Comments on: TealOS Brings a webOS Experience to Palm OS

You are mistaken. Even with CF, the LD is a laggy piece of crap. I can wait up to ten seconds at times to switch from Calendar to, say, Memos or SmartDOC. It torments my short-term memory.

It'd probably work better on your TX.

1) Palm III: Bought by myself, not off ebay, new; dropped, screen smashed(!!)
2) Sony CLIE S320: a gift
3) Tungsten WTF - the 320x320 one: long-term loaner that died
4) LifeDrive: HD died on owner, bought off ebay

You can also add:

5) Everex FreeStyle Palm-sized PC: off ebay, because. What garbage!!
6) Toshiba GENIO: off ebay. So lovely, then the screen died!!

And the GENIO keyboard, plus a portable BT keyboard, plus the Palm keyboard for the Tungsten.

7) Nokia 770 Anti-Internet Tablet: a disease transmitted for free by Nokia

I think that's it.

Now, what do your files say about my feet?

the Pre's big allure for me is the internet browser, Wifi, GPS, advanced BT, fast processor, huge memory, and huge screen. all of which can't be added with a software hack.

... iPhone?

-Bosco
m105 -> NX70v -> NX80v -> iPhone -> iPhone 3G

Since when is the Pre on your buying list?! You did nothing but wail wail wail about the lack of Garnet compatibility!

Well, that and pimping Sprint's Everything Plan.

"last night i had a weird dream that i had webOS running on my centro. it had the cards and the wave launcher and everything. and then i woke up in a cold sweat."

The Pre?

... run the HTML5 Javascript environment.

What happens when you try to run an HTML5 heavy web page on a Centro?

The rest is just window dressing.

That's a top idea. I'm thinking webOS's first hack?

Just do-> /ignore

In case you missed the end of the article you linked to:

Moving forward, once the Pre is available, we don't anticipate anyone choosing to keep TealOS as a long term as a substitute for an actual WebOS device. Instead, it's much more likely to just whet someone's appetite for the real thing. After all, a good interface is a good interface, and even in its rough TealOS-emulated form, the WebOS interface really shines.

As others have said, there's a lot in WebOS that can't be duplicated on a POS 5 device. Sure, it'll take about a month (if that) to imitate TealOS on an iPhone/iPod Touch, but the underlying architecture of WebOS is what makes the Pre attractive. Slapping a skin on an iPhone won't suddenly give the iPhone the web-centric appeal that the Pre is going for. And it certainly won't give the iPhone the Pre's hardware specs. (And let's not even get into copy and paste...)

The Pre is obviously not perfect. The lack of an SD card slot and relatively cramped onboard memory is a major drawback. Having said that, it appears to be a real contender against the iPhone, outpacing it on several specs.

You mean the =application= that surfs the web and gathers information from N sites (N quite small - like 3 - right now) to display later?

That's not all that the app does. It also assembles the information and updates what needs to be updated. In addition to that, it synthesizes the information so that your GPS capability is linked in to your calendar and e-mail, etc.

Yes, only a few sources can be synched with the Pre right now, but that won't last very long. The synthesizing of different site information is a good enough idea that it's all but certain to be widely implemented. Who wouldn't want their contacts to be updated automatically with the most current information from all such sites, giving them a complete view of their contact information in one place?

You mean multitasking?

Who cares!? (and that is a literal based-from-fact-on-what-endusers-actually-do question)

You're kidding, right? Multitasking is a big deal, because it allows people to use mobile devices the same way they use their desktops and laptops. Or don't you think people want to be able to do something as basic (basic in a laptop or desktop, that is) as playing music while composing an e-mail or texting?

You mean using certain gestures to zoom and compress the view?

Well, no. That is a strictly UI issue, and I can agree that it's not that big a deal, other than maybe for Web browsing.

Don't NEED no stinkin' MySQL behind the scenes.

Need? Maybe not. But MySQL behind the scenes means that a lot of developers will be able to hit the ground running. MySQL has a fairly significant following.

I think Palm is considering their options RIGHT NOW about how to quash this. Because if it ws THAT easy to mimick the UI so thoroughly it'll be THAT easy to mimick the actual "underlying functionality".

Even if TealOS did accurately create the UI of WebOS (which it doesn't completely succeed in doing), there would be no reason for Palm to want to quash it. The Pre has a lot more than the UI going for it - especially for the people who will install TealOS. Palm hasn't updated its OS in 5 years. Do you really think people will keep a 5-year old operating system, with all its limitations (which we've gone over on this forum ad nauseum) just because there's an app that puts a shiny new face on it? Are you serious?

I'm not even so sure there'd be a market for this kind of thing on the iPhone/iPod Touch. What would the point be? I'm not sure it provides a significant advantage over the iPhone's standard launcher. You might make a better argument for it on a WinMob device (since they can multitask, and the WinMob UI does seem to lag behind), but not on the iPhone.

And none of them will get approved. Apple doesn't allow third party launchers.

Now that said, I do think it's safe to say that the webOS interface and infrastructure seem simple enough that it probably did not take Palm all that long to build it. Which combined with other factors (like the Garnet license they acquired) suggest that they were working on something else, and ended up having to scrap their original plan in favor of building something simpler.

Done.

Now some enterprising PalmOS developer just creates a SINGLE app that can surf the 'Net, gather info from N web sites, package and display it all together, and ... tada! ... totally done.

And that's no kidding at all.

Ya don't need no stinkin' browser to surf and gather.

Oh.

Wait!

Multitasking!

Uh...pardon...but that's literally known to be unimportant in the general case, though Marketeers like to pretend it means something. Don't EVER forget what the generic smartphone user uses their phones for - phone, email, messaging, PIM (like calendar) - that's IT.

I betcha Palm stomps on this fast. they don't need their target market spending $15 for this and another $10 for the "'Net Gatherer" app and using it on their perfectly-fine old PalmOS devices...

Huh? Weren't you around when Palm OS 4 had Hacks?
http://prepoint.wordpress.com/2009/02/21/the-flow-of-webos/

All you're being given are screensnaps of recently-used apps. How is that different than being sent back to the Launcher itself, where more than one icon is immediately available?

All you're being given are screensnaps of recently-used apps. How is that different than being sent back to the Launcher itself, where more than one icon is immediately available?

The hacks you speak of did not keep you at the point in the program that these cards do. If I remember right, the hacks just gave you the ability to open a program from within another program. From what I've experienced so far I can leave a program, open another and return where I left off the first. I don't recall ever being able to do this with palm. It's more like a minimize feature.

FYI, I installed it on a TT2 tonight and it was MUCH slower then on my TX.

The last known classic PDA user.

I still like the TealOS app.

The last known classic PDA user.

All you're being given are screensnaps of recently-used apps. How is that different than being sent back to the Launcher itself, where more than one icon is immediately available?

Granted, I didn't give it a serious effort and I am an "old dog", but I couldn't see how this UI would beat my ZLauncher setup for efficiency. I'm not saying it's worse, just that I can't see how it is really better. Of course YMMV.

Now if eye-candy is your thing......


"twrock is infamous around these parts" (from my profile over at Brighthand due to my negative 62 rep points rating)

It has remapped my hang-up button to make it a home button (on Treo650). Thus I can't turn off the phone radio or the phone itself while using this OS.

Otherwise - wow. I think I'd buy it if they fixed the above. Something about the wave that makes it more appealing than holding down the home button.

So look at this. Gekko is now in Phake Pre Heaven.

And no, you *never* said you were going to *get* one. You just foamed at the lips about Palm having to "crank it out" - probably because your entire 401K is sunk in Palm stock.

And it works well too. Nice little halo around selected icon. Done - I'm registering

Palm's Preh has dumped the baby with the bathwater, and as pretty as it looks - it has nothing to do with Palm as we knew it best. It is "Palm" in name only. It could just as well been from Microsoft, Apple, Sony or some Chinese coders, in which case the Palm fanboys would barely give it a second look. But because Palm releases something that has no PalmOS legacy support we're supposed to get all excited and throw away all our applications just because this one is Pre-tty?!?

I'm gonna check out this TealOS for kicks. Anything that keeps me happy until StyleTap or someone gets an emulator out and Palm relents and includes a MicroSD slot is only toward the good.

Palm "Preh": as in "eh, where's the microSD and Garnet emulator?"

http://palmgadget.com/palminvi.html

And if you got your nose out of iPhone sites for a spell, you'd see Palm is making the right moves:
http://prepoint.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/palm-hires-pre-sdk-developer-community-manager/

This is the first phone that can not only compete against the iPhone, but even prevent me from getting an iPhone.

And that it comes from Palm - who was just about *dead* - well, what does that say for Samsung, Sony, HTC, Nokia, and the rest of them with money to spend like Gekko in a cathouse?

And see:
CSS/HTML/JavaScript: What's Possible?
http://prepoint.wordpress.com/2009/02/21/csshtmljavascript-whats-possible/

Maybe it didn't take off in the iPhone's case because Apple was Doing It Wrong?

It'll be interesting to see what Apple has up its sleeve. But with Jobs on his LOA, the rumor mills have gone just about dead. Pardon that expression.

Unfortunately, I don't think it is. You're oversimplifying the programming process. As far as I can tell, all interviewees, when asked about webOS development, stated, "It's nice, but we want a full SDK." Meanwhile, a full SDK is available on other platforms (including iYou-Know-What).

-Bosco
m105 -> NX70v -> NX80v -> iPhone -> iPhone 3G