Palm OS 6 to be out in October

ACCORDING TO information received, the new Palm OS 6 will be released to licensees before the end of October. The new version will focus on wireless technology standards, security and multimedia.

Palm OS 6 is supposed to build on a next generation communications framework for new and upcoming technologies. Scalable communications, a more robust security feature set, a new multimedia framework with a scalable graphics engine, interchangeable I/O features (such as the ability to incorporate many different methods of data input) and a new messaging framework.

Apparently the number of categories for phone lists and such will be boosted up, something that many users have been clamoring for.

Developers will also be able to write fully ARM native applications. With OS 5 developers have had to use armlettes, which were little chunks of ARM code, to speed up applications to take advantage of ARM processors. OS 6 will also include Multi-processing/threading features, web services (XML/SOAP), a reference version Java VM and the PalmSource proxy-less web browser.

Palm OS 5 can actually selectively multitask, but OS 6 is supposed to support full multitasking, as in programs running in the background. There are supposedly some optimizations for ATI's IMAGEON 3200 chip. µ

See Also
Palm PDA roadmap revealed