5 ms·

WebOS 3.0 SDK

94 points by rafaelc 16y ago

cheez 16y ago
Well, WebOS was one of the things I was really looking forward to but the Pre hardware was not very usable for me. I really hope WebOS gets a decent second chance. When will the tablets be out?
- philthy 16y ago
  What are your thoughts on the Pre3?
  - newman314 16y ago
    Handled one. It's quite nice and I'll be getting one along with the TouchPad and Veer when they come out. Also, the Pre3 will be a world phone in 2 flavors: 1) CDMA (US) + GSM (RoW) 2) GSM (US + RoW)
  - cheez 16y ago
    Didn't know it existed :D
  - dpio 16y ago
    Handled one too. Will be acquiring at launch, with or without Sprint.
- unwiredben 16y ago
  From developer.palm.com: HP Veer planned availability this spring. HP TouchPad and HP Pre 3 planned availability this summer.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  The original Pre was a bit slow, but the Pre 2 is very fluid. I recommend you to try it out.
  - cheez 16y ago
    Didn't know there was a sequel, will definitely give it a shot!
philthy 16y ago
Requested access about an hour ago. Excited.
brianwillis 16y ago
I've been thinking a bit about how the tablet game plays out over the next few months. Just for fun, here's some speculation: 1) Apple sells a crap ton of iPads. Their biggest problem will be that they can't make them fast enough. Don't whine to me about "openness" or the notifications system. They'll sell lots of them and we all know it. 2) HP gets the TouchPad into stores. There are no queues to buy one on day one, but it does OK in the first few weeks. Sells maybe a million units in the first three months. 3) Consumers shopping for a tablet are now faced with a choice: I can buy an iPad and wait four to five weeks for it to arrive (those are the times Apple's website is currently quoting), or I can buy a HP TouchPad and take it home today. For some, that'll be enough to bring them over to HP. 4) HP's TouchPad gets some traction. Enough to justify a version two. Nowhere near enough to knock Apple off it's perch. 5) HP does something badly wrong. One of the MBAs gets in the way, makes a decision he has no place making, and hands one of HP's competitors a major competitive advantage. Maybe they decide the TouchPad should be US only for the first year. Maybe they piss off developers in some creative way, so no-one writes apps for the platform. I don't know what they'll do, but I can't shake the feeling that they'll fuck it up somehow. 6) Android tablets come out too. Nerds like me buy them, while our grandmothers buy iPads and TouchPads. There are many more grandmothers in the world than nerds. Android tablets do badly. Attempting to explain this, reviewers looking at 2011 retrospectively will cite a confusing UI, a flash implementation that was promised but never materialised (or materialised in a broken state), and many of the same compatibility issues that we see now with Android phones. 7) Microsoft announces Windows 8 with a completely redesigned UI based on Metro. This UI will try to work just as well with the keyboard and mouse as it does on touch devices. Ballmer will use the phrase "bridging the gap" a lot.
- aidenn0 16y ago
  >Maybe they piss off developers in some creative way, so no-one writes apps for the platform. Already nobody writes apps for the platform; they need to do something right in a creative way to get people to even port iOS or android apps.
- budwin 16y ago
  > "One of the MBAs gets in the way, makes a decision he has no place making, and hands one of HP's competitors a major competitive advantage." This is kind of mean spirited. Why hate on the MBAs?
lukifer 16y ago
If any team has the right attitude and technology to out-Apple Apple, it's HPalm. I really hope they do well, and I can't wait to tinker with this SDK. My only peeve: no 7" WebOS tablet. It's a glaring hole in Apple's lineup, currently dominated by the Kindle and Nook Color, but which will be a gold mine for the first company to get it right. Blackberry has a chance with their PlayBook, especially if they're willing to keep iterating on both hardware and software.
- tene 16y ago
  According to the rumours, there will be a 7" WebOS tablet in September. http://www.precentral.net/hp-touchpad-targeting-june-release-priced-499-7-inch-coming-september http://www.precentral.net/hp-touchpad-targeting-june-release...
todd3834 16y ago
It seems the more options we have for a mobile OS, the more persuasive a web application vs native application becomes.
- zmmmmm 16y ago
  It's persuasive until you actually try and do it. Then you find that you can't make anything nearly as nice and it takes you 10 times as long to do it because you spend forever figuring out weird quirks of mobile browsers that make not much sense at all. At least that was my experience.
  - ryanwatkins 16y ago
    Or you use the web technologies for a "native" app and focus only on the browser for that platform. Then port to others as needed, rather than trying to support them "all" from day one on a web app. Certainly a web app is usually still not as fast and responsive as a native app, but its getting much better. People used to say the same thing about web mail services - that they were not nearly as 'nice' as a native mail app. Now go look at how many people use Gmail and dont bother with a native mail client on their PC anymore.
  - cpeterso 16y ago
    Consider how many iPhone apps are just "website silos", an app with an embedded UIWebView hosting a (live or static) website that looks like a native app. Also, the WebOS SDK allows developers to write native code plugins that can be called from JavaScript. So an app's high-level UI logic can be written by web developers productive with JavaScript and C++ developers can port legacy C++ code or optimize performance bottlenecks with WebOS plugins.
SingAlong 16y ago
Best part about the signup form was a comfortable option for the security question "What is your favourite programming language?", although a lot of my friends can guess it if I used the right answer, it's still a good try to give options related to the user.
forgotAgain 16y ago
HP is comparable to Apple in that they have complete control of their product. Yet I haven't seen anything that makes me believe that the management of HP is comparable to Apple. Installing webOS on all of their PC's strikes me as a really dumb idea. From what I've read they are not delivering quality PC's these days. Associating webOS with a poor product seems like a bad idea. Also I think a boot menu will confuse the heck out of a lot of people. It seems that they are desperate to show that they are doing something with the product and this is all they could do in a reasonable time frame. They have already owned Palm for a year and if that's all they got then I'm not impressed. The creativity of HP was seemingly gutted by Hurd and will need to be rebuilt. We can learn a lot from the troubles Microsoft is currently having updating their phone. An important key to success is turning out to be control of the devices after they are sold. Microsoft is apparently screwed because there are so many players in the process of releasing updates with each having a vote. First Microsoft develops the update but then the device manufacturer and the carrier have to agree to the release and can change the release to fit their own needs. That's not the case with Apple. They control everything. Successful product owners will need to mimic Apple and not Microsoft. They will need a management with stones in order to get that deal if it's even possible now that there are so many alternative products the carrier can provide. Android also has this issue as can be seen by the number of OS versions that a developer has to support. Where HP has an opportunity is in their enterprise connections. I think this will be a short lived advantage. HP would have to own this market before Microsoft launches an enterprise tablet and reluctance to change gives them the advantage. HP has a great opportunity because they bought a great product. The odds are better than even that they will blow it.
jdavid 16y ago
a few reasons WebOS is not done yet. * pre 3 will be fast, really fast * touch-to-share WebOS enabled devices can touch and share files. * somehow drobox is tied into WebOS 3 * Unity Union - Unity Technologies will help you port your game. * TouchPad - WebOS does multiple apps better than iOS. * WebOS is way better than ChromeOS. HP will use it on Netbooks.

94 points by rafaelc 16y ago

cheez 16y ago

Well, WebOS was one of the things I was really looking forward to but the Pre hardware was not very usable for me. I really hope WebOS gets a decent second chance. When will the tablets be out?

philthy 16y ago
What are your thoughts on the Pre3?
- newman314 16y ago
  Handled one. It's quite nice and I'll be getting one along with the TouchPad and Veer when they come out. Also, the Pre3 will be a world phone in 2 flavors: 1) CDMA (US) + GSM (RoW) 2) GSM (US + RoW)
- cheez 16y ago
  Didn't know it existed :D
- dpio 16y ago
  Handled one too. Will be acquiring at launch, with or without Sprint.
unwiredben 16y ago
From developer.palm.com: HP Veer planned availability this spring. HP TouchPad and HP Pre 3 planned availability this summer.
rbanffy 16y ago
The original Pre was a bit slow, but the Pre 2 is very fluid. I recommend you to try it out.
- cheez 16y ago
  Didn't know there was a sequel, will definitely give it a shot!

philthy 16y ago

Requested access about an hour ago. Excited.

brianwillis 16y ago

I've been thinking a bit about how the tablet game plays out over the next few months. Just for fun, here's some speculation: 1) Apple sells a crap ton of iPads. Their biggest problem will be that they can't make them fast enough. Don't whine to me about "openness" or the notifications system. They'll sell lots of them and we all know it. 2) HP gets the TouchPad into stores. There are no queues to buy one on day one, but it does OK in the first few weeks. Sells maybe a million units in the first three months. 3) Consumers shopping for a tablet are now faced with a choice: I can buy an iPad and wait four to five weeks for it to arrive (those are the times Apple's website is currently quoting), or I can buy a HP TouchPad and take it home today. For some, that'll be enough to bring them over to HP. 4) HP's TouchPad gets some traction. Enough to justify a version two. Nowhere near enough to knock Apple off it's perch. 5) HP does something badly wrong. One of the MBAs gets in the way, makes a decision he has no place making, and hands one of HP's competitors a major competitive advantage. Maybe they decide the TouchPad should be US only for the first year. Maybe they piss off developers in some creative way, so no-one writes apps for the platform. I don't know what they'll do, but I can't shake the feeling that they'll fuck it up somehow. 6) Android tablets come out too. Nerds like me buy them, while our grandmothers buy iPads and TouchPads. There are many more grandmothers in the world than nerds. Android tablets do badly. Attempting to explain this, reviewers looking at 2011 retrospectively will cite a confusing UI, a flash implementation that was promised but never materialised (or materialised in a broken state), and many of the same compatibility issues that we see now with Android phones. 7) Microsoft announces Windows 8 with a completely redesigned UI based on Metro. This UI will try to work just as well with the keyboard and mouse as it does on touch devices. Ballmer will use the phrase "bridging the gap" a lot.

aidenn0 16y ago
>Maybe they piss off developers in some creative way, so no-one writes apps for the platform. Already nobody writes apps for the platform; they need to do something right in a creative way to get people to even port iOS or android apps.
budwin 16y ago
> "One of the MBAs gets in the way, makes a decision he has no place making, and hands one of HP's competitors a major competitive advantage." This is kind of mean spirited. Why hate on the MBAs?

lukifer 16y ago

If any team has the right attitude and technology to out-Apple Apple, it's HPalm. I really hope they do well, and I can't wait to tinker with this SDK. My only peeve: no 7" WebOS tablet. It's a glaring hole in Apple's lineup, currently dominated by the Kindle and Nook Color, but which will be a gold mine for the first company to get it right. Blackberry has a chance with their PlayBook, especially if they're willing to keep iterating on both hardware and software.

tene 16y ago
According to the rumours, there will be a 7" WebOS tablet in September. http://www.precentral.net/hp-touchpad-targeting-june-release-priced-499-7-inch-coming-september http://www.precentral.net/hp-touchpad-targeting-june-release...

todd3834 16y ago

It seems the more options we have for a mobile OS, the more persuasive a web application vs native application becomes.

zmmmmm 16y ago
It's persuasive until you actually try and do it. Then you find that you can't make anything nearly as nice and it takes you 10 times as long to do it because you spend forever figuring out weird quirks of mobile browsers that make not much sense at all. At least that was my experience.
- ryanwatkins 16y ago
  Or you use the web technologies for a "native" app and focus only on the browser for that platform. Then port to others as needed, rather than trying to support them "all" from day one on a web app. Certainly a web app is usually still not as fast and responsive as a native app, but its getting much better. People used to say the same thing about web mail services - that they were not nearly as 'nice' as a native mail app. Now go look at how many people use Gmail and dont bother with a native mail client on their PC anymore.
- cpeterso 16y ago
  Consider how many iPhone apps are just "website silos", an app with an embedded UIWebView hosting a (live or static) website that looks like a native app. Also, the WebOS SDK allows developers to write native code plugins that can be called from JavaScript. So an app's high-level UI logic can be written by web developers productive with JavaScript and C++ developers can port legacy C++ code or optimize performance bottlenecks with WebOS plugins.

SingAlong 16y ago

Best part about the signup form was a comfortable option for the security question "What is your favourite programming language?", although a lot of my friends can guess it if I used the right answer, it's still a good try to give options related to the user.

forgotAgain 16y ago

HP is comparable to Apple in that they have complete control of their product. Yet I haven't seen anything that makes me believe that the management of HP is comparable to Apple. Installing webOS on all of their PC's strikes me as a really dumb idea. From what I've read they are not delivering quality PC's these days. Associating webOS with a poor product seems like a bad idea. Also I think a boot menu will confuse the heck out of a lot of people. It seems that they are desperate to show that they are doing something with the product and this is all they could do in a reasonable time frame. They have already owned Palm for a year and if that's all they got then I'm not impressed. The creativity of HP was seemingly gutted by Hurd and will need to be rebuilt. We can learn a lot from the troubles Microsoft is currently having updating their phone. An important key to success is turning out to be control of the devices after they are sold. Microsoft is apparently screwed because there are so many players in the process of releasing updates with each having a vote. First Microsoft develops the update but then the device manufacturer and the carrier have to agree to the release and can change the release to fit their own needs. That's not the case with Apple. They control everything. Successful product owners will need to mimic Apple and not Microsoft. They will need a management with stones in order to get that deal if it's even possible now that there are so many alternative products the carrier can provide. Android also has this issue as can be seen by the number of OS versions that a developer has to support. Where HP has an opportunity is in their enterprise connections. I think this will be a short lived advantage. HP would have to own this market before Microsoft launches an enterprise tablet and reluctance to change gives them the advantage. HP has a great opportunity because they bought a great product. The odds are better than even that they will blow it.

jdavid 16y ago

a few reasons WebOS is not done yet. * pre 3 will be fast, really fast * touch-to-share WebOS enabled devices can touch and share files. * somehow drobox is tied into WebOS 3 * Unity Union - Unity Technologies will help you port your game. * TouchPad - WebOS does multiple apps better than iOS. * WebOS is way better than ChromeOS. HP will use it on Netbooks.