WebOS versus iOS...

when webos was first announced years ago, it was a fresh and exciting change from iphone os. it had multitasking, better notifications, and an all around polish that matched the iphone's. android wasn't even at version 1.5, and the whole droid marketing blitz hadn't happened yet. with the iphone stuck to at&t in the us, i think it was the perfect time for palm to enter the market. so what happened?

six months passed before the product came to market, and it did so a week or two before the announcement of the next iphone. whatever initial consumer interest there was quickly disappeared, and the pre never caught traction. webos further lacked strong third party app support, and it was tied to sprint exclusively for far too long (it should have launched across multiple carriers, or at the very least a larger one like verizon). i like webos, i really do, but it isn't hard to see why it failed so miserably.

fast-forward to today, and i'm having a hard time seeing what's changed.

a new webos and a new pre is announced in the beginning of the year, and it isn't expected to ship until summer, the same timeframe as the annual iphone update. the third party apps are still no match for what's available in the app store, and it looks like 2009 all over again. too little, much too late.

i've not even mentioned the veer or the touchpad. they do merit discussion, but i'm hesitant to say more when the op has said so little. op, you start a thread and ask for discussion when contributing none yourself. do YOU have opinions on webos vs ios? if so, please share.

 

Agreed with the above.

Also, a lot of WebOS fans simply asked for a phone with a big honking display, onscreen keyboard and fast guts. We're still waiting.

It's too bad that phones don't all have a common hardware API. I'd love to have WebOS on an iPhone or HTC chassis.

 

I just go rid of my Palm Pre a couple of weeks ago for an iP4. It's such a breath of fresh air to be back in the Apple ecosystem. Web OS has far superior notifications, no doubt. It's a little hard to come back to having texts pop up in the middle of GPS or gaming, but I'm sure Apple will address this with iOS5.

Overall though, Palm doesn't update enough, only has a handful of apps in the store, indescribably difficult (almost impossible) copy and paste, poor build quality (had to service my phone 3 times for plastic buttons falling out or coming loose), pre-loaded bloatware apps that CANNOT be uninstalled, and finally, my biggest, unbelievably dismal battery life.

I'm super happy I switched back.

 

Notification system wise.. WebOS > iOS.
Otherwise, iOS is definitely better. I'm hoping that iOS 5 will be a huge upgrade, especially for notification because this will be 5 years late.

 

When I had both my Palm Pre and Palm Pixi I was a happy user, but always missed the lack of app support for WebOS.

A simple eBay app could not be natively downloaded on WebOS, but I had to buy a 3rd party app to play the role of eBay. If WebOs had the compatible apps that I use in my iPhone 4 then perhaps I would try again WebOS, but at the time I had these devices they (WebOS app community), only had like 3,000 apps available compared to like 100,000 iOS apps at that time, now almost 300,000 in 2011

 

There's a possibility the sun may supernova tomorrow, time to start putting things in order?

 

Think WebOS is a good OS that needs to be put on better hardware. HP/Plam hardware are wack.

 

Seriously?

WebOS has a handful of apps compared to the over 300,000 IOS apps.

My phone needs the medical apps
I use my phone 70% looking things up
20% text
10% phone

 

I agree. I honestly love my Palm Pre Plus, but I use my iPhone about 75% of the time with nearly the rest of my time on Android devices. I'm expecting a lot from HP though, I hope they don't let me down!

 

I think WebOS is going to need some better hardware before it starts to grow. Its a decent OS (although, not something I would prefer), but put it on some decent hardware first.