WebOS 2.0 Gets An Official Unveiling & Is Rebranded As HP webOS 2.0

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HP has made some big announcements this morning. First, we already mentioned the Palm Pre 2, and in addition we have the official unveiling of webOS 2.0. To begin with, webOS 2.0 has been re-branded as HP webOS 2.0 and it will arrive first with the Palm Pre 2.

That said, according to the Palm website, the Pre, Pre Plus, Pixi and Pixi Plus will all see an update to webOS 2.0 sometime “in the coming months.” Personally, I would likely believe that we will see it arrive sometime after the release of the Pre 2. After all, they most likely want people to upgrade and honestly, while the Pre2 looks nice, my Pre Plus is already doing the job I need it to. I am not looking to upgrade my hardware, just the software.

With that, lets dive into the features that we can expect to see arrive with HP webOS 2.0. A few of the bigger new features include Just Type, True Multitasking, HP Synergy and Exhibition.

• Just Type – Start an email, create a message, update your status, search your favorite websites – all before you’ve even opened an app. With webOS 2.0, whenever you want to do something on your phone – whether it’s emailing, texting, searching or almost anything – just type. And Just Type is open to developers, so they can integrate with the search function and add their own user-customizable shortcuts, called Quick Actions.
• True Multitasking – Pause a game, tap an email notification, check your calendar, read a restaurant review, send an email reply, then switch back to the game without closing anything. webOS lets you easily manage multiple open applications and notifications using natural touch gestures. New in webOS 2.0, Stacks logically groups together your open apps so they work the way you do. Whether you’re reading email or planning a night on the town, Stacks keeps related items together so managing multiple tasks is even easier.
• HP Synergy – webOS was the first mobile OS to connect you seamlessly to multiple web services. With the Synergy feature, you just have to sign in to your Facebook, Google, Microsoft® Exchange, LinkedIn and Yahoo! accounts and your information automatically populates your phone. webOS 2.0 will extend the support for Synergy so developers can easily plug new Messaging, Contacts and Calendar application sources directly into the core webOS experiences.
• Exhibition – A new way to use your webOS phone, Exhibition lets you run apps designed specifically for the Palm Touchstone Charging Dock, turning charge time into useful time. Set your phone on the dock and Exhibition launches automatically, showing you anything from today’s agenda to a slideshow of your Facebook photos. Exhibition will enable developers to display aspects of their existing app experience or create specialized apps for use when users have their webOS device in charge mode on the charging dock.

And thankfully that is not where the updates stop, in addition you can also expect support for Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta and Bluetooth Keyboards as well as a Facebook 2.0 app, a Skype Mobile app (for Verizon Wireless only) and HTML5 support in the newly updated browser. Also updated for HP webOS 2.0 is the Launcher and Accounts app.

• Launcher – A redesigned app launcher lets you add, label and reorder launcher pages.
• Accounts – The new Accounts app provides a single place to manage all your Synergy accounts.

With that, we will be on the lookout for anything more in terms of when current Palm users can expect to see the webOS 2.0 roll-out. Of course, in all likely hood, it will be a little while and then even at that come available on a carrier by carrier basis.