trying to get up to speed fast. Or, you can go straight to the Palm developer center, cleverly called webOSdev (camel caps, radical!) and get the SDK and documents yourself.

While I am clearly dubious of Palm's efforts, coming late to a party they practically started and having failed so many times before (and in some of the most spectacular ways ever seen in consumer electronics), in the end I really am hoping they can nurture a strong application environment. Choice is good, and Palm still has a lot going for it. I also hope the developers for Pre find what they are looking for. Will their app catalog burst with over 50,000 apps in a year? Time will tell.

What apps would you write for webOS?

One of the selling points of the Palm Pre is that it can sync with iTunes just like an iPhone can, minus the ability to play old DRM-protected purchases from the Apple store. The thing is, that amazing iTunes support comes from a hacky workaround where the Pre passes itself off as Apple hardware when it's connected. It won't show up in iTunes as a "Palm Pre," it'll show up as an iPod.

What can Apple do about it, though? An escalating battle to break the hack could require Apple to release firmware updates, which is always annoying for users, or could be fixed on the software side with an iTunes update. The newest release of iTunes, 8.2, reportedly doesn't break Pre's syncing support.

What will the outcome be? Do you think we'll see a lawsuit, a firmware or iTunes-side fix from Apple, or something completely different?

I find it a little funny that TealPoint, makers of some truly awesome software for Palm's now-decrepit Operating Systems of days gone by, whipped out a launcher called TealOS that pretty much apes the WebOS that will supposedly "save" the bacon of the beleaguered handheld company. You know, Palm, the people who, after Apple dropped the ball, ran the PDA into the end zone back in the 90's?

See, if you out-innovate a company like Palm, you're going to get smacked with a cute "stop it" from someone's legal department. In this case, TealPoint has been told in no uncertain terms to stop distributing copies of TealOS (you can see it in action in the video above -- until Palm lawyers tell YouTube to pull it). Lucky for you lovers of fine software, you can get this rare vintage until Monday, March 30, 2009. My condolences to the families of the engineers who are going to burn some midnight oil "to try to get as many bug fixes and requested improvements in as we can" before Monday.

According to Engadget, a Palm rep had TealOS on a Pre at one point and seemed pretty stoked about it. Chalk that up to ignorant bliss, I suppose, as someone at Palm wasn't quite cool enough to grok how awesome this tool is -- especially if you are NOT rocking a Pre. Yeah, the Pre, the phone we don't know exactly when it will appear or what it will cost (but we do know it'll be a Sprint-tastic exclusive). Maybe this isn't funny. Maybe it is sad that Palm feels so threatened by such a tool (which only mimics the app launching portions of WebOS and doesn't provide a framework for creating applications) that they have to crush it. It's sadder still, as TealPoint's outgoing message on their tealtalk forum says "the program's success came at a badly needed time." Sound like the crashing economy and plummeting Palm marketshare has been unkind to them. Good thing they've got a friend like Palm in their corner, right? Yeah.

When Palm announced that the company's next phone would run a new operating system called WebOS, it probably should have been pretty clear that the company was severing its ties to the now-antiquated PalmOS. But just in case it wasn't, Palm CEO Ed Colligan made it official today: The company will not be releasing any more devices with PalmOS.

The mobile operating system may have been hot stuff back in the days when people routinely carried around PDAs that didn't double as cellphones. But Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Apple's mobile version of OS X all outperform PalmOS in key areas.

Moving forward, Palm will be focusing on WebOS development. What does that mean for the thousands of free and commercial applications that were developed for PalmOS? It means they won't run on newer Palm devices unless the developers issue updates or you use an emulator like StyleTap.

[via Techmeme]

If you haven't been hiding under a rock (where there's usually pretty poor mobile reception), you probably know that Palm announced a new phone and a brand spanking new operating system at CES last week. The company's new WebOS shocked a lot of folks by actually looking pretty awesome.

The new OS is based on Linux, has an entirely new UI, and includes some nifty zoom, transition, and fade effects. And unlike OS X on the iPhone, WebOS allows you to do basic things like copy and paste or cycle between running tasks without closing one.

But there's one thing that WebOS won't do: run older PalmOS applications. Since WebOS was built from the ground up as a new operating system, it's not backward compatible with earlier Palm operating system. And that means that instead of having thousands of applications ready to go on day one, Palm will have a few dozen.

But there may be a solution for folks who are addicted to older Palm apps. StyleTap is a company that makes a $50 PalmOS compatibility utility for Windows Mobile devices. The company has also expressed interest in developing a version for the iPhone and for Symbian phones.

Now Brighthand reports that StyleTape could be headed to WebOS as well. According to one of the company's founders, building a WebOS version of StyleTap is certainly doable, but he says that Palm will first need to rlease a set of C/C++ APIs as part of its SDK. That hasn't happened yet, but if those APis become available, StyleTap could provide access to thousands of older Palm apps on newer Palm devices.

Palm has taken a cue from Apple and launched a dedicated store for PalmOS and Windows Mobile applications. Sure, there were already plenty of places to purchase and download Palm and Windows Mobile applications, but the new Palm App Store which is powered by PocketGear lets browse, search, and find applications while using your mobile device and download them with directly to your phone or PDA.

The new app store has about 5,000 applications at the moment, and more than a thousand of them are free.

Palm is expected to launch a new device at CES in January that may run the next generation of the company's operating system, which to be honest is a lot more exciting than a new application that lets you download thousands of PalmOS and Windows Mobile applications, most of which have been around for ages.

While you're busy flicking and pinching and shaking your iPhone, watching apps crash and getting a white screen of death, I've been busy editing Office docs and playing Insaniquarium. What, you can't do that on your precious touch-screen of joy? Pity. And yes, Palm OS 5.whatever, aka "Garnet" is pretty old. So what? Let's change the name to "Helen Mirren." See? Infinitely sexier.

I wrote about my love of the Palm T|X a year ago today. The fact is, I never owned a Newton. I went Palm OS and never looked back. Chalk it up to the fact that my pockets wouldn't accommodate a MessagePad 2000. Since I bought my first Palm Pilot Pro many moons ago, I've owned a delectable Handspring Visor (the expansion port was too cool, but modules were also too expensive), a Palm V and a WristPDA. I'd still use the WristPDA except for the fact that it won't hold a charge.

OK, we're still waiting for the next version of Palm OS. Where are the multimedia features the Be acquisition would add? What about this Linux-based rewrite? Who cares? The fact is, Palm got it right when it came to synchronizing data: make it simple, fast and reliable. Nowadays true, ubiquitous data sync is like a unicorn with herpes -- you wish you could find it, but there's always this glaring flaw: datatypes don't match up, making mush of your info. I chalk that up to Palm losing the battle they started long ago and never opening up their tech to become a real standard. But when it worked, man it worked well. There's a lot to be said for simplicity, and using Palm OS is like sitting in a classic car. You aren't worried about all the buttons -- you just drive.

So yeah, the iPhone has advantages, like a pretty decent browser, multi-touch and video playback that isn't a battery-draining and soul-sucking experience. But I'll keep my soul and the Palm -- because nothing says love like an SD card full of memories, games and work documents. There are still lots of little touches in Palm OS worth keeping it around (how about keeping your icons organized?). As Riley and Huey's Granddad would say, "there's no school like the old school." Word. Did I mention I can edit Word docs?

In the gallery I list a few apps notably missing on the iPhone but readily available for Palm OS.

Everybody that has a web-enabled phone and a thing for online interaction in lieu of actually having in addition to a social life knows that the biggest social networking sites are but a few keystrokes away at all times via mobile websites. Of course, even mobile-optimized web applications can be sluggish or glitchy sometimes, since they could potentially be affected by dozens of things like browser incompatibilities or updates. Luckily, smartphone users have an alternative: native application for their phones that talk directly with the service without a web browser getting in the way.

Facebook seems to be one of the more popular mobile websites, which makes it a relatively good candidate for a smartphone application written. Palm seems to agree with this, since the company released Facebook for Palm for their smartphones last month.

Facebook for Palm sports a relatively intuitive user interface, with its five-tabbed home screen; it seems matches the new phone interface included with the Treo 680 phones. The five tabs let you navigate to the Photos, Status Updates, Contacts/Friends, and Mail pages along with your Home page news feed quickly. Of course, the feature that sets Facebook for Palm apart from the regular mobile version of Facebook is the ability to quickly and easily upload pictures and videos to your Facebook profile. You can also easily search through your Facebook contacts and dial or text message someone who might not be in your phone's contact list already.

Facebook for Palm is supported on the Centro, Treo 755p, and Treo 680. However, rumor has it it'll work on your 700p as well, if you select the 755p version for download.

Over the last few years we've seen the Palm OS platform stagnate while Microsoft, Apple, and Symbian continue to develop their mobile operating systems. Oh sure, there will be a new version of the Palm operating system at some point, but at this point we're not sure there will be any manufacturers willing to run Palm software on their devices.

But here's one good reason to pull your old Palm PDA out of the junk drawer, or even pick up a used one on eBay: Game-maker PDAmill is offering its Palm OS games for free. All of them.

The game developer recently announced that they would stop developing for Palm. And while the company could have continued charging a small fee for some of its excellent video games, they instead decided to give them away.

The games included Arvale, an RPG, several games in the GameBox series which include classics like Solitaire, Mahjohng, Snakes, Blocks, and Cannons, and Snails, which is a turn-based action game similar to Worms.

[via Palm InfoCenter]

Remember how Palm was supposed to be releasing its super-cool new operating system based on Linux this year? And then remember how Palm went and pushed the release date back to 2008?

Apparently now they're pushing it way way back -- to the end of 2008. That's right, Palm's next generation operating system will be more than a year late, according to Palm CEO Ed Colligan.

The new Linux-based operating system is being developed by Access, who is writing a Palm compatibility layer into a totally new OS. That will let users run existing Palm applications as well as new programs designed for the OS.

Palm and Access (the company that acquired PalmSource) are working on Linux-based operating systems that will run on Palm hardware and support PalmOS applications. But considering how quickly Palm is losing market share to Windows Mobile (you can even buy a Palm Treo with the Windows Mobile operating system), maybe they should think about scrapping the compatibility layer altogether and just pushing out a modern OS for Palm devices as soon as possible.

Update: Thanks to our readers for pointing out that Palm is working on a new OS independently of Access.