Respected mobile application developer David Beers of Pikesoft Mobile Computing spent some time with PalmSource's Access Linux Platform (ALP) at LinuxWorld in San Francisco not too long ago. According to a report he filed with Palm Infocenter, the upcoming replacement for the Palm OS is coming along nicely. At the show Beers attended an ALP Developer Day, where attendees received an overview of ALP components plus early access to, and hands-on experience in, building software for the new mobile platform.

According to Beers, the version of ALP at LinuxWorld was a far cry from the edition introduced in February. Although there's still much work ahead, ALP has come so far it is that much closer to primetime, at least on the core OS front. Finishing off the bundled applications appears to be the biggest obstacle at this point.

PalmSource says it is on schedule to get the new OS in the hands of licensees by the end of the year. The earliest devices might be expected is spring 2007. Although mid to later in the year is likelier.

PalmSource showed ALP off on a demo Haier N60 flip-phones in its LinuxWorld pavilion, and allowed developers to play with it on reference boards and desktop simulators as well.

The rudimentary demo launcher from this winter's 3GSM show has been replaced by a much improved model that runs Palm OS Garnet, GTK Linux, and the new PalmSource's ALP-specific Mobile Application eXperience (MAX) framework. There are MAX PIM applications, an updated (more sophisticated) UMA-compliant version of the HotSync synchronization software client, and a suite of developer tools based on the Eclipse development environment, which, according to Beers performed flawlessly.

PalmSource decided to target 240 x 320-pixel QVGA resolution phones with ALP, down from the higher-res 320 x 320-pixel displays of the Palm OS. It also may support 480 x 640 pixel VGA screens as well non-touch screens.

Emulator/Multitasking
Beers said all the Palm OS apps he tested under ALP's Palm platform emulator (code-named GHost for Garnet on Host) executed perfectly. There are over 25,000 currently available Palm OS titles. Many view the ability for the majority of these applications to run in ALP as key to the platform's success.

And, importantly, Beers confirmed the addition of multitasking to ALP, an essential feature missing from the Palm OS that's supported by its competitors Windows Mobile and Symbian. Multitasking enables users to run more than one application at time.

Developers get to choose if their ALP software will take advantage of this capability, however. If they do decide to go that route for a particular app, it will run in the background should a user launch another application.

Otherwise, ALP will exit a title by default, just like the Palm OS does now, to free up memory.

Beers could even access two running applications from the display of an ALP device. He played an MP3 file, started another application, then brought up the mini control panel of the auido player playing the MP3, which was then running in the background. He could see both the control panel and the second app simultaneously.

Interface/Apps
Interestingly, Beers commented on how much the ALP interface looked like the Palm OS, with a grid of icons - nine on smaller handsets and up to twenty on the larger reference board and desktop simulators. The chief difference between the look of ALP and the Palm platform resulted from the colors. A consistency of look and feel was maintained throughout ALP. Carriers will be able to personalize themes to their brands.

He also noticed a close similarity between how ALP's PIM applications appeared and their Palm OS predecessors. Of all the sections of ALP covered, the bundled applications seemed to be the ones Beers felt needed the most work still. A number of important apps were missing in action.

Of course, PalmSource parent company ACCESS's NetFront browser was there.

Palm
The platform developer still won't comment on exactly what licensees might leverage ALP, even on Palm, Inc.'s status. A few weeks ago, Palm revealed PalmSource failed to meet certain milestones as per a co-development agreement the companies signed to renew the Palm OS license. As a result, Palm is now relieved of its obligation to make minimum royalty payments to PalmSource. They're in negotiations to settle the matter.

At that time Palm revealed it was working with PalmSource on a new mobile OS. Perhaps Palm is eyeing ALP as one of its next mobile platform's after all. It could conceivably call ALP the next-gen Palm OS 6 if it wants to, since Palm now owns the Palm brand after buying exclusive rights to it from PalmSource back in May 2005.

PalmSource certainly gives them the capability to make it look however they like. So ALP could resemble the Palm OS, so the changeover wouldn't have to appear that drastic to Palm customers.

More ALP Developments
Just before LinuxWorld, PalmSource and Orange announced they were working together to develop an Orange Application Package for ALP-based mobile phones. This package, which runs on top of ALP, will enable device vendors to quickly develop ALP-based Orange Signature Devices.

To encourage the creation of ALP applications, PalmSource said at the time it morphed the Palm OS Developer Program into the ACCESS Developer Network. The company explained the purpose of the online resource is to help accelerate development cycles and time-to-market for ALP applications by providing early access to new ALP releases, products and tools to developers.

PalmSource also released a new software library to the open source community. Created as part of ALP, the libsqlfs library is an add-on to the popular SQLite package.