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I am a big fan of webOS, so my views may be off. I am not a developer, just a consumer, so my comments may even be irrelevant to the OP. webOS definitely had its rough edges. The phone app will be sluggish (what jwz was referring to, try answering a phone call by tapping "pick up" several times without any response as the phone keeps ringing), in USB mode the phone shuts down and directs all voice calls to voicemail, the entire OS does not have a position indicator to tell you how long and where you are in the page, etc. However, all initial releases of software are buggy. As someone already mentioned in this thread "I think instability is less a sign of architectural problems than of simple failure to iron all the bugs out". I think everyone at Palm expected to be able to release updates and get the OS up to speed. However, Google started cranking up on Android and left everyone (including iOS) in the dust. I am not talking about UI here. I am talking about sheer speed in the software turnaround cycle. In seemingly no time, Android had Cloud syncing, Maps with Navigation, features in the photo app like red eye removal etc. etc. They just blasted away with these updates. To me it is astounding that a complex mobile OS used all over the world can be developed in such speed. After this effort, webOS just had no chance. You need apps for the tablet but without a successful phone ecosystem, the touchpad was definitely a tough sell. HP thought their "channels", "marketing" would amount to something. It just wasn't. A CEO wanting to get out of the consumer space finally stopped the bleeding. Maybe if HP had been going for another 6 months and risked another $1 billion (I feel stupid just typing that clause :) ), webOS could have gotten lucky. |