Slide 6.1: Palm OS   Slide 6.3: Palm OS (cont.)   Home

Palm OS (Cont.)

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Two major versions of Palm OS are currently under development:

• Palm OS Garnet: It is an enhanced version of Palm OS 5 and provides features such as dynamic input area, improved network communication, and support for a broad range of screen resolutions including QVGA.


• Palm OS Cobalt: It is Palm OS 6, which focuses on enabling faster and more efficient development of smartphones and integrated wireless (WiFi/Bluetooth) handhelds.

Programs on a Palm OS handheld can be displayed as icons.

Programs on a Palm OS handheld can be displayed as a list.

As of August 2005, no hardware products run Palm OS Cobalt and all devices use Palm OS Garnet. Likely as a result of Palm OS Cobalt's lack of adoption, PalmSource has shifted to developing Palm OS Cobalt's APIs on top of a Linux kernel.

1. Palm OS Version 1.0 was present on the original Pilot 1000 and 5000, which have 128K and 512K of RAM, respectively.


2. Palm OS Version 2.0 was introduced with the PalmPilot Personal and Professional, which have 512K and 1M of RAM, respectively.


3. With the launch of the Palm III series with 2M of RAM, Palm OS Version 3.0 was introduced. Incremental upgrades occurred with the release of versions 3.1, 3.3 and 3.5, adding support for color, multiple expansion ports, new processors and other various additions.


4. Version 4.0 was released with the m500 series, and later made available as an upgrade for older devices. This added a standard interface for external file system access (such as Secure Digital Memory cards) and improved telephony libraries, security and UI improvements.