I Love WebOS Because…

PreDoodle via PreCentral

I can pin down my love for webOS to one simple function.  I’m in an app, say Twitter, and I tap on the gesture area, freezing the app and throwing it into card view. I scroll over to the messaging app, type out a quick text to my husband, tap the gesture area again, scroll back to Twitter. Three taps.  It doesn’t sound nearly as impressive as it is.  Consider this, in Android, I’m in Twitter, want to text my husband. I  click on Home, navigate to my messaging app, select it, select the conversation I’m having with him, type out the message, long press on the home key, and select my Twitter app.  It’s not just the number of clicks it takes to get from one place to another, it’s the eye candy while I’m doing it.  It’s the complete control over what is open and running at any one time – viewable all with a simple tap on the gesture area.

There are other reasons I love webOS, though none as poignant as multitasking.  I love that swiping from right to left in the gesture area always takes me back one level – no matter what app I’m in. I love that I have control over main settings by tapping on the top bar – toggle wifi, adjust brightness, toggle Bluetooth, airplane mode… I love that there are keyboard shortcuts that can be configured to do common OS tasks.  Oh wait, I didn’t mention notifications, I LOVE webOS notifications. They pop up in the bottom of my screen and then minimize themselves.  I can swipe them away once I’ve seen them, tap them to open, and even apply a patch to be able to delete an email right from the notification!!! 

Another  thing I love about webOS - there is no “rooting” or “jailbreaking”.  In order to gain root access to the phone, one need only turn on Developer Mode.  There’s a cool little Kunami code to do so.  Palm provides an image to restore a phone to stock in case one messes it up.  There are no ROMs to apply, only patches, themes, kernels, and apps. In Android, one applies a ROM and is at the mercy of the developer to add whatever features he sees fit.  In webOS, I can browse through Preware and install whatever patches I like.  For instance, I have a patch that adds the date next to the clock in the top bar.  There are any number of patches to add/delete functions in the top bar menu for easy access within any app. I have a patch that allows me to add additional labels to contacts, count the number of characters in my text messages, delete all text messages with one button, open the clock to the alarm screen, add an icon in the top bar when my hardware ringer switch is active…  There are hundreds of patches to choose from, and many developers willing to create patches on request. Because I’m only installing small changes to my phone, the OS is incredibly stable.  Unlike my ROMs in Android – which require reflashing on a regular basis, patches remain stable until the OS is updated. Meaning, I can spend a whole lot less time hacking, and a lot more time being productive on my phone.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the community in a list of things I love about webOS.  Android fans are incredulous at how webOS consistently beats out Android in OS wars. How can this be, everyone knows that Android is superior.  Maybe, maybe not.  But Android does not have the committed fan base that webOS has.  WebOS users are a very tight knit group, constantly engaging on Twitter and PreCentral.  There aren’t as many avenues for webOS fans to share, and so it is easy to mobilize the group to vote in these kinds of contests.  I expect that ANY Android smartphone manufacturer would kill to have a fan base like Palm has.  Additionally, start tweeting about webOS phones, and you’ll instantly gain a following of other webOS fans.  That isn’t the case in any other smartphone platform.

For these reasons, I consider myself a Palm faithful fan (this should be evident by my inability to refer to webOS in the context of HP). I look forward to the release of new hardware and am hopeful for the growth of the platform.  It isn’t all unicorns and rainbows though… check out my post on The Things that Worry Me About WebOS.