Well if HTC doesn't buy WebOS, they may end up with meego or their own in house OS. If they want to stop paying such hefty royalties for Android while at the same time protect themselves from that Motorola acquisition ... they need to do something. HTC has the potential to provide the sexy hardware to webOS that HP could not. The culture of innovation at HTC trumps HP imo, and I think they could actually pull of a third time's the charm with WebOS. Whatever Wang does, she will go full force with it and pull it off...just like she did getting first to market with touch screens.
Have faith in the Wang.
HP is a much bigger company than HtC. they have no problem keeping up with the rest of the market hardware wise
In turn, one could argue that memorizing Palm's array of non-standard gestures is more complicated then simply pressing "home" when you're done with an app or "back" if you want to go back a screen.
If anything, Android and iOS are most like windows. Minimize the app and click an icon to start another one. That's what people are familiar with, not Palm's way.
I will not argue that Palm's way isn't brilliant... just not any "easier".
I don't think anyone is saying that WebOS is any easier to use, just that it's more intuitive. Most people who have used WebOS for any extensive period of time will say that the functionality just makes sense. With any device you're going to have to use it a while before figuring out how it works and being able to use it efficiently. Just like using a real keyboard vs touch-screen keyboard, eventually you'll get used to it either way, no matter what your initial preference is. I always felt that WebOS did a really great job of compartmentalizing your experience in a way that makes it so it's not just the operating system that is multitasking, it's making it easier for your brain to multitask along with it. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't run into a situation with my Android where I wish I could just see what another app is doing without taking the risk of it closing or resetting automatically when I switch back. When I open the task manager, not all of the apps that are running show up in the list, even though I know they are running. And at least with WebOS I know when a program is running in the background, because it will quickly display an icon or message in my notifications. From my experience, Andoid and iOS are still very linear in the way apps are handled, you essentially have only one screen showing at a time. WebOS doesn't allow you to manipulate app windows quite as complexly as you can with any modern desktop OS, but it's certainly a huge step up from the other platforms.
There's just a fundamental difference between the platforms. In Android, you're always multitasking. Unless you force an application to quit, it's going to maintain its last state (and for apps that run services, their services will continue to run), regardless of whether it's still in active memory or it's halted entirely and its state is saved down to the device storage. "Seeing what another app is doing" is as simple as launching the application. Unless the app is coded poorly, there's no reason for it to reset just because you hit the home button and launched something else.
Stuff that's actively being used in the background can also drop information into the notification bar. Spotify, while playing, shows song information there; Tasker shows which current profiles are active; Email displays a notification if you have new mails; Twitter shows if you have new messages or mentions.
Does that make sense? Basically, you can safely assume that unless you reboot your phone, your applications should always be exactly where you left them.
There's just a fundamental difference between the platforms. In Android, you're always multitasking. Unless you force an application to quit, it's going to maintain its last state (and for apps that run services, their services will continue to run), regardless of whether it's still in active memory or it's halted entirely and its state is saved down to the device storage. "Seeing what another app is doing" is as simple as launching the application. Unless the app is coded poorly, there's no reason for it to reset just because you hit the home button and launched something else.
That is not the case for me. Apps that are running in the background will close sometimes and they don't always go back to the same state when they re-open. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but it seems to be effected by how much memory is being used, because if I ever open Firefox, I can count on everything that's running in the background closing, because Firefox is a memory hog. Also, Firefox itself never goes back to the previous state it was in, not ever. I can always tell when the phone runs out of memory because the launcher reloads when I press the home key. Perhaps this is something that is only an issue with Samsung phones, but I can definitely tell you that has not been my experience. With WebOS I could always count on my apps staying in the exact state I left them in when switching to other apps, and would not close until I flicked them off the screen.
Stuff that's actively being used in the background can also drop information into the notification bar. Spotify, while playing, shows song information there; Tasker shows which current profiles are active; Email displays a notification if you have new mails; Twitter shows if you have new messages or mentions.
Yeah, I understand how that works, but with WebOS the icon would pop up briefly even if there weren't any new notifications, just to let me know that it was checking for updates in the background. I liked that. I suppose it would probably be a better feature if it were an option, either way.
Does that make sense? Basically, you can safely assume that unless you reboot your phone, your applications should always be exactly where you left them.
It doesn't make any sense, I really wish that were the case.
I *have* found that browsers can be an exception to this rule, particularly with multi-tab workflows - if a browser has three tabs open in the background and it's forced to close, it will often only reopen the tab you were actively looking at, not the other two. You're saying that FF doesn't even retain its last-viewed tab, though?
That I dunno. FF definitely is a memory hog, though.
I'm pretty sure that restoring it's tabs when relaunched is something that needs to be handled by the browser developer. That would put the browser issue firmly in the "not an Android problem" column. Also, Firefox is a massive memory hog on Android (and has an insane install footprint compared to, say, Dolphin HD). One shouldn't be surprised that launching it causes background tasks to die. That's what the Android core is supposed to do, leave things in memory until that memory is needed elsewhere, then kill it.
Any time a redraw occurs (browser, launcher, whatever), it's a memory issue. Much of the time it's because the phone's manufacturer did not properly optimize the out-of-memory (OOM) groupings for the kernel. A shockingly high number of phones don't actually allocate the correct amount of RAM to userspace applications, even when there's plenty of RAM to spare.
Android actually uses a priority system with 5 or 6 thresholds. It'd look something like 6-18-25-75-150, with each one representing a point at which applications started to get closed or docked in NAND. For example, if the phone dips below 150MB real free RAM, it'd start closing the first batch of apps. If it goes below 75, the next group goes. In the OOM groups, I believe it's the third number that's most important for keeping user applications (like browsers) from redrawing, and many OEMs set this value way too low. On the Motorola Droid, for example, it's literally the difference between redrawing the launcher every time you hit home and never redrawing at all... ever.
Now, there are situations where the application is actually to blame. But what I just described is incredibly common on any device with 512MB (or less) of RAM. There are community-created scripts to fix it, but they require a rooted phone.
I have connected with my colleagues and they have indicated that this is a broad agreement and provides the rights to any Microsoft patents that are infringed by HTC’s smartphones running the Android Mobile Platform.
Best,
~~~~~~
~~~~~ | Waggener Edstrom Worldwide | 503.443.7070 | ~~~@waggeneredstrom.com | Microsoft News Center
A shame for the Palm platform indeed, I still bring my Palm with me, even though I have the new Android Galaxy 2 model. I just hope Palm dies a peaceful death, because that is where they are headed.
My salutations to my first true mobile smart phone.
Comments
I don't think anyone is saying that WebOS is any easier to use, just that it's more intuitive. Most people who have used WebOS for any extensive period of time will say that the functionality just makes sense. With any device you're going to have to use it a while before figuring out how it works and being able to use it efficiently. Just like using a real keyboard vs touch-screen keyboard, eventually you'll get used to it either way, no matter what your initial preference is. I always felt that WebOS did a really great job of compartmentalizing your experience in a way that makes it so it's not just the operating system that is multitasking, it's making it easier for your brain to multitask along with it. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't run into a situation with my Android where I wish I could just see what another app is doing without taking the risk of it closing or resetting automatically when I switch back. When I open the task manager, not all of the apps that are running show up in the list, even though I know they are running. And at least with WebOS I know when a program is running in the background, because it will quickly display an icon or message in my notifications. From my experience, Andoid and iOS are still very linear in the way apps are handled, you essentially have only one screen showing at a time. WebOS doesn't allow you to manipulate app windows quite as complexly as you can with any modern desktop OS, but it's certainly a huge step up from the other platforms.
Stuff that's actively being used in the background can also drop information into the notification bar. Spotify, while playing, shows song information there; Tasker shows which current profiles are active; Email displays a notification if you have new mails; Twitter shows if you have new messages or mentions.
Does that make sense? Basically, you can safely assume that unless you reboot your phone, your applications should always be exactly where you left them.
That is not the case for me. Apps that are running in the background will close sometimes and they don't always go back to the same state when they re-open. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but it seems to be effected by how much memory is being used, because if I ever open Firefox, I can count on everything that's running in the background closing, because Firefox is a memory hog. Also, Firefox itself never goes back to the previous state it was in, not ever. I can always tell when the phone runs out of memory because the launcher reloads when I press the home key. Perhaps this is something that is only an issue with Samsung phones, but I can definitely tell you that has not been my experience. With WebOS I could always count on my apps staying in the exact state I left them in when switching to other apps, and would not close until I flicked them off the screen.
Yeah, I understand how that works, but with WebOS the icon would pop up briefly even if there weren't any new notifications, just to let me know that it was checking for updates in the background. I liked that. I suppose it would probably be a better feature if it were an option, either way.
It doesn't make any sense, I really wish that were the case.
That I dunno. FF definitely is a memory hog, though.
Android actually uses a priority system with 5 or 6 thresholds. It'd look something like 6-18-25-75-150, with each one representing a point at which applications started to get closed or docked in NAND. For example, if the phone dips below 150MB real free RAM, it'd start closing the first batch of apps. If it goes below 75, the next group goes. In the OOM groups, I believe it's the third number that's most important for keeping user applications (like browsers) from redrawing, and many OEMs set this value way too low. On the Motorola Droid, for example, it's literally the difference between redrawing the launcher every time you hit home and never redrawing at all... ever.
Now, there are situations where the application is actually to blame. But what I just described is incredibly common on any device with 512MB (or less) of RAM. There are community-created scripts to fix it, but they require a rooted phone.
Hi Dan,
I have connected with my colleagues and they have indicated that this is a broad agreement and provides the rights to any Microsoft patents that are infringed by HTC’s smartphones running the Android Mobile Platform.
Best,
~~~~~~
~~~~~ | Waggener Edstrom Worldwide | 503.443.7070 | ~~~@waggeneredstrom.com | Microsoft News Center
My salutations to my first true mobile smart phone.