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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Noriaki - Thursday, February 3, 2011 - link
It's nice to have the flexibility of Flash I suppose, but I have little use for it in practice and I usually don't have it installed on my Nexus One. I mostly find it to be a waste of battery.On the nexus one it's a market place app I can install/remove as I like. Is there some way to control/disable Flash support in webOS2 ?
mythun.chandra - Thursday, February 3, 2011 - link
You can enable/disable Flash support in the browser. Also, even if Flash support is enabled, you can toggle whether or not to load Flash content automatically on a page.Noriaki - Thursday, February 3, 2011 - link
Oh toggle to load automatically, I like that!Thanks for the info. I'm pretty interested to see what comes of webOS2.
tekeffect - Thursday, February 3, 2011 - link
I got the pre the day it came out. I liked the OS then but the build quality of that phone was shit. I will never understand how they put that much effort into making a OS and put it on the shittiest plastic/hardware they could find. I'm with Android now with no intention of leaving. I wonder how many people would be willing to go to Web OS after so much time.JHBoricua - Thursday, February 3, 2011 - link
I would, in an instant. But, only as long as the applications are there. That's the only reason I have an Optimus LG now, I got tired of HP dragging their behind and the lack of usable applications on the Pre. The application ecosystem on Webos is pathetic at this time. I couldn't care if coming February 9 HP shows some awesome hardware, if they won't have the apps behind the platform it will be the Pre all over again.I like WebOS. IMHO it beats Android and IOS hands down in terms of usability and the user interface experience is absolutely great, but what is the point if the apps are not there?
DigitalFreak - Thursday, February 3, 2011 - link
Exactly. It's a catch 22 really. Without the apps, people won't buy the phone. Without people buying the phone, developers won't create apps.While WebOS 2.0 may be technically better than Android, iOS, etc., having only one or two phones just isn't going to cut it.
retrospooty - Sunday, February 6, 2011 - link
"I will never understand how they put that much effort into making a OS and put it on the shittiest plastic/hardware they could find"I worked for Palm for 5 years from 02 to 07. They are never able to fire on all pistons at the same time to get anything meaningful done... Alot of good people there, but the management on the hardware/engineering side is useless.
My favorite quote from a Palm employee? "I have never seen so many smart people that truly care and are trying hard, go into a meeting together and come up with such stupid solutions"
firechiefsta - Monday, February 7, 2011 - link
That's the most perfect comment I have ever read about Palm. You nailed it right on, 100%. Great work.I've loved palm since the Vx days, but these last few years have been painful, to say the least.
Sad.
DigitalFreak - Thursday, February 3, 2011 - link
"Build quality aside, the Pre/Pre Plus had the innards to, at the very least, keep up with the competition of its time and the OMAP 3630 in the Pre 2 is the very same found in the capable and well received Droid X."The Droid X will be a year old soon (if it's not already). HP should be releasing a Pre 2 with next gen hardware if they really want to capture any meaningful amount of market share. Being an also ran isn't going to work.
mythun.chandra - Thursday, February 3, 2011 - link
I get that the 3630 isn't exactly the "in" thing...quite far from it. But I honestly feel that the the pace at which mobile CPU's are jumping forward every couple of months in terms of performance, soon we will be reaching a plateau in terms of how much CPU power we really need in a 3.5-4" device. Look at the desktop/notebook sector...apart from the Atom's, when was the last time you really felt the CPU was slowing you down?IMHO, the hardware needs to complement and be able to support the software it's driving. Now whether this means using a slow, low-power CPU with a software stack that almost entirely depends on the GPU (a la Nokia N8), or have it balanced like in case of the Pre 2 and webOS 2.0. At the end of it, it is the experience of using the device that really counts, not whether the CPU underneath is running at 1 or 1.5Ghz.
That being said, the upcoming HP/Palm tablets should also whet your appetite fo raw CPU power :)