I thought iPhone OS was slick

Spyhop · 14 Jan 2009 at 23:20

Until I saw the demo of the Palm pre's "WebOS".

Check out this video when you've got time. The guy with the red shirt starts the live software demo about 25% in.

http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/palm-pre-ces.html

Great to see some credible competition at last. It's clearly based on a lot of ideas from the iPhone, but Apple will have to up their game when it comes to their core OS and interface to keep up with this. One app at a time suddenly seems stone-age.

ironman · 15 Jan 2009 at 01:20

I love the touchstone charger.

FreeStream · 15 Jan 2009 at 08:11

Physical Design: Awful :/ Removable battery, great, not bothered...

UI: Hugely iPhone based! And it doesn't look as good.

But agreed, a few ideas there that apple need to allow us to do... although really anything is possible with jailbrake but I don't even have that installed *shrug*

Spyhop · 15 Jan 2009 at 18:37

Concorde Rules said:
Physical Design: Awful :/

Why is it awful?

Concorde Rules said:
UI: Hugely iPhone based! And it doesn't look as good.

Come on now - there are tons of nice new ideas in there. The card system for multi tasking and switching. The gesture area below the screen that means there are less toolbars taking up space. The dynamic resizing of apps and notifications so that they can share the screen and swap focus. The notification ticker that appears at the bottom. Did you watch the whole demo?

FreeStream · 15 Jan 2009 at 18:50

wush said:
Why is it awful?

Come on now - there are tons of nice new ideas in there. The card system for multi tasking and switching. The gesture area below the screen that means there are less toolbars taking up space. The dynamic resizing of apps and notifications so that they can share the screen and swap focus. The notification ticker that appears at the bottom. Did you watch the video?

No, I got bored

And come on, you can't say that looks good as a iphone. Its a brick :/

I am slightly biased but my brushed aluminum back > *.

All I really need is, copy and paste, a proper MSN client, java, flash and a remote for front row although that is done from the app store and even *then* those features arn't used very much.

There isn't anything on that phone that would make me buy it. Infact the lack of slickness with my MBP/MP sync would be more of an issue.

Apple has only been in this mobile things for a year or two. V3 im sure will give us something that the competition has and will put it ahead again. (If it has infact slipped behind...)

Resizing of apps on a screen that small seems utterly pointless, Safari runs in the background for me (or atleast the pages load...). Notification ticker? Like if you have a message or something? I know if I have one. It vibrates in my hand, if its off, its on the screen.

Maybe I should watch the whole video, but after 10 mins (of showing the features) I wasn't impressed.

Plus before you go all apple fanboyish, I went and looked at every phone on the market a year ago. NOTHING came close, not one. Not even now if I wander into a phone store there is anything that would make me switch. I went back to my old k750i and my god Im so happy i've got another iPhone!!

Spyhop · 15 Jan 2009 at 19:01

I went and looked at every phone on the market a year ago. NOTHING came close, not one.

I'm not disputing that just about every phone is junk compared to the iPhone. I love the iPhone (had 2G, now 3G) but Palm's WebOS looks in a different class to me.

I'm not trying strong-arm you in to buying one - just appreciate some nice tech

FreeStream · 15 Jan 2009 at 20:19

wush said:
I'm not disputing that just about every phone is junk compared to the iPhone. I love the iPhone (had 2G, now 3G) but Palm's WebOS looks in a different class to me.

I'm not trying strong-arm you in to buying one - just appreciate some nice tech

Fair play

It seems im just not as impressed

Slogan · 15 Jan 2009 at 20:56

I wasn't blown away either. Some nice features but it seems to stem from the benchmark that Apple have already setup with the iPhone. Gestures, pinching, accelerometer, touchscreen, dock.

I quite liked the way it throws up places to search when it runs out of local search results, that was quite impressive.

If the iPhone had enough juice it would already be doing multiple applications like that, I think it's underpowered for such a purpose and it's why Apple played the 'no background processes' card.

As for a piece of hardware, it doesn't look particularly nice either. Little fatty.

Cobertizo · 15 Jan 2009 at 21:06

Concorde Rules said:
It seems im just not as impressed

Is that anything to do with the irritating smug man showing the features? Not a fan.

But the OS itself looks like a decent competitor to the iPhone, even if it's not clearly massively better. And it's nice to see Palm actually doing some thing interesting again finally.