Palm recently unveiled a few new features of its upcoming webOS platform at The Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference. More specifically, Palm demonstrated media sync, the integration of Twitter in universal search, and a beta version of its App Catalog. Here’s a closer look at each of these new features.
The media sync feature lets you seamlessly synchronize music from your webOS device with iTunes. In order to use this feature, all a user has to do is connect his webOS device to his PC or Mac, select media sync on the handheld device, and choose which DRM-free media files he wants to transfer.
In addition to synchronizing music files with iTunes, the media sync feature will also make your webOS device act as a mass storage drive. In other words, you’ll be able to go to My Computer, open your device, and drag and drop files to the handheld as easily as you drag and drop files from one folder to another.
Twitter users will appreciate that Palm has integrated Twitter search into the webOS universal search. What’s even better, the Twitter search functionality will be available to all users, regardless of whether you have a Twitter account or not. Google, Google Maps, and Wikipedia are also included in the webOS universal search.
Like many platforms, Palm is including an application store with its new webOS. During the conference, Jon Rubinstein, Palm executive chairman, and Roger McNamee, Palm director and co-founder of Elevation Partners, demonstrated a beta version of the App Catalog. Applications from developers such as AP News, Citysearch, Fandango, Pandora, and uLocate will be featured in the beta version.
The new features will first be available on the Palm Pre smartphone, which is set to launch June 6th. We’ve yet to hear about additional webOS devices, but would love to see the new webOS on a PDA.
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