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Android User Spends 60 Days In WebOS Land
An anonymous reader writes "About six months ago, however, I began to wonder about how the other mobile products had grown. When the HTC HD7 crossed my path a little while ago, I decided to abandon my Nexus S and live among the Windows Phone folks for awhile. The experience was fun, but I eventually went back to my Nexus S. About a month later, I was presented with the opportunity to repeat the experiment, only this time with a Palm Pre Plus. With the HP Touchpad on its way, I wanted to get a feel for how WebOS worked, explore the differences, and take a look into the community that was still loyal to WebOS."
They go spend time with new things, bear with teething troubles and root out bugs so that normal consumers like me don't have to a couple of years down the line. Go Russel Holly!
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
More than how the OS works, I think a more important question is the availability of apps for the platform. There are many people whose worlds lie outside apps provided for Flixster, Facebook and Twitter. Are there any apps any webOS users found no substitute for, when they shifted from Android? Or other way round? Note: I bumped across this on doing a simple Google search: http://www.hpwebos.com/us/products/software/mobile-applications.html A lot like a market/app store for webOS.
1. Konami code activates developer mode (i.e., root or jailbroken). No muss, no fuss.
2. The "card" metaphor to represent running apps. Slide to switch, throw away to kill.
3. It's Linux, and mostly open source. (Shares that with Android.)
3b. Not M$, not Apple, for people that care (shares that with Android).
4. Apps are in HTML/Javascript. Easy. Or C++ (harder but faster to run)
5. Touch to move stuff between Pre and TouchPad.
6. Looks nice. Fonts, layout, icons, etc.
7. The homebrew community
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
I always think that if I left iOS I would try WebOS. It is the closest thing in consistency and well thought out design.
There simply isn't a unified Android UI and it would annoy me to have to choose which hardware I bought based on the UI it would run. I might want a Samsung phone but with the Sense UI.
Of course there's Windows Phone 7, I have owned a few Windows based phones before and liked them. But I can't help but think their patent tax on Android and others is too much about the money rather than preventing products being sold.
As for WebOS phones, they are pretty cheap.
The main problem with WebOS is the same main problem with iOS... it only runs on one platform. As such, it is doomed to failure. Android has become the Windows of the smartphone world. The hardware platform manufacturer is now nothing but a commodity.
I'm a devoted and loyal WebOS fan. It's better than Android, subjectively speaking. The appstore doesn't have nearly as much stuff though, and the device on sprint is dated and barely functions by today's standard. I grew extremely tired of waiting to see if (not when, but if) HP would finally release the pre3 on sprint. As the summer wore on, I finally broke down and got an EVO 3d. I really like Android. It's fantastic. I like WebOS better, and I think Android could learn a lot from it. The card paradigm is much better than what we have in Android land. I also think the android hardware peeps could learn something about the HP/Palm love for developers. It's a fantastic platform to develop for and rooting your phone doesn't void your warranty -- it's literally supported (search for webos doctor).
So overall, I'm happy I switched, but WebOS is clearly better. Clearly better if you can handle being a second class citizen on your network of choice (not sprint, apparently). Ultimately, I left WebOS to stay with sprint. It goes the other way too. See precentral for the split. Seems 60/40 to me? But in any case, HP is too damn slow. Mobile is fast. The I cannot wait three years for my next device. HP (or possibly sprint) has failed.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
Palm Pixi had a damn good design, never mind the OS. Woulda brought it if it had lasted long enough to get launched in India.
Speaking as a former Mac developer and someone currently having to work with Android network stacks, WebOS seems to have thought more about human factors in a coherent way than either iOS or Android.
One word: Notifications. The notifications system in WebOS is the epitome of "considerate." Whether it's of users' time or attention or screen real estate, they have created a UI that very capably tells the user when something important happens, and gets out of the way while discreetly leaving a telltale that there's something to acknowledge. The notifications systems on both iOS and Android are clunky by comparison.
Apple traditionally spends a lot of time thinking about human factors, but compared to their almost religious fervor for human interface guideline compliance in the pre-OSX era, these days they're on a fast track to MS Windows-level UI inconsistency. Well, perhaps not quite that fragmented, but it is what it is.
Android vendors have approached this by grafting on their own proprietary chrome, but some of those are better than others.
I invite anyone who really cares about intuitive usability to try out WebOS. Even on a first generation Palm Pre, it's noteworthy.
From a hacking and customization perspective, I have yet to see a system as friendly as WebOS. Palm and HP have taken their sweet time with some of the SDK/PDK releases, but they've also done things to make it about as easy for developers as one can imagine. Having a full IDE running in a web browser is both a neat hack and rather convenient. Pretty much everything other than time-critical code is in Javascript.
That openness does not come without some potential downsides. While I love that I can customize my phone by tweaking a line of Javascript, I can't help but feel a nagging concern that there are security implications inherent in some of the choices Palm/HP made. It remains to be seen how pervasive those might be, but I'm remaining wary. It won't stop me from using the handset (yet), as I have yet to find anything else as friendly, open, and customizable.
OS/2 is still in use today among many many companies.
I write bullshit
Android was a lot like Desktop Linux: I spent more time tweaking in than using it, praying for that mythical configuration where it would actually feel polished.
Obviously you either don't have any work to do on your computer, or you're lying about using linux.
The purpose of customization isn't to look "polished" it is to make it a more effective tool.
Next time, don't bother with linux. You're worried mostly about how it looks, instead of what you can do with it. It will never be for you, and we don't need the pollution.
Of all of the mobile platforms, this was the one that I was really looking forward to, not just as a user, I was looking forward to program things for it. It seemed just so nice, well developed, well planned, and it even had some nice touches such as the Konami code. I didn't care about iOS and android just wasn't as interesting, this was, and I was very sorry to see it fail and fade away.
I know that HP bought it, and that it plans to do something with it. I just hope that they handle this correctly because it is an interesting concept, and I would like to see it become something great.
Seems like an odd blogpost, bordering on a paid advertisement. I owned a Pre for 2 years, and never saw squat from bloggers on it. Now the new touchpad is out someone decides to write a review of a 1.5 y/o device???? Meh.
--WooooHoooo--
OS/2 is still in use today among many many companies.
And I expect it does so in a legacy role, used strictly in places where there is too much risk / expense involved in moving to something else more modern. It's fate was sealed a long time ago through a pincer head attack of MS anti-competitiveness and IBM incompetence.
I assume Palm is going away since its popularity continues to shrink. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Sounds pretty much like a horror story to me.
Why anyone would choose anything over Android at this point is well beyond my understanding. The code is easy to write (Java/XML or Native C-based) runs excellently on even old hardware, as long as it's not Crysis, and the developer community is the size of the friggin' moon. It's been around for a good while, so people have gotten most of the bugs out of the base programming. The app store doesn't require approval/scrutiny to upload your programs, and the developer resources headed up by Google are amazing. The entire system is open source as well, so developers are able to 'compile their own' version of the OS to suit their devices and needs.
Until I see that on these other systems, I'm at a loss for why anyone but Mac Cult members would use anything non-android.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Sadly, it's being phased out becuased Windows XP Embedded can do the same things, is as secure, and can dso fancier greaphics.
"Polished" doesn't equal "shiny." Actually, it means "someone put thought into the design." Sadly, this is not true for a lot of desktop Linux implementations. In a lot of ways, using the latest GNOME feels like going back in time to Windows 3.1. Instead of acknowledging this, you're advising people not to use Linux. Probably good advice.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
If Nokia, may they swallow a tram and have it drive around inside them with people getting on and off at their livers and their kidneys, kayn anoreh, hadn't screwed up Maemo I would have stuck with it- but the redacted redacteds have screwed the pooch. The Pre 2 has a workable screen and keyboard, which is what I need. I can now wait as long as it takes for a new contract and the next Pre, and I'm prepared to do it because I suspect I will never miss a call on webOS.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I really really wanted to try out a WebOS phone. It's Linux, you can get root without cracking or jailbreaking, there are development tools for Linux, the form factor is nice.
BUT to use one you HAVE to have a data plan through your cell phone provider. I do not have a data plan. I get wireless for my N900 for free at home, work, the church, the pool, my favorite restaurant, starbucks, the library, my friend's homes, etc.
On top of that HP strongly recommends that you get an unlimited data plan because WebOS chews so much data. Great, especially now that providers are dropping their unlimited plans.
Oh well. My next plan is to offer someone an absurd amount of money for a N950.
Try e17, then. GNOME is weird and KDE is like Vista on X11.
I switched the other way (to android) last year. I owned a palm pre for a year and absolutely hated it. Yes, the OS is nice and I liked the cards user interface however, the actual "phone" capability was shocking and the phone system would shut down and I'd only realise some hours later when no calls had come through. it wouldn't switch between 3G, HSPDA and 2G cleanly, often failing completely (even during a call in good signal area) and rebooting (which is a nightware where I live in a hilly area because the signal strength fluctuates as cell towers come into line of sight.)
whilst the touchstone was cool, you'd be using it a lot since the battery would last 6 to 8 hours and if you charged it directly using the micro usb then the little plastic cap would eventually fall off. Often, after charging, the data storage would not be accessible.
the webos "market" is different for each region and had a lot more carrier influence than android market and itunes store. The community did sort this out by offering homebrew solutions, but it took time and a lot of patience.
If you look at the O2 UK palm pre forum when they came out - you'll see endless customers venting their frustrations at a system with such poor quality hardware that it really didn't matter how technically good the OS was. Also, O2 Uk made a bit of a cockup with the support of this phone, see the Reg article about unlocking sims
You use any bluetooth keyboard on the planet, with phone or iPad.
It's not a solution. A phone with an integrated physical keyboard is a vastly better experience than having a keyboard that you have to lug separately from your phone.
since the ultimate point of any device is to run software you can make use of - and there the iPhones/iPads truly offer "far more" choice.
That's arguable. Sure, iOS app store has more apps, but on both iOS and Android, vast majority of apps in the store are useless crap.
Focusing on those which are not, it depends on what your needs are. If you already use Google services (GMail/Talk/Voice/...) a lot, then Android offers a far better experience, since it has native full-featured clients for all of those. Ditto for Apple services, though they have fewer adherents outside of iTMS.
If you want Skype, it's a bit of a draw - on iPhone you have the best version to date, complete with video chat; but there is no iPad support, so you have to run the phone version. On Android you have proper version for both phones and tablets, but video chat is only available on selected phone models.
If you want games, then iOS generally has more of them, and they are higher quality, but some gems - like Majesty - are only available on Android so far. Also, Android has DOSBox, and I was surprised just how much I enjoyed the old point-and-click quests (like "Legend of Kyrandia") on my Android tablet.
For productivity apps it's a draw. For all the hype about Pages/Numbers, they are pretty limited feature-wise in practice. Third-party Office packages exist for both platforms, and usually have the same features and limitations (in many cases, it's the same apps). Android gets a bonus in having a dedicated Exchange client (TouchDown) which doesn't pollute your phone's contact list and mailbox, and can be PIN-locked and remote wiped in isolation from the rest of your data. Android gets a further bonus for having MS Office Communicator / Lync client. iOS gets a huge bonus for OS-wide support of HTTP proxies, which Android has only got in 3.1 (what the fuck, Google?).
For web browsing, Android is way ahead. Even if we just look at the stock browser, mobile Safari is fairly inconvenient - most annoying is that it doesn't have an option to open tabs in background, so every time I want to open a link "for later", I have to open in new tab, and then switch to the original tab. It also decides to reload page opened in a tab if you left it it in background for "too long" (which can be just a few minutes in practice). This is exceedingly annoying when you were writing a comment on some forum, opened a new tab to do the needed research, and then switch back just to see your comment form reloaded, and everything you've typed in it gone. That Apple could make such a horrible UX is unbelievable. Then, of course, there's no ad blocking. And minor stuff like not being able to open more than 9 tabs. And third-party browsers? They exist, and they solve all of these problems, but there's no way to set them as default in iOS; so any link you open in any other app will still open in Safari. Grrr!
In contrast, in Android you have a pretty decent stock browser which doesn't have any of the stupidities described above. You have a bunch of third-party browsers built on the same WebKit engine but with variously different UIs. Then you have browsers using their own engines - namely Firefox (extensions! AdBlock!), and Opera (holy shit this thing is fast... as smooth as Safari, but you never see the checkerboard!). And what's most important is that you can make any of those browsers system default, so it will handle all HTTP links.
Oh yes, there's Flash. This one is so-so - it's still sluggish on Android, and has some annoyances of its own, such as intercepting scroll gestures if they fall onto the plugin. On the other hand, it's still useful to have occasionally when you need to view a Flash-based webs
KDE is "windows", I'll give it that. It can feel a lot snappier than Vista or 7, though, depending on hardware / tweaks.
I'd recommend KDE to people who like the Windows environment.
There's plenty of lightweight stuff out there, though, like LXDE(with Openbox), but in my experience, they sacrifice a lot of Just Works attitude for speed and being lightweight. Perfect for someone who can drop to a terminal and edit config... not so good for a newbie.
If anyone is deploying XP Embedded at this late stage they need a good smacking. XP has less than 3 years until EOL so now is NOT the time to deploy anything XP based! I haven't had a chance to play with it yet but I hear Windows 7 Embedded is nice and low resource although frankly I think MSFT needs to hire the pirate that makes those custom Tiny versions of Windows like TinyXP and Tiny7 because frankly after trying WinFLP and XP Embedded neither held a candle to the Tiny variants.
Hell for shits and giggles I installed Windows 7 Tiny on an old socket 478 P4 2.4Ghz with the craptastic Intel 845 chipset and 512Mb of RAM and damned if the thing wasn't peppy! Sure it couldn't run Aero without a Dx9 GPU but the thing surfed the web great! It is just a damned shame MSFT doesn't sell Tiny7 for older systems as I'd happily pay $35-$55 a pop for copies of Tiny 7 legally. But as for OS/2 frankly the only places I've seen actually using it anymore is banks who still have some OS/2 software running on the back end.
As for TFA? while I wish WebOS lots of luck I have a feeling it will end up as little used as OS/2. My final prediction? Apple and Google trading the #1 and #2 spots while if MSFT does what I think they'll do and tie the XBL gaming into the Nokia WinPhone they'll take third place simply because of the huge install base of Xbox. RIM will be gone within 2 years, possibly bought by Google, and HP just doesn't really do innovative work anymore IMHO and while they'll try I have a feeling the field is already too crowded and they missed their chance. Final tally...Apple #1, Google a VERY close #2, and MSFT with a solid but pretty far behind #3 and RIM and WebOS DOA.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
For some reason WebOs continues to have the same problem with trailing a generation on the hardware side that Palm did. I remember going into assorted places looking at the Palm OS devices in the late '90s when all the wince machines were color, and the sad little palms were all black/white. Then when they finally came out with a color version the screen looked like it was two generations behind. Sure my palm would go 3 months on a set of batteries vs a daily charge on the wince devices, but they should have been making a color version to sell to the people who wanted color, and a BW version for people that cared about battery life.
That said the OS's have always been better in their own quirky ways. Not necessary better from a bullet list of features, but better from a more carefully thought out perspective.
I was in the Verizon store a couple of days ago, and the Verizon guy told me that, since I have a smartphone with unlimited now, as long as I continue to keep a smartphone my unlimited plan remains. They aren't canceling old plans. But if I go to a dumb phone (even for a month), then I will lose my unlimited plan and won't get it back. I have not switched phones yet, so I don't have any proof, but if you're thinking of switching phones, it's worth asking them.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
So, anyway... limits? They exist on both platforms. I would argue that there are less of them on Android, but iOS makes up by being more pleasant to work with (just generally smoother). What matters in practice is which limits you hit, and that depends on what you need from your phone/tablet.
I think this sums up the phone OS fanboy wars.
OTOH, I think we should all get together and laugh at people clinging desperately onto BlackBerry, WinMo/WinPhone 7 and Symbian.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I (also) have a WP7 phone, you insensitive clod!
Well, I don't really get the whole appitis thing that seems to have infected everyone in the 1st world...
I mean isn't there a point where too much info is just that? Are all these applications really important to everybody's daily activities or are they just more white noise? Yes sure it is informative to see how many hours you have spent traveling underground, queing before others or in the loo (playing iFart) but is it really necessary? sure stats are good but at some point stats just encumber you and eat away on your productivity.
I haven't used webOS yet but I will in the near future and from what I can see and read It is a very well designed package and very developer friendly, which in turn means that probably I will be able to get much more out of it.
-- no sig today
I disagree very strongly with your assertion that an on-device keyboard is vastly superior to an external one. The number of times I actually have to use a keyboard with my iOS device is low enough that I am happy to keep the BT keyboard in the car and not have the extra weight/bulk on me all the time. When I have to ssh in somewhere and it's for more than a dozen commands, or when I want to have a real conversation on IM/IRC, or I have to write a long email, I bust out the BT keyboard. For everything else the onscreen one is sufficient, and I don't have any slider/hinge mechanisms to break or wear out.
The hardware sucked, there's no question. I had three phones in two years and thanked my stars I had the phone insurance each time. I didn't have any phone system crashes like that, and suspect it was your carrier's comcard or possibly the drivers for it. Who really knows. Another really common hardware problem that bugged me to death was the headphone port. Occasionally, often enough to be really really irritating, it would fail to sense the removal of the wire and your audio would be essentially disabled until you 1) blow in the hole and 2) replug a few times.
There were many problems with the platform. All of them, I think, were due to a combination of resource problems at Palm (hence the ensuing bankruptcy) and a very very low adoption rate.
Ultimately, I don't think you read my post very carefully at all though since I switched *TO* android last week. So it's the same way around. :p
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
The number of times I actually have to use a keyboard with my iOS device is low enough that I am happy to keep the BT keyboard in the car and not have the extra weight/bulk on me all the time. When I have to ssh in somewhere and it's for more than a dozen commands, or when I want to have a real conversation on IM/IRC, or I have to write a long email, I bust out the BT keyboard.
So what happens when you have to write a long email, and you're not in your car?
Anyway, you should understand that the need for physical keyboard depends on one's usage scenarios. For most people, one is not, generally speaking, a requirement, and then they either do what you do, or - the majority - do not bother with BT at all. But there is a reason why e.g. all Blackberries used to have one (and all business ones still do). For people who do use the device for email and other written communication a lot, having an integrated keyboard is indispensable.
Admitting you have a problem is the first step in healing. . . .
So what happens when you have to write a long email, and you're not in your car?
I wait, just like I would if the battery was dead or I had no cell signal or any of the other reasons someone would have to wait to send a long email. Tapping out a long email even on a physical but tiny keyboard is still tedious, albeit marginally less so than on an onscreen keyboard.
Anyway, you should understand that the need for physical keyboard depends on one's usage scenarios. For most people, one is not, generally speaking, a requirement, and then they either do what you do, or - the majority - do not bother with BT at all. But there is a reason why e.g. all Blackberries used to have one (and all business ones still do). For people who do use the device for email and other written communication a lot, having an integrated keyboard is indispensable.
Yes, you're absolutely right, it depends on use cases. However I think it would be hard to argue that 70% of those who have blackberries (or smartphones to a larger extent) actually have a real need for the device. They're status symbols to a large extent, much like "I need an SUV." :-)