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Palm has introduced the first third-party applications to run on its upcoming Foleo 'mobile companion' product. These include a Personal Information Manager (PIM) from MotionApps and two games from Astraware.

When Palm founder, Jeff Hawkins, introduced Foleo a few weeks ago, he emphasized how the device , which looks like a mini-laptop with a full-size QWERTY keyboard and display, was pretty much a blank slate waiting to be expanded upon (outside its basic functionality - e-mail access and synchronization, the Web) by software developers.

The mDayscape PIM fills a frequently cite gap for Foleo; the ability manage calendar, contacts, and tasks on the mobile companion and synchronize that data with a paired smartphone. MotionApps developed mDayscape exclusively for the Foleo.

"Bringing a contacts, calendar and tasks application to the Foleo further increases usability of the Treo and enhances the user experience in a continued shift away from the desktop and toward a smartphone as a center of computing,” MotionApps CEO Voja Lalich asserted in a statement.

MotionApps' Quick Add feature enables users to not just create a new calendar entry quickly, but to also have that event mirrored automatically with user's smartphone, for example.

As we mentioned earlier, the first games for Foleo arrive courtesy of veteran game developer Astraware. These titles include Sudoku and Solitaire, both currently available for Windows Mobile and the Palm OS.

Astraware's version of Sudoku is a logical puzzle game that the company says is suitable for players of all abilities. Features include six levels of difficulty, pencilmarks in a choice of styles, optional completion and tracking of pencilmarks plus an advanced hint system. In addition, it comes with a selection of built-in puzzles and, after registration, allows the addition of pre-built puzzle packs.

Solitaire features 12 single-player card games, among them Klondike, Spider, Freecell and Pyramid. Each game has a wide range of custom gameplay options so users can play them with their favorite variations on the standard rules, according to Astraware. In addition, the developer says the game's style and interface has been designed to mirror the feeling of playing with real cards and offers a range of display options as well as detailed statistics to track progress.

The game has also been optimized for the high-resolution display on the Foleo and for use with the device's trackpoint controller.

With Foleo, Palm has brought over the third-party software model it basically invented with the original PalmPilot (and that's lead to over 25,000 Palm OS applications). The company hopes to establish a "vibrant developer community to create new applications that extend the mobile companion's built-in capabilities," And, it would seem, bring out Folio's full potential. A potential many pundits still do not see.

At $499, the ultra-slim, 2.5-pound Foleo is targeted at those who don't require the full power of a laptop, but would still like a large screen and full keyboard when reading, editing and responding to e-mail, including attachments, and accessing the Web than is possible directly through a smartphone. It runs on an open Linux platform.