After losing its battle to sync with iTunes, Palm has released a new OS that works wirelessly with the Amazon store.
And in a coup for the small handset and OS firm, it has attracted two senior programmers from Mozilla to head up developer relations.
Palm said yesterday the Palm webOS 1.2 would provide the ability to download tracks from the Amazon MP3 store through Wi-Fi or WAN.
It makes no mention of iTunes syncing, the subject of a dispute with Apple, which had blocked Palm’s Pre device. The USB Implementers’ Forum last week dismissed Palm’s complaint.
Coming out so soon after that decision, the Amazon arrangement is clearly Palm’s plan B in the event of losing that case.
The OS also supports syncing with LinkedIn contacts and more IM platforms and cut-and-past for web pages and emails.
Separately, Palm has won over two Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith, who worked on the Ajaxian site, will head up developer relations for Palm.
Almaer said in his blog that he was excited about the mobile web and the possibilities of web browsers. “There is a massive opportunity with Palm webOS to give Web developers the ability to deploy outside of the browser, and onto the device,” he said.
However, referring to Apple, he said had become frustrated with the “status quo.”
“I think that users should be free to run their applications where they wish, and should control their data.”