webOS 2.0 Overview
by Mithun Chandrasekhar on February 3, 2011 6:05 PM ESTWhat 2.0 Brings to the Table
Unlike what the ‘2.0’ suffix may suggest, webOS 2.0 is more of a thorough evolutionary update to the platform than anything else, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As I had mentioned earlier, webOS already had a pretty solid user experience to begin with and with this update, HP is tidying things up and tying loose ends. There still are some issues with the platform in its current iteration (with the mediocre email client being a major one), but considering the fact that it hasn’t been released to the public in its final form, there still may be tweaks and improvements coming. Anyway, we have enough here to get going. If you’re new to webOS or want a primer on what you get to begin with, you can have a look at our Pre review.
Stacks
What can you do when you already have one of the best renditions of multitasking on a mobile platform? Try and make it even better. Using “cards”, webOS made it easy to get in and out of applications in a rather straightforward and seamless manner. If you realized that you had to send your boss an important update while you have a 0.25 second lead over your competitor in Need For Speed, tap the gesture area. The game minimizes, you tap the email app, type and send out the email, tap the game card again, and you’re back to fighting for first place, exactly where you left off.
This made it very easy and quick to switch applications while maintaining their state, but this also encouraged you to have multiple app “cards” running, making it a bit unwieldy and cumbersome to swipe across multiple cards to get to the one you wanted. If only there was a way to somehow stack these cards.... That’s exactly what we get with webOS 2.0: Stacks.
(Left) Multitasking in webOS using cards, (Right) Stacking cards in webOS 2.0
You can now drag cards and drop them over existing cards to create a stack of cards. In addition, any cards resulting from actions in an app will now automatically stack on top of the main app card. And finally, when it makes logical sense, webOS will stack related cards automatically. I found this very useful as now all my calendar events are bunched together with the calendar application, instead of being spread across multiple cards. You can also reorder the cards within a stack, if you choose to do so. While it takes a little practice to get used to dragging and dropping the cards or reordering them, the process in itself is quite logical and easy to grasp.
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Chapbass - Thursday, February 3, 2011 - link
The Droid X was released in July 2010, so its 6 months old...haplo602 - Friday, February 4, 2011 - link
OLD ? I ma still using a HTC Herald with a 200Mhz CPU. The only problem I have is the small RAM (only 64MB). A larger screen and more RAM is all I need.I do not get why the phones are advancing so fast. I mean most of the time you just listen to music and browse the web. The interface is too small to do anything serious for a longer amount of time.
I guess I'll be getting a webOS 2.0 device once the new generation is out (and Outlook synchronisation works perfectly).
ant1pathy - Thursday, February 3, 2011 - link
If I could get this on, say, the Atrix, and the application library of iOS, I'd take it in a heartbeat. The software is AMAZING; too bad the hardware and mindshare doesn't reflect it.Lonyo - Thursday, February 3, 2011 - link
If they manage to make it all work nicely in a tablet format as well, then the only weak link would potentially be application support.Hopefully they will gain enough market traction to get a decent amount of apps developed, because a lot of the features sound awesome, especially JustType.
Is there any word on how much developer support there is for applications?
mythun.chandra - Thursday, February 3, 2011 - link
From the looks of it, HP is trying to get as many developers on board as it can. With webOS 2.0, they really seemed to have opened up a lot of the OS for devs to hook into directly. webOS has a pretty strong homebrew community, matching that of Android's. And from experience, developing an app for webOS is actually pretty easy (if you know basic HTML, CSS, JS..you're good to go).The issue for developers here is, no matter how good/easy webOS may be to use/develop for, it doesn't make monetary sense for them to write applications that can at best reach about 1% of the total smartphone market. What HP needs to do is move a decent amount of handsets to the market. Once this happens, developers automatically have an incentive to develop apps, with webOS' easy app dev framework only acting as a catalyst.
Jonathan Dum - Friday, February 4, 2011 - link
It's a chicken and egg problem. Developer's won't flock to HP's ecosystem until there are tons of devices, yet HP needs a strong application base until people really start buying into it. I think that's the reasoning behind Palm/HP going for the "PhoneGap" development model, but I don't think that's enough since most serious developers write an app in it's native language (Obj. C for iOS, Java for Android, etc.).mythun.chandra - Friday, February 4, 2011 - link
There does exist the PDK which lets developers develop native webOS apps in C/C++.Penti - Friday, February 4, 2011 - link
They just need to do what Microsoft and the others do, partner up with a few important developers to put out the apps that's most important. For example Dataviz canceled their development of Documents to Go, they could have put out that if Palm/HP teamed up with them. Cooperation is important, not just a ready public SDK. They could easily sign deals with developers to put out apps if they wish.Computer Bottleneck - Friday, February 4, 2011 - link
I think it would be great if HP could get some form of Web OS into prepaid.Then let the entry level consumer get used to using and learning WebOS. As time goes by let them move up the ladder to more power hardware and apps.
Hrel - Thursday, February 3, 2011 - link
This does look very usable; and straightforward. My main concern is that there isn't room for a 4 OS smartphone marketplace. I mean, average people are already confused about the difference between Android and iOS, except ones apple ones "Verizon". Yeah, I've heard that one before. "Android, that's those Droid phones on Verizon right?" Even though you can get them on any network. I haven't even mentioned Win7 yet. Now there's going to be another one? They'll need one hell of a marketing campaign to break into the minds of the sheeple.For the most part it seems like people buy what their family/friends buy. Or if they get addicted to a specific app they'll stick with it. I think Windows cloud based features will earn a lot of loyalty.
On hardware I'd still like to see a smartphone that can truly replace my point n shoot camera. I'm talking almost instant photo taking when I hit the button, no 3 second pause. with a slide out design except no keyboard, joystick/s and a couple buttons for gaming. That's what I wanna do with it, play video games, shoot photos, record video. Surf the web, get directions, check movie times, watch youtube, use it as an mp3 player.