OS market too full for webOS?

[T-Pad]

Originally Posted by mattmers

BB 10
Open webOS
Sailfish OS
Tizen OS (forgotten in the original list)
and now Ubuntu mobile os

What do these have in common?
AFAIK all of them support QT - an interesting question is how much effort it takes to make an app running on all of these operating systems? There could evolve some sort of platform independence and maybe a common app store - just an idea, I don't think this will happen.

[geekpeter]

Originally Posted by dignitary

The best part is when he fell for it; I was largely just giving k4ever a hard time there since I'm just fine with a good app taking the place of having to browse the actual site if it means I'm getting a properly optimized and feature-filled experience for the form factor. (Hello, Twitter and Facebook clients.)

In any case, I can't speak for Netflix and their desktop strategy; they know what they're doing, so who the hell knows what they'll do after Silverlight goes dark. Keep in mind that DRM on a PC/Mac is easier to circumvent due to easy access to the filesystem versus mobile and set-top (Wii, GoogleTV, etc). That's why Silverlight's been their go-to technology so far. Chances are, they've already got something in the pipeline.

well, their strategy for netflix for windows only (coz the netflix ceo is on the microsoft board of directors) has already been shattered, theres been a netflix for ubuntu (via a custom wine that actually works with their silverlight - wine-compholio) for a month or more now, shame its x86 only ofc.

[k4ever]

Originally Posted by T-Pad

What do these have in common?
AFAIK all of them support QT - an interesting question is how much effort it takes to make an app running on all of these operating systems? There could evolve some sort of platform independence and maybe a common app store - just an idea, I don't think this will happen.

Three of the four, including Android, are mobile Linux operating systems. They should be able to share more than just apps.

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk 2

[k4ever]

Originally Posted by dignitary

The best part is when he fell for it; I was largely just giving k4ever a hard time there since I'm just fine with a good app taking the place of having to browse the actual site if it means I'm getting a properly optimized and feature-filled experience for the form factor. (Hello, Twitter and Facebook clients.)

In any case, I can't speak for Netflix and their desktop strategy; they know what they're doing, so who the hell knows what they'll do after Silverlight goes dark. Keep in mind that DRM on a PC/Mac is easier to circumvent due to easy access to the filesystem versus mobile and set-top (Wii, GoogleTV, etc). That's why Silverlight's been their go-to technology so far. Chances are, they've already got something in the pipeline.

I'm not down with restricting a platform from having a capability simply because it is not on a list of platforms you want to exploit. I also truly believe in the openess of the web and its services. If an app is not available for a platform then allow the website to work. More precisely the website should work whether there is an app available or not.

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk 2

[getsun]

Agree completely. I'm glad there are choices.

Originally Posted by Rnp

... and I continue using my Pre³ as default. Simple & practical.

... need devices, need spread in all world... because the webOS is good enough to market.

[xandros9]

What would be really nice was if apps were portable from platform to platform, ecosystem to ecosystem, but that will never happen, so i think thats a problem

sigh

[Grabber5.0]

Yeah, as nice as that would be for consumers, closed app markets will not allow that to happen. Perhaps among open markets for the open OSes that could happen.

[rnld]

Originally Posted by xandros9

What would be really nice was if apps were portable from platform to platform, ecosystem to ecosystem, but that will never happen, so i think thats a problem

sigh

Don't most app designers make apps for the platforms that are being used by a large base?

[geekpeter]

Originally Posted by xandros9

What would be really nice was if apps were portable from platform to platform, ecosystem to ecosystem, but that will never happen, so i think thats a problem

sigh

Originally Posted by rnld

Don't most app designers make apps for the platforms that are being used by a large base?

think he means getting an app on say an iphone and then moving to an android phone and reaquiring the same app purchashed on the other device/os?

which tbh is what html5 apps shouldnt be far off in theory, still wouldnt happen tho, companies want more ££/$$ so they want us ofc to buy the same thing on different devices/os's, unfortunatly cant see it happening anytime soon.

[daexpression]

To be honest developers in general develop apps as an occupation. It puts food on the table. So how would allowing the app to be portable from one platform to another be of value to them? I honestly cannot think of one. And no developer would want to be responsible for porting the user ID/ database, historical infromation for the user. What if data was lost? the developer would not want to take up the responsibility just for a couple of dollars.

Back to the issue of whether OpenOS can survive in this mobile OS crowd. As of right now in the current state : which is --- a. No hardware. b. OpenOS is still inferior even to WebOS v3. c. No support from HP. d. No clear end-direction. e. dying ecosystem. f. dying and inferior devices.

My prognosis : 5% chance of OpenOS in the current state to survive past 1 year / grow in prominence. OpenOS is not like some Linux variant which I can run on a intel /pc hardware. The hardware design is quite closed, the drivers are closed and complicated and unless gram or HP makes available an optimised hardware reference to OEMS to design their own - it's getting close to endgame for webos as much as I like the interface and the whole user experience.

[Herrie]

Originally Posted by daexpression

To be honest developers in general develop apps as an occupation. It puts food on the table. So how would allowing the app to be portable from one platform to another be of value to them? I honestly cannot think of one. And no developer would want to be responsible for porting the user ID/ database, historical infromation for the user. What if data was lost? the developer would not want to take up the responsibility just for a couple of dollars.

Back to the issue of whether OpenOS can survive in this mobile OS crowd. As of right now in the current state : which is --- a. No hardware. b. OpenOS is still inferior even to WebOS v3. c. No support from HP. d. No clear end-direction. e. dying ecosystem. f. dying and inferior devices.

My prognosis : 5% chance of OpenOS in the current state to survive past 1 year / grow in prominence. OpenOS is not like some Linux variant which I can run on a intel /pc hardware. The hardware design is quite closed, the drivers are closed and complicated and unless gram or HP makes available an optimised hardware reference to OEMS to design their own - it's getting close to endgame for webos as much as I like the interface and the whole user experience.

Sorry you're a bit wrong here.

a. There is hardware, even though not specifically designed for Open webOS, it can run it. See the various ports coming already (Nexus, Nexus 7 etc).

b. Yes correct.

c. HP/Gram are still continuously updating Open webOS to add new features etc.

d. Yes correct.

e. Yes correct.

f. Yes, however Veer, Pre3 and Touchpad are quite good compared to earlier devices, but they do get old.

You CAN run Open webOS on your PC, no problem! Drivers being closed is not HP's fault, it's the fault of the chipset/device manufacturers. The ones that are open can run Open webOS without too much hassle.

[daexpression]

Originally Posted by Herrie

Sorry you're a bit wrong here.

a. There is hardware, even though not specifically designed for Open webOS, it can run it. See the various ports coming already (Nexus, Nexus 7 etc).

b. Yes correct.

c. HP/Gram are still continuously updating Open webOS to add new features etc.

d. Yes correct.

e. Yes correct.

f. Yes, however Veer, Pre3 and Touchpad are quite good compared to earlier devices, but they do get old.

You CAN run Open webOS on your PC, no problem! Drivers being closed is not HP's fault, it's the fault of the chipset/device manufacturers. The ones that are open can run Open webOS without too much hassle.

a. As much as there are ports coming Nexus and Nexus 7..simply said it's still primarily for hackers/ geeks. It's not a mass release product. And the problem lies with HP/ Gram, expecting volunteers to get a working port and probably not putting their effort into it.

c. Point C. As much as they're continuously upgrading webos with new features...these are features primarily to get it up to capability to webos 3.0. Will it be on part with say Android 4.x? - I can safely say no. However I do think Openos has the cleanest and best UI even compared to 4.x android.

On the issue of drivers. There are Linux drivers (available from android). The fact is back to the issue of low level driver programming capabilities. I do not expect these to be available readily - but at least HP/Gram should have these people in the team to help say the OpenOS ports team to improve the drivers etc? No?

The mobile market is moving so fast...and in this current sprint - webos is far behind all the existing mobile OS with a Ubuntu nipping it's heels.

Solutions that I can see.
1. HP to release reference mobile devices for OEM to copy.
2. Gram to state clearly their upcoming programs/ efforts and timelines
3. At least the professional edition of Open OS to be ready to be ported into a standard device.
(all these must happen within the next six - 9 months.)

[Herrie]

Originally Posted by daexpression

a. As much as there are ports coming Nexus and Nexus 7..simply said it's still primarily for hackers/ geeks. It's not a mass release product. And the problem lies with HP/ Gram, expecting volunteers to get a working port and probably not putting their effort into it.

c. Point C. As much as they're continuously upgrading webos with new features...these are features primarily to get it up to capability to webos 3.0. Will it be on part with say Android 4.x? - I can safely say no. However I do think Openos has the cleanest and best UI even compared to 4.x android.

On the issue of drivers. There are Linux drivers (available from android). The fact is back to the issue of low level driver programming capabilities. I do not expect these to be available readily - but at least HP/Gram should have these people in the team to help say the OpenOS ports team to improve the drivers etc? No?

The mobile market is moving so fast...and in this current sprint - webos is far behind all the existing mobile OS with a Ubuntu nipping it's heels.

Solutions that I can see.
1. HP to release reference mobile devices for OEM to copy.
2. Gram to state clearly their upcoming programs/ efforts and timelines
3. At least the professional edition of Open OS to be ready to be ported into a standard device.
(all these must happen within the next six - 9 months.)

I think you shouldn't forget is that HP committed to a very challenging timeline to get Open webOS out to the market.

They DID delivered pretty much every every milestone on track which was very challenging due to the number of people leaving the various teams and finding replacements for those.

Is 1.0 perfect? No it isn't, it was merely stripped down 3.0.x with a lots of updated and standardized stuff in order for it to be a solid foundation for future. Are there bugs or things that need fixing: Yes for sure. A lot of things were done in a "hackish" way in the past due to QT/WebKit limitations that now can be addressed properly with newer QT and WebKit.

These kinds of hacks are all around the code that need replacing. How do you find them? By putting it on an actual device like the Ports guys did. HP/Gram has been very supportive in any questions and in addressing any issues raised by Ports and also by people on the Open webOS mailing list.

A lot of issues have been sorted already and the planned upgrade to QT5/Webkit2 will give a very solid foundation for any future improvements. It's important to have a solid and proper working base before digging into details.

Ports has been very actively working on getting this ported to an initial device to get the bugs out. All the work that has been done is re-usable for pretty much any future port. I guess you can compare it to Cyanogenmod in a certain way, though a lot smaller still.

The biggest problem is actually Android, because their kernel version is far behind still and therefore the drivers too since they're only supplied in binary blobs and no proper open source drivers for chipsets. Theoretically you could run Open webOS on 2.6.x or 3.0.x kernels, but it's not recommended.

Some manufacturers have been a lot more open (Texas Instruments, Intel) and some not (Qualcomm, Nvidia, MediaTek). Once the driver issues are resolved (or Android finally updates to a more recent (proper) kernel, we can see ports to a lot more devices).

I agree that Gram/HP can be more open about timelines, but I think resources are their biggest problem currently. Their team still has quite some vacancies, so I can understand that they don't want to make hard commitments they cannot make.

QT5/WebKit2 was due in December but wasn't delivered yet, but should be sometime this month. Also the new GStreamer/Media bits are due to be released this month (at least beta). This should already enhance the capabilities of Open webOS a lot more so we can have proper Photo/Video/Audio capabilities.

Apps are still an issue, but that is something of a secondary worry to be honest. First the basis needs to be solid and good.

Anyone is free of course to contribute wherever they can to speed up the efforts, fix bugs, write apps etc

[ewl88]

Originally Posted by k4ever

Ok. There were idiots here who complained about not having an app for websites that worked well in the TouchPad's browser. I can understanding wanting an app for something that didn't work at all, like Netflix, even though I would have just liked a Silverlight plugin for the browser. However, if the website worked well, why require an app? The goal of a tablet is to eventually replace a laptop and laptops don't require apps for website content.

Until HP decided not to continue updating/fixing issues with it, the TouchPad's browser was good. It defaulted to full desktop view instead of mobile view unlike almost all of Android's browsers. It had plugins like Flash to view the whole web unlike the original iPad's browser. I remember shortly after buying my TouchPad watching a friend try to read the news from a site (forget which one) that was not "€�optimized" for the iPad. It wasn't pretty. I was able to view the site just like it looked on the desktop.

Apple created the stupid app count phenomenon. When the iPhone was first introduced it was going up against some heavy weights like Windows Mobile 6 and Blackberry OS. Each of them had thousands of games and useful programs that a lot of folks didn't even know about. Most of those programs were for productivity. Apple also made the decision not to include Flash and a few other plugins in their mobile browser at a time when people were getting tired of the WAP browsers and looking for something similar to the desktop experience.

Apple had a multiple problems. One way to solve them was to concentrate their focus on apps that people needed. Another way was to build apps to replace the functionality on their crippled web browser. They launched a masterful advertising campaign assuring people that "there is an app for that". It really meant don't worry about lost functionality, we have an app to fix that. Instead people joking associated it to mean that no matter what your absurd need was, there was an app for that and other people took it literally. Apple also began counting each app that they had and telling the public to assure them that the iPhone had some apps. Problem was the public and wannabe tech reviewers didn't notice that Apple was also counting web site replacements as apps.

The iPhone was popular when its app count was closer to zero. People stood in line for the features on the phones, not the apps. News organizations and other organizations who had web sites that didn't work on the iPhone quickly made apps that did and advertised them to the point that it became fashionable. Even sites that worked perfectly well started to get in on the game making apps with useless features that are 1/2 of what the actual websites offer. Then those wannabe tech reviewers starting using the app count as a way to justify/not justify buying a phone.

We all played right into Apple's game. Now the tides have turned in the worst way as the media industry, who doesn't give a damn about its customers and only cares about maximizing profits, have figured out how to use these apps or lack of these apps to extract more money out of us. They are actually blocking their websites from use with mobile browsers and funneling customers to their apps. They are using the popularity of their services as leverage. Pretty soon the web as we used to know it won't exist anymore and the idiots who cried for an app icon to replace a simple website instead of requiring the OS to have a decent standard compliant browser only have themselves to blame.

I seriously hope that whatever set of OSes that survive in the coming years don't give in to the attempts to subvert our freedoms on the Internet just to have a crappy app.

/end of rather long winded rant...

--Sent from my HP TouchPad using Communities (a great webOS app!)

Well said. I knew apple was a master of marketing and your points proved it. Hide your weaknesses by hype- a pure diversionary tactic.
I always felt that a great browser will make most of us intermediate level users (and above) happy. I look at iOS apps and most are meh. Full web browser version is vastly superior.
The hardware issue is potentially fixable- If there is a demand for webOS then the OEM can just run it on a current device. Just divert a fraction of those devices and load openWebOS. But how do you create demand for this? And is the OEM willing to anger Google? That's why if openWebOS starts up it will probably in a smaller market where carriers aren't so powerful and push Android or iOS over everything else.

[Buddy1969]

Originally Posted by ewl88

... But how do you create demand for this? ...

That question hits the sweet spot.

HP showed how NOT to do it:
Buy some smartphoneOS.
Put a tablet out that noone knows for the price of an iPad.
Be confused why it doesn't sell.
Stop the whole thing altogether.

Apple showed how to do it:
Take your time to create something that has has at least one unique selling point. (wood)
Warm up the marketing machine with a lot of cash to tell people all about the product and it's uniqueness (spark)
Hype follows (fire)
Kindle the hype initially by not having enough devices for sale.
The hype draws in the developers (oxygen) to produce massive amounts of apps which in turn create a lot of revenue (heat).
Reach ROI. (have a nice BBQ)

No matter if you like Apple or not, that's not the point. But they did it right, at least from their perspective and from a marketshare perspective (which is mostly the same).

For me it's not so much an issue of "is there space" ...
WinMobile, PalmOS and Blackberry were the smartphone-topdogs, in the time before iOS and Android.
iOS and Android MADE their space, by telling the people (rightfully or not - judge yourself) that the have "the thing you want/must have". They adressed a different group of customers.
While M$, Palm and RIM were still attending to companies who mostly buy products according to price for value or price for functionality base, Apple and Google tended already to the consumer base who buy with heart and belly.
The wave and hype they created swashed back into the companies because, as we all know, the same people who buy as consumers are working in companies. Via this backdoor, iOS and Android made it into the companies as well.

Funny sidenote: Microsoft did the same with MS-DOS and Windows...

[rnld]

It is beyond amazing that some believe the success of the iPad is due to advertising.

[Remy X]

Originally Posted by rnld

It is beyond amazing that some believe the success of the iPad is due to advertising.

He's not talking about advertising alone, but the the whole system. Apple knew how to launch a product, and as a result became a market leader rather than "also-ran".

HP has practically invented the tablet PC, but Apple has made that form factor work by turning its tablet offering into an oversized phone (ARM cpu) instead of a keyboard-less laptop (x86). The choice of ARM architecture meant that the iPad was able to make use of iPhone apps right away, with their touchscreen-centric UI and also avoid the extra heat and fan noise inherent to x86-based machines.

HP came back to see that all of the hard work has been done for them, no real need to innovate from scratch. They took an off-the-shelf CPU (Apple bought a company that then designed their proprietary A4 chip for the iPad), already had webOS as the result of the Palm purchase and like i said, the road has been paved for them. They would have had much more of an excuse for failing if they had no example to follow. But they screwed up anyway.. (bad launch strategy + Apothecker)

[rnld]

The iPad was released less than a year after the Pre and more than a year before the Touchpad. The iPad 2 beat the Touchpad to market. The Touchpad was dated upon release.

[Remy X]

Originally Posted by rnld

The iPad was released less than a year after the Pre and more than a year before the Touchpad. The iPad 2 beat the Touchpad to market. The Touchpad was dated upon release.

AFAIK, even the original iPad had a better CPU. And better build quality.

However, HP had a chance to price the TP lower than the iPad 2, as the "budget product" offering, the way Amazon has later done and continue selling with a barely-there profit margin. It would have sold well anyway...

Instead they chose to just dump everything and liquidate the remaining stock at $100, below manufacturing cost... while even at $250, they would have sold like hotcakes. Hare-brained CEO and blundering marketing dept... nice combination

[geekpeter]

Originally Posted by rnld

The iPad was released less than a year after the Pre and more than a year before the Touchpad. The iPad 2 beat the Touchpad to market. The Touchpad was dated upon release.

and yet its still a good device even now, be it webOS or cm10 the touchpad handles every "normal" app quite well, even my cheapo <£85 android tablets work perfectly fine on everything, its only high end 3d shooters/etc that struggle with them but thats 1 minor niche of the whole tablets usage.

using the ipad3, 2x touchpads, 2x android tablets its only those insane 3d games that make any difference, if your using normal apps then there is very little difference in all of them, the bigger difference is how open they are for me to install/use what i want.

so for me the apple products fail hard even tho they have the best hardware, theres just no way to use that awesome hardware for stuff that interests me (emulators/ubuntu etc), androids nto bad being a good 1/2 medium but its apps are too full of junk adverts or they just dont work right, leaving me with my reliable touchpad thats doing everything i want.

to each their own but after all these years "shiney" looking stuff dont interest me beyond maybe 1 days worth of "oooooh" then they bore me when the shine and sparkle vanish very fast and instead they start to infuriate me, its why my ipad3 is now the most expensive and smallest television ive ever bought.

is the touchpad "old" in current terms, hell yes, does that make it a bad device, imho.... no, its why ive bought 4 of them now, 2 for me and 2 for family (tho i did slap cm10 on as their both android phone users).