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The webOS Features Other OSes Should Steal
New submitter egparedes points out a post dissecting webOS and highlighting the things it did right, in the hopes that developers for other mobile operating systems will use them as inspiration. Quoting:
"webOS isn't quite dead yet. It's just being open-sourced, which, when it happens to commercial software, often turns out to be the digital equivalent of being reanimated as a walking corpse in a George Romero movie. ... Of course, it's not assured that this is the end of webOS. Maybe open-sourcing it will be the best thing that ever happened to webOS. But maybe it just means that HP doesn't care anymore, and that webOS won't receive much attention anymore. This would be unfortunate, because webOS is one of the few current mobile operating systems that are actually a joy to use. It's been hurt by HP's incompetent management, rather than any egregious faults of its own. The least we can do now is to keep its best ideas alive, even if webOS itself won't make it."
There was a waiting list for the original phones when they first came out and they sold out quickly. And WebOS was fantastic. But...
- the phones themselves had battery problems (if you slid the phone closed too quickly the phone would job the battery out and the phone would cut off)
- as cool as the phone was, it was too damn small. Slab phones were becoming the preferred interface for smartphones.
- as cool as the OS was, the user base wanted it built on, with extra features added, and Palm decided for whatever reason that it was going to focus on incremental things instead of sweeping new feature sets.
- battery life was not good. Seriously. It was freaking horrible. Worse than your standard android phone.
All these things worked against it, plus Sprint decided it was more in love with HTC, so Palm didn't get the kind of backing it was hoping for. But Palm did fumble a few times before HP took it over, so you're right that HP can't shoulder all the blame.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
That's right, I said it.
... right, I hope that WebOS finds itself a firm footing somewhere, truly I do.
No complaints apart from hardware and the lack of a tide app.
Contrary to popular spouting off a smartphone doesn't need the Internet except when you need the Internet. How you choose to draw that line should be your choice, not your phone's.
There's no such thing as "rooting". Got root.
Tweaking the thing can bring easy and quick rewards with a tiny bit of css and a tiny bit of html.
I didn't get the fire sale pad but not for the lack of trying.
I had an ipad once - it was a gift - it wanted iTunes on my computer - then it wanted the correct version of iTunes - then it wanted an OSX upgrade - then I lost interest - I traded it for a new suspension kit for my ride. Couldn't be happier. iWhat? Nothing.
What was I
\r
As far as usability, I've had no issues with ICS on the Touchpad. If anything, Apps are more usable, despite being less similar to one another. Touchpad apps are noticeably slower, and use that funky draggable panel thing that makes no sense whatsoever. I also appreciate the launcher, which seems a lot easier to use than webOS' app drawer.
He seem to never heard of Maemo or the N900. If well not successful (for some values of successful, at least) had a lot of ideas other OSes should copy. In front of Android i felt crippled after more than a year with Maemo, mainly because how natural was for me to be really running several applications at once, even with that hardware. Maemo development diverted to Meego, that ended losing ground by the 2 companies backing it, and now could be in the horizon Tizen, Meltemi or whatever ends being the flavor of the semester.
WebOS is good anyway, even when the environment seemed to be with less community push than Maemo. A lot of its features, joined with maemo/meego/whatever ones, could make an interesting portable device OS. But the handset makers and carriers had already picked their alternatives, and there is little room for others (specially, without big enough backers), what is a shame,
Actually the point is that if what they did really is truly bad, then everybody else has to be held to the same standard. Failure to do that is a symptom of being a Haterade addict.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Steve Jobs made a career of it.
And Samsung read his book!
Except that they didn't.
Most of Samsung's ideas were built upon the ideas of Google (which is the point of Android).
The notion that Samsung copied Apple only exists in the minds of fanboys who've never touched a Samsung Galaxy phone or tablet.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
You've never touched a Tab 10.1, that much is obvious by your complete lack of corroborating evidence.
How do I know, I actually own a Galaxy Tab 10.1, the application draw acts differently, it needs to be opened manually rather then being open all the time. IOS doesn't have widgets that can be moved on the home screen. Ipads dont have rotation lock like the Galaxy Tab. The Tab can actually multi-task. You can move directly back to an application you were previously using, that's what the little up arrow in the bottom bar is there for. If you've actually used one, you might have known that.
Well, it seems like there's a lot of copying going on there. The difference is certainly astounding.
It certainly is amusing isn't it.
Especially when I can call your extremely transparent lies out so easily.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Document management on iOS is a mess. Every application implements its own scheme.
This is probably one of the best notes he makes. While hiding document management from the user initially may simplify things, the reality is that every single user needs sophisticated document management in the long run. iOS's biggest mistake was here; simpler document management should equate to more elegant, more usable document management, not more naieve management.
Its saddening to me today that Windows 7 search / OSX's Spotlight still don't meet the level of sophistication that zsh's globbing syntax does. Where are the document systems that automatically cross reference, sort by category etc? The filesystem on my PC is less sophisticated than google search by orders of magnitude, and slower too. Whats worse is that the iOS act of simply removing it from the users view is trying to creep back into the PC world.
I have to admit some of this stuff had me absolutely drooling - particularly the app and multi-window management. Damn - it's much better than what Apple is doing right now.
They should absolutely use some of these ideas. Unfortunately I'm afraid Apple wouldn't even look at this stuff. They've got the NIH mentality bad.
The phone icons are quite similar. I'll grant you that.
The notebooks are quite similar, but inconclusive.
The photos apps both use yellow-leafed flowers. I'm undecided on that. I'd call it coincidence unless there's significant other evidence.
Post-its vs. paper pads aren't that similar.
The gears are clearly different. Gears are a standard icon and these look nothing alike.
The messaging apps are also completely different. I cannot imagine two recognizable "voice box" symbols that look less alike. Are you arguing that a voice box is not an obvious sigil for text messaging?
All in all, I don't see that comparison as being substantially different from this comparison: http://www.designbyinfinity.com/internet/680649f7.png. In both cases, there might be a few superficial resemblances, but they really aren't that similar.