Apple is in the midst of moving its Macintosh computers from its older operating system to OS X, which is based on the FreeBSD implementation of Unix. Apple's biggest challenge has been gathering widespread support from major software vendors, so Palm's software is seen as a valuable addition to the OS X library.
Adobe, which makes Photoshop, InDesign and other imaging and desktop publishing tools, has also begun unveiling major new software for OS X after a slow start.
Palm said that several third-party applications, including FileMaker, Microsoft Entourage and DataViz, are being upgraded to support the new version of Palm Desktop. After switching to Palm Desktop 4.0 users will also need to upgrade their third-party applications, which allow databases, games and other software to connect to the Palm handheld.
More than 140,000 users downloaded the beta-test version of Palm Desktop 4.0 for the Mac, Palm said.
