How Dead is WebOS?

[spicerunner]

New HP devices are coming out and folks are migrating to HTML/CSS/Javascript frameworks, which was always the case for WebOS. Does it have a chance for third place in the smartphone market after it's precipitous downfall?

[modernerd]

I was given a free Pre2 by Palm's Developer Relations Team as a development device. After a week with the thing, I fully expected to be clawing at my iPhone, performing 40 Hail Steves, and vowing never to stray again.

Instead, I haven't touched the iPhone for eight weeks. WebOS is a delight, and I wish I'd had the guts to try it sooner; not only is the OS better thought out in many ways (multi tasking, global app menus, discreet notifications, OTA system updates, polished app switching, 'just type' launcher, the gesture area, and more) but the Enyo development kit has been easy to pick up, and hardware touches -- like the Touchstone charging dock -- make the device a joy to live with.

I'm currently porting an iOS app to WebOS, and will be launching future apps on both platforms, even though the WebOS userbase falls short of iOS and Android's reach. In short, I feel really positive about WebOS, and hope HP's acquisition of Palm will be the kick it needs to find the success it deserves.

[martingordon]

I got my free Pre 2 on Thursday and have been using it as my main device. My biggest gripe with the Pre 2 is the small screen. It is a great OS, but my enjoyment of it is hampered by the small screen.

I agree Just Type, multitasking and notifications blow iOS's counterparts out of the water.

I will be very tempted to try out the Pre 3 (with its larger screen) and have been excited about the TouchPad even before I set fingers on the Pre 2.

There's a lot of competition for #3 in the phone space, but HP could easily take #2 in the tablet market given how rushed Honeycomb and the Playbook appear to be.

[palish]

How did you get a free Pre 2?

I've been chomping at the bit to develop for anything besides my iPhone. I just can't afford any new phone right now.

[Xuzz]

I got one from this offer too. They announced it on their blog [1] a few months back, I'm not sure if it's still open, but there's definitely no harm in trying.

[1]: http://pdnblog.palm.com/2011/02/mojo-and-enyo-two-great-oppo...

[eekfuh]

I've developed a fairly well known (to the webos community) application. I had a top 10 app in Palm's million dollar contest. I've been on their print and web promotional tools and featured several times in their app catalog... yet I feel and felt that HP and Palm both have dropped the ball when it has come to developing for WebOS. They have terrible, poorly documented API's.

I think its all fine and dandy that they have semi-rewarded me with some free advertising, but as a developer, I really only care about writing a killer app and if there is no way to do certain things, or making me write a C++ browser extension just to properly cURL data, well its just not worth my time.

Being able to phonegap applications will help their count, but most developers know, those apps never feel purely native and the apps typically are extremely low powered, unintelligent apps.

I think that accounting for all that might be more of a recipe for disaster. Poor usability and a lack of strong apps, except for the occasional game (written in C++ as a browser plugin so they can opengl).

[piranha]

So if writing a browser extension in C++ is hard, then what about writing whole application in Objective C instead of writing in JS? I'm genuinely interested what do you consider easier platform to develop, since I've just tried out Enyo and I really like it.

[eekfuh]

It's not really about the language, it was more about the API's available. I write iPhone apps also and the frameworks that Apple has developed are far superior and far more reaching than anything Palm/HP has done.

Their API's available to the browser extensions are basically just opengl related.

[davej]

I know absolutely zero about WebOS development so this is probably a very naive question. Isn't Node.JS available to WebOS, couldn't you use something like http.request()? http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.4.7/api/http.html#http.request

[eekfuh]

Node.js is only available for WebOS 2.0 (~90% of people are on older versions of WebOS).

[davej]

Ok, I see that the original pre and pixi don't support WebOS 2.0, that's a real pity. From what I can see the WebOS 2.0/3.0 developer ecosystem looks a lot nicer (although it's probably not practical to drop 1.0 support yet), have you tried out Enyo + Node on 2.0/3.0? Any thoughts?

[eekfuh]

I actually haven't. Once my revenue dropped below $1k a month from WebOS, I basically stopped adding new features and moved over to my iphone stuffs. I make over $1k on iPhone and growing quickly, gotta love the power of 100m users (vs 1.5m shrinking set of users).

[JoelSutherland]

I had a Pre for two years, just got the Nexus S and my wife has an iPhone 4. Without question, the biggest UX differences between the platforms are:

1. General responsiveness (iPhone leads)

2. Notifications (iPhone trails dramatically)

3. Web Page as a 1st class OS object. (WebOS is the only one that does this)

This third point is NEVER discussed. With Android and iOS, you have to go to the browser and then jump to a particular tab. When multi-tasking, this forces you to do more clicks through two different mental models. In WebOS, everything is a card. When you're trying to pull ESPN back up, you seek ESPN, not 'browser'.

Given google's position on the web, I am just surprised they haven't done a better job of this. It makes sense that Apple is making webpages 2nd class citizens, they want a 30% cut.

[jonah]

  In WebOS, everything is a card. When you're trying to pull ESPN back up, you seek ESPN, not 'browser'.

That I like. It harkens back to the days of non-tabbed browsers on the desktop. But while the desktop is conducive to working with many tabs successfully (UX- and hardware-wise) on mobile, it makes a lot more sense to have a single level of windowing rather than the nesting a tabbed browser gives you.

[jdub]

... but not when you have deliciously usable and tactile "cards". :-)

[jonah]

Right. And by promoting each "tab" to its own "card" at the same level as each other "app" you benefit from that.

[jdub]

Plus in webOS 2.x, stacks reduce the cognitive load of having too many (seemingly) unrelated cards.

[fuzionmonkey]

Some things about WebOS are absolutely fantastic. My first smartphone was a Pre Plus when it came out on Verizon for like $40.

The software was pretty great. The multitasking was perfect, Synergy was awesome. It wasn't quite as polished in some areas as iOS, but some things were also drastically superior. Also the inductive charging was awesome as well.

I got an iPhone on Verizon when it came out, and I really miss the multitasking. But what I don't miss is the hardware.

My Pre was literally starting to fall apart. It was all cheap, flimsy plastic, not durable at all. The difference in build quality of the iPhone was astonishing. And dramatic noticeable speed improvement.

WebOS was crippled by its horrible hardware. The software was competitive, even the best at times, but the Pre was just terrible hardware. It didn't have very fast specs, and the phone itself wasn't durable or high quality.

[mjs]

Agreed, webOS suffers from some small-ish fit and finish problems, and much larger marketing and (lack of) application problems.

webOS 1.0 did do a lot of wacky/strange things that were annoying, though not bad enough for the phone to be useless. As well as the hardware problems, you'd get stuff like like the alarm going off a minute before it was supposed to (going by the phone's own time display). It would also repeatedly tell you every few minutes that it was unable to send an email message when no network was available.

They're reduced the number of annoyances in webOS 2.0, though, so I am hopeful for the Pre 3. (It also now has close to acceptable performance, instead of completely unacceptable performance.)

The marketing and app problems are much more difficult to solve; I'm not sure what they can do there. Throwing money at it, maybe...

[dvdhsu]

I own an original Pré from Sprint. The first six months, I ran it overclocked to 1 GHz when the screen was on and it worked reasonably. After the first six months, the hardware started falling apart: power button stopped working, volume buttons were always depressed, phone calls were never routed to the earpiece, etc.

If HP could put WebOS on quality hardware, it would be a killer device. Here's hoping the Pré3 can do it.

[cpenner461]

My wife has the original palm pre from sprint, and I love the software and system in general. The hardware has been what has kept me away from it (it's the lack of a software keyboard for me personally). Compared to my android experience, the pre seems much more polished.

[shaggy]

Anyone who takes an objective look at iOS vs. Android vs. webOS will see that webOS is the technologically superior platform. The UI is fantastic and smooth and many of other current mobile platforms are starting to "borrow" from it. The playbook, android and even iOS to a certain extent. If HP markets the hardware and software correctly and they do a good job of attracting quality developers it will be a force.

[wvenable]

> current mobile platforms are starting to "borrow" from it

The question is, will the other mobile platforms borrow from it fast enough to make it totally irrelevant.

[tolmasky]

"That fragmentation is driving developers to embrace frameworks such as PhoneGap, which WebOS has wholeheartedly adopted. "

Honest question: really? Is anyone actually using this stuff in a serious way? I ask because I use only iOS basically so I may genuinely be missing this revolution that is taking place, but at least on iOS I have never downloaded an app that was phonegap, nor do I think any significant charting apps use it. Is it widely used for custom built apps or something? Or used a lot in android? Or is it actually not being used a lot?

[strmpnk]

I've seen quite a few apps written in phone gap work really well on iOS devices. I think many people are surprised how well an apps experience can be with this tech... granted, lots of people don't know that large numbers of apps are really just a web view wired to a minimal obj-c shell so I think the approach is pretty successful if not the framework itself.

[eddieplan9]

A counter-example is Safari To Go - Safari Book Online's iPad app, which they withdrew due to bad review: http://blog.safaribooksonline.com/2010/11/24/ipad-app-safari...

Most people agreed that PhoneGap was the wrong framework. It's not that PhoneGap is intrinsically bad - it is not - but that it is not for every task, and more likely, it is not good for most tasks that are more than a short load-lookup-leave cycle.

[megaman821]

If you would asked me a year ago, I would have thought webOS had no chance given its slow pace of development. Yet the rev one tablet offerings from Google and RIM are basically betas so HP has a good chance of catching up.

Likewise in the phone segment, the third place slot is far from wrapped up. MeeGo was DOA and Windows Phone 7 isn't exactly lighting the sales charts on fire.

Solid execution from HP over the next 6 months could really ignite the webOS platform.

[nl]

Does anyone else agree WebOS is the number 3 mobile OS after iOS & Android? Seriously?

Objectively RIM is by far the 3rd biggest player (by some measures it is in the top 2), and I can't see how WebOS is magically going to leapfrog them. Playbook might not be perfect, but it's a lot better than the unshipped HP TouchPad.

In my head WinPhone7 is number 4 - and they at least have a strategy to move up in the market (aka Nokia).

WebOS might be lovely (I wouldn't know.. you can't buy it in my market - which says a lot), but I can list pages in Wikipedia for lovely platforms like WebOS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_machine, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure etc etc)

[unwiredben]

I'm working with a team doing amazing things to ready the the HP TouchPad launch and webOS 3.0 for launch. We wouldn't be working so hard if we thought this platform was dead on arrival. HP has big plans and I'm glad we're a part of it.

[eekfuh]

Ben, we love you guys, but we feel that you spend too much time with EA, GameLoft and probably Rovio, and not enough with us little guys. Maybe thats whats caused some me to get so distant, worsening the effect.

In all reality, thats business. A company that was driving only a few thousand dollars of revenue a month isn't all the important compared to the ones probably doing 10-100x that. :|

[zmmmmm]

The real question is not whether WebOS is good or bad but whether any single hardware and OS vendor (other than Apple, obviously) has a snowflake's chance in hell of getting the ecosystem and mindshare required to be competitive. Especially in the US where the carriers have a such strong hold on the only viable channels to consumers you basically can't get anywhere unless you can align your interests strongly with the established parties. Apple forced their way in through sheer mass consumer appeal, Google managed to do it through a brilliant strategy of giving carriers just enough control to make them see it as a savior from being dictated to by Apple. But what strategic value will carriers get from offering WebOS based phones? If HP screws them with bad hardware they are stuck. If HP screws them with bad software they are stuck. Pile on top of that the fact that the demands of modern smart phones these days go way beyond a nice OS - you just can't compete unless you come to the table with a huge range of services integrated - mapping, search, voice-to-text, etc. WebOS relies on competitors to get these services which can't possibly work long term.

I also disagree with the assessment of WP7 - I don't think the so-called "missteps" have even been noticed by the vast majority of consumers using WP7 phones. With Nokia maxing out their distribution channel to push WP7 phones I really can't see how WebOS is going to beat them. People are going to buy them just through sheer numbers of them on the shelves. It doesn't mean WP7 is going to succeed but certainly indicates WebOS is going to have a really hard time beating them.

[jchrisa]

HP will be shipping WebOS on all its laptops and desktops. They are the #1 computer maker. You do the math.

[mikecane]

I know his comment sounds smug at face value, but he is correct. If you do the math in terms of sales outlets, they have an impressive footprint globally and I'd expect that to translate into impressive sales down the line. Don't forget they expect to integrate webOS into their printers and other things too.

[whatusername]

But doesn't the same "Math" apply to Nokia/Microsoft?

[mikecane]

It could, but what do they have to sell? Nothing yet, right? So far from the press I've read, MS can't get updates out smoothly yet. I think Palm, and now HP, take a different approach than MS. After all, HP builds its own hardware and MS does licenses.

[whatusername]

I think I'm showing my Australian bias here.. The Palm website: http://www.palm.com/au/ shows thatPalm are "introducing" WebOS on the "new" Palm Pre. I can't see HP turning that around any time soon.

[mikecane]

And I'm, of course, showing my American-centric view. Ha! It's frustrating how one company can be so different around the world. Few companies seem to be on the same page everywhere.

[podperson]

Here's my math. It seems to me there are two possibilities:

WebOS fails on the laptop and desktop (e.g. is perceived as crap/bloat-ware or simply ignored). In this case the math doesn't look good.

WebOS succeeds on the laptop and desktop. This means that a whole bunch of users are willing to give up on Windows for their computing needs. Long overdue, since most people's computing needs are met by a web browser and a few other programs you can get for free. If this looks like happening, it's open season on the PC industry business model. Apple has already taken away the high margin market... this will be like a horde of hyenas ripping into a wounded wildebeest. I'm not sure this is actually a better outcome for HP.

[Duff]

The PC business model is a zombie right now. I work at a joint that rolled out about 12,000 PCs a year, every year. Since 2008? 2,000/year... mostly laptops to folks whose jobs have become more mobile.

ALL of the good customer facing people with companies that peddle PCs in my neck of the woods have either moved on to greener pastures or are holding out for retirement.

My guess is that in 2014, those 6+ year old PCs will start failing and be replaced with tablets for about 60% of the workers. I betcha that the rest will be PCs from no-frills vendors like Asus.

Big enterprises are very conscious of costs, and the "whale" of client-computing costs is that fat Microsoft EA that just gobbles up capital. That's a big cash flow to build a business case for an alternate product.

[podperson]

Exactly. If WebOS "succeeds" on the desktop it will only be because the PC business is done. And in that case, being the world's number one PC vendor isn't very helpful.

[mikecane]

In my reply (pushed down), this is the math I was talking about: HP claims to have 88,000 retail locations

>>>Let’s do some math with that. If every one of those stores sold only one of our products every day during one year, that’d be 365 sales times 88,000 -- or thirty-two million and one-hundred and twenty thousand. Isn’t that incredible? Just one sale per store per day for one year.

I wasn't even getting into the whole desktop thing, just how webOS could like spread big in their tablets, phones, and printers.

(BTW that quote is me writing it the way Todd Bradley should have stated it in his dull presentation.)

[GHFigs]

HP has been shipping Splashtop (as "HP QuickWeb" and "Voodoo IOS") and on many models for several years now and nobody cared. Why would they, when Windows is right there?

WebOS (though better than Splashtop) faces much the same problem. It's going to take bolder moves than just making it available.

[rbanffy]

With the increasing importance of web-based applications and the decreasing relevance of the desktop platform, I think interfaces like WebOS (with its "Just type" and smooth task-centered interface) do have a good chance of becoming relevant. If you develop for ChromeOS, chances are a port can be done in hours and will run smoothly on WebOS.

[jeffthebear]

> WebOS even beat Windows Phone 7 in the single most important determination of the success of any mobile platform. The availability of Angry Birds.

Angry Birds is coming to Windows Phone 7: http://www.bgr.com/2011/04/14/angry-birds-for-windows-phone-...

[spicerunner]

Yes, it definitely is coming to Windows Phone 7.

[viraptor]

One announcement that I really look forward to, is a system with multi-user support. Since webos is kind of new (or at least will get a proper re-release at this point with the first tablet device), I hope this option will be included. The first tablet device which allows separate accounts for each user at home gets my money as soon as it's released.

[moondowner]

> "Like I said, my bet is on WebOS over Windows Phone 7. "

Mine too, few months ago I ran into some tutorials on getting started on developing for webOS on Mobiletuts+ and installed the webOS image for VirtualBox, and my impressions of webOS were positive. Since then a new version of webOS was released, I can only imagine that it's even better.

[dr_]

They've taken a great OS and put it in a somewhat poor smartphone. I found they keyboard on the initial Pre to be very bad. I've heard it has improved since then, but as they saying goes, first impressions count a lot.

I really thought with HP they would make significant enhancements to the hardware, but so far I haven't seen anything too compelling. Still, it's a great OS and I wish them luck. I may take another look at it in the tablet form.

[antidaily]

Agreed. The Pre's battery life was atrocious.

[warpdesign]

I have to agree with most of the comments:

- The OS is great, but the hardware really falls behind... too small screen, poor battery: I'm wondering: I don't think you can have lots of success without both a great phone and a greato OS

- As for the free developer device offer, it seems they were a bit selective... I applied for it and didn't get any answer.

I started developing even before the device was released here in France, and have had to use the emulator since then. And that's a pain :(

Let's hope the Pre 3 will change these things (the Veer won't certainly have a bigger screen... And if I remember correctly you'll need an adaptator to connect earphones: that's definitely not a phone for me :))

[bryanmig]

I bought a Palm Pre (1) for Sprint about a month after it came out. I still think the operating system, WebOS, is great but Palm really let me down with the device. It was just pure crap.

Despite its sleek design, the craftsmanship was poor and the phone cracked in multiple places. The plastic screen also scratched very easily.

The worst part of it all is that the phone is underpowered. The processor is slower and has less RAM than its competition. This is why the phone performed so poorly despite having a great operating system.

I hope HP can make the next generation WebOS powered devices perform better because it really is a great OS.

[metageek]

The Veer is overpriced. My Inspire 4G cost the same two months ago, and it's much better hardware, plus something like 10 times the apps. HP should have priced it to where AT&T would sell it for $0 on contract. At $99, there's no way they'll come from behind.

[MatthewPhillips]

HP needs to push the web angle even harder. If WebOS were the chromeOS of phone it would have something to really differentiate itself. To do that they have to go all-in on making the browser really kick ass. The biggest problem with the mobile web today is the browsers are not nearly as good as the desktop counterparts. If HP/Palm would make it a priority to have a javascript engine that comes close to desktop counterparts, to support all of the cutting edge html5 features, and continually iterate on that, I'd definitely strongly consider making a switch. They should drop native apps all together and instead suggest developers use WebGL and html5 (keep the App Catalog but make it just be for app review and discovery).

[podperson]

Of the three items in the "improved" product line, one is vaporware.

[ltamake]

I liked webOS, it's a shame to see it like this. :(

[spicerunner]

The fat lady hasn't sung yet.

[rbanffy]

The biggest threat, by far, to WebOS is some Microsoft exec letting an HP exec know, casually, while they are, say, playing golf, that HP's Windows license could end up costing a bit more than Dell's because they are not really helping Windows Phone 7 become the success it deserves and helping WP7 would entitle a couple large discounts on other licenses.

Microsoft has enormous power on OEMs.

[spicerunner]

All of the antitrust stuff of the last decade has really tamed Microsoft. I'm not sure they'd do that. I really wanted to like Windows Phone 7, but have lost faith and think WebOS may have an opportunity to overtake them if HP plays their cards right.

Microsoft's biggest hope for penetration is the Nokia partnership. Two frightened dinosaurs huddling in a cave as the comet approaches...

[rbanffy]

> All of the antitrust stuff of the last decade has really tamed Microsoft.

That's why discussions like this would no longer happen over e-mail. On a open field, during a social encounter with no witnesses and no lasting evidence it ever happened, I am not so sure.

Microsoft has always used discounts to modulate OEM licensing costs.

[mikecane]

I really think those days are over for MS. They can't bully anyone around anymore.

[rbanffy]

OEM margins are still pretty low while volumes are very high and increasing. A small difference in Windows licensing can make a huge, bonus-defining, difference.

It's very dangerous to ignore their usual ways.