When Palm initial denounced webOS in 2009, the new stage was ostensible to be the next mobile messiah.
With its voluptuous user interface, a developer-friendly backend and a horde of new features similar to multitasking and meeting Synergy , everybody was particular webOS would be the stage to renew the once-prominent PDA colonize company.
Of course, webOS has made up to be reduction of a Jesus than an L. Ron Hubbard, as the platform's subsequent to never rose on top of cult status.
As of November 2010, Palm's marketplace share of U.S. mobile platforms weighed in at a little 3.9 percent, according to a comScore inform . Sales of the Palm Pre - the flagship device on that webOS was initial shipped - were lackluster, with figures never violation the 1 million spot in the initial 3 months of the phone's release. Weigh that against the iPhone 3GS, that launched two weeks after the Pre. One million of Apple's handsets were sole in the initial 3 days after release.
Palm loyalists are praying for a comeback, and might see it at the arriving invite-only eventuality at Hewlett-Packard's San Francisco offices Feb. 9.
"The hope is that HP/Palm will be releasing a few new smartphone handsets together with tablets," says developer Justin Niessner in an talk with Wired.com. "If they flop to deliver, we know actually a few people - inclusive myself - that will be switching to a not similar mobile OS."
So what happened? Why did webOS appear so earnest and then drop prosaic on its face?
The mobile landscape hasn't always looked so grave for Palm's platform.
"WebOS introduced a sound growth embellishment that had the potential to capture developers," IDC program researcher Al Hilwa told Wired.com in an interview. "It has a well-spoken and liquid interface, with great skeleton similar to multitasking and a riches of features, creation it a sincerely easy stage to rise for."
Apps is to webOS stage are created essentially in JavaScript and HTML, programming languages used by developers to ethics is to web. So if you're already a web developer - and after the early days of the dot-com bang who isn't? - building apps for webOS is comparatively easy.
"Lots of people who wouldn't have instead created apps flocked to to webOS," developer Roy Sutton, who runs app growth educational site webos101.com, told Wired.com in an interview. "They could advance in and dock over a part of an existing web app to webOS in a matter of hours."
Alternatively, building for Apple's mobile working network requires learning its apparatus chain. That means learning Cocoa Touch, Apple's exclusive API for building iOS apps.
Another large pull is to developer crowd: "developer mode." After entering the Konami ethics whilst on the Pre's principal inactive launch screen, the phone becomes startlingly easy to hack.
"Users can setup anything from rags that change core functionality of webOS," says developer Justin Niessner, "to deputy kernels that capacitate a user to overclock their WebOS device."
Additionally, you can access and bucket "Homebrew" apps, or those still in beta from other developers, onto the Pre. While the Homebrew repertoire consists of a little 500+ beta apps, it's the type of access that appeals to the hacker sensibility.
Palm Pre users didn't have to attend to a few of the setbacks that Android OS enthusiasts ran in to with stage enlargement opposite multi-part hardware manufacturers. With Google's push to refurbish the OS an median of twice annual given debut, chronicle fragmentation problems have tormented both developers and consumers.
Indeed, Palm had captivated lots of positive consideration from the tech press at large after the Consumer Electronics Show announcement. While many doted over the sleek look of the new hardware, others (like Wired.com) wagered that webOS would be Palm's "secret sauce," the kicker that would set the Pre detached from other 2009 smartphone debuts.
But with every value webOS had in the undoubted mobile stage smorgasboard existing to consumers, there were only as many setbacks (if not actually a few more).
"The stage had such extensive hype and movement after it was voiced at CES 2009," says Sutton. "But it took us 6 months to see a product. In Silicon Valley time, that's an eternity." The Pre was all but deliberate vaporware by the time its June 6 launch date came around, only to have its rumble right away stolen by the iPhone 3GS, that launched before long afterward to ample consumer ado.
As is to phone itself, a few found the Pre's pattern lacking. "Palm unquestionably could have completed themselves a preference by releasing a few hardware with more modern pattern cues," Niessner says. "The shade was not as big than other comparable chic phones on the market. And the slide-out QWERTY set of keys was moreover really tough to use."
Even if you desired the pattern of the hardware, "The life motorcycle of the Pre and even the Pre Plus [eventual inheritor to the Pre] was short," says developer Peter Ma. " It couldn't grasp up with the number of iPhones and Android gadgets forthcoming out after it."
HTC's Nexus One, for instance, has a 1-GHz Snapdragon processor (compared to the Pre's 500 MHz), 512 MB of RAM (to the Pre's 256 MB) and a 5-megapixel camera (to the Pre's 3 megapixels) - it's shut to twice the phone that the Pre is. "While the viewed speed of the Palm Pre was acceptable," Niessner says, "the figures of course didn't do the hardware any favors."
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