[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.