Official webOS 2.0 Anticipation Thread

[sputnik767]

Originally Posted by Beanis

With my phone at 1Ghz, I have noticed no real need for hardware acceleration. I honestly can't imagine my phone needing to have 'smoother UI'. It might stutter from time to time with lots of Apps open, but scrolling and responsiveness couldn't be much better.

Even accelerated to 1 Ghz, it doesn't compare to the smoothness or precision of the iphone or ipod touch UI at 500 Mhz. And our phones are supposed to be run at 500 Mhz. I realize that our phone multitasks, yadda, yadda, but still, UI smoothness comes from video acceleration. Play with an apple product and you'll see how much better scrolling and responsiveness can be. Not to mention the battery savings that will come from letting the GPU do what it's designed to do, rather than using the CPU in a very inefficient manner for the job.

I also want to mention that my battery usage didn't change much when I overclocked my phone. A very large improvement came when I turned down the screen brightness to about 20%.

[jrdatrackstar]

Originally Posted by sputnik767

Even accelerated to 1 Ghz, it doesn't compare to the smoothness or precision of the iphone or ipod touch UI at 500 Mhz. And our phones are supposed to be run at 500 Mhz. I realize that our phone multitasks, yadda, yadda, but still, UI smoothness comes from video acceleration. Play with an apple product and you'll see how much better scrolling and responsiveness can be. Not to mention the battery savings that will come from letting the GPU do what it's designed to do, rather than using the CPU in a very inefficient manner for the job.

I also want to mention that my battery usage didn't change much when I overclocked my phone. A very large improvement came when I turned down the screen brightness to about 20%.

Thank you.....at least someone knows how I feel. If it weren't for the fact that I HATE Apple and everything they're about, I'd get an iPod Touch and not even worry about it.

I know it's been said OVER AND OVER that hardware acceleration is coming. My thing is what exactly did they mean by it? Are we talking screen transitions....as in when I click on an app a different animation appears? Or are we actually talking about navigation and scrolling? I think those are two seperate categories when it comes to the UI. It was my assumption that the Pre can't handle smooth dragging because of the pixel spacing and because the screen is plastic?

From the video demonstrating the emulator, it looks like we still have boot screens, and although I know the emulator doesn't tap into a REAL device's hardware, it looked like the person had to constantly reposition the mouse to get the screen to respond and drag during different times (which is similar to how we have to operate our phones currently).

[QuarlesLT]

Well, Wednesday is the first day of Fall. I bet webOS 2.0 will be released on the last day of Fall. Remember "February"?

[linh.nguyen]

Originally Posted by QuarlesLT

Well, Wednesday is the first day of Fall. I bet webOS 2.0 will be released on the last day of Fall. Remember "February"?

that's generally true for a lot of release dates. They end up being on the trail end of things

[kanesis]

Originally Posted by hparsons

Some people look at problems and give up or complain (or both). Others figure a way around them.

SKEET

[iTz Nicholas72]

Originally Posted by linh.nguyen

that's generally true for a lot of release dates. They end up being on the trail end of things

Or 4+ months late like Flash...

[Keegsta]

Originally Posted by iTz Nicholas72

Or 4+ months late like Flash...

I honestly don't think Flash is ever coming...

[QuarlesLT]

Didn't you hear? The Flash beta will be released in October. Oh, wait...

[sputnik767]

Originally Posted by QuarlesLT

Didn't you hear? The Flash beta will be released in October. Oh, wait...

I don't even care anymore. I can watch pr0n on my laptop just fine. Honestly, if you think about it, why do we even want flash? Just to have something to brag about to smug iphone users? For the record, Flash tends to crash safari on my macbook pro when watching youtube. Doesn't crash firefox or any of my PCs.

[sputnik767]

Originally Posted by jrdatrackstar

Thank you.....at least someone knows how I feel. If it weren't for the fact that I HATE Apple and everything they're about, I'd get an iPod Touch and not even worry about it.

I know it's been said OVER AND OVER that hardware acceleration is coming. My thing is what exactly did they mean by it? Are we talking screen transitions....as in when I click on an app a different animation appears? Or are we actually talking about navigation and scrolling? I think those are two seperate categories when it comes to the UI. It was my assumption that the Pre can't handle smooth dragging because of the pixel spacing and because the screen is plastic?

From the video demonstrating the emulator, it looks like we still have boot screens, and although I know the emulator doesn't tap into a REAL device's hardware, it looked like the person had to constantly reposition the mouse to get the screen to respond and drag during different times (which is similar to how we have to operate our phones currently).

I would assume it would mean all visual elements. At least that's how it should work. Somebody in this thread claimed that acceleration is enabled and the phone is smooth. But to make you feel better, Android does not accelerate the UI either. They just make up for it with fast CPUs.

[Waer]

Originally Posted by wicketr

No widget support means i'm moving on. Sad Palm.

Don't let the Pixi sprinkle fairy dust on ya on the way out brother. (Kinda sick of the whiners)

[Waer]

Originally Posted by sputnik767

I don't even care anymore. I can watch pr0n on my laptop just fine. Honestly, if you think about it, why do we even want flash? Just to have something to brag about to smug iphone users? For the record, Flash tends to crash safari on my macbook pro when watching youtube. Doesn't crash firefox or any of my PCs.

I agree. Not having your kit slow to a crawl because a Flash ad grabs all your CPU cycles is kind of nice.

[jrdatrackstar]

Originally Posted by sputnik767

I would assume it would mean all visual elements. At least that's how it should work. Somebody in this thread claimed that acceleration is enabled and the phone is smooth. But to make you feel better, Android does not accelerate the UI either. They just make up for it with fast CPUs.

Playing with the Epic has made me believe otherwise now because it is so smooth....so much so that I plan on moving on to the Epic in Decemeber when I'm eligible (unless 2.0 is that great, which I have my doubts because the features that Palm has leaked don't really scream anything revolutionary). It's a shame because of Android's fragmentation, but when the Epic gets 2.2 (possibly 3.0) I'd be happy with it if it was "stuck" that way until another upgrade eligibility.

Also, although that claim has been made, I don't see how anyone could say that when all we have is the emulator (which apparently can't show hardware acceleration) and the NDA...? If that person said that it does indeed smoothen the phone out, wouldn't that mean they would have had to of actually played with a Pre with 2.0?

[sputnik767]

Originally Posted by jrdatrackstar

Playing with the Epic has made me believe otherwise now because it is so smooth....so much so that I plan on moving on to the Epic in Decemeber when I'm eligible (unless 2.0 is that great, which I have my doubts because the features that Palm has leaked don't really scream anything revolutionary). It's a shame because of Android's fragmentation, but when the Epic gets 2.2 (possibly 3.0) I'd be happy with it if it was "stuck" that way until another upgrade eligibility.

Also, although that claim has been made, I don't see how anyone could say that when all we have is the emulator (which apparently can't show hardware acceleration) and the NDA...? If that person said that it does indeed smoothen the phone out, wouldn't that mean they would have had to of actually played with a Pre with 2.0?

It is possible that some people are testing 2.0 devices. I'm sure that 2.0 has been in development for a while now, possibly even since launch day, and I'm sure that Palm knows about this site. For the record, I've played with the original Droid, and there's nothing special about it. It runs on the same hardware as our Pre, and graphics are just as choppy. I still have a year left on my contract, and am in no hurry to drop another $200 on any new phone, so I'll be with the Pre for the time being. It's fine with me, and I'll see what 2.0 delivers. If it doesn't live up to the hype, I can always switch to something different. But for whatever reason, I'm optimistic. And most importantly, my biggest gripe with this phone has been stability. It used to be pretty unreliable. 1.4.5 seemed to take care of most issues, and as long as this phone is reliable, I can handle slightly choppy animations and waiting an extra 2 seconds for an app to load. And I much prefer the sleek form factor of our phones to the brick-looking Apple and android devices. And I also like the fact that we can hold our phone any which way, without losing cell phone signal. But the iPhone 4 is the smoothest, fastest handheld that I've ever messed with, but of course it does not have true multitasking. But you can never have everything perfect.

[jrdatrackstar]

Originally Posted by sputnik767

It is possible that some people are testing 2.0 devices. I'm sure that 2.0 has been in development for a while now, possibly even since launch day, and I'm sure that Palm knows about this site. For the record, I've played with the original Droid, and there's nothing special about it. It runs on the same hardware as our Pre, and graphics are just as choppy. I still have a year left on my contract, and am in no hurry to drop another $200 on any new phone, so I'll be with the Pre for the time being. It's fine with me, and I'll see what 2.0 delivers. If it doesn't live up to the hype, I can always switch to something different. But for whatever reason, I'm optimistic. And most importantly, my biggest gripe with this phone has been stability. It used to be pretty unreliable. 1.4.5 seemed to take care of most issues, and as long as this phone is reliable, I can handle slightly choppy animations and waiting an extra 2 seconds for an app to load. And I much prefer the sleek form factor of our phones to the brick-looking Apple and android devices. And I also like the fact that we can hold our phone any which way, without losing cell phone signal. But the iPhone 4 is the smoothest, fastest handheld that I've ever messed with, but of course it does not have true multitasking. But you can never have everything perfect.

I hear you. I love the Pre's formfactor over any device right now. I too have played with a Droid and yea it's not iPhone smooth, but the Samsung Epic nearly is. Multi-tasking in the Pre's way.....eh I can live without. On my Hero, the way you have to multi-task was fine with me and honestly it was never that big of a feature for me on the Pre. I just like webOS better because it's the closest OS I've ever used that felt like iOS (although Android kind of does also now on the Epic like I said).

It's not that I really just want to drop webOS and say "Thats what you get Palm..." or something lol. I just don't think webOS is ready for primetime. From what I can tell with 2.0, it should be ready for the most part. As with all my devices, even if I move on, I'll still keep my Pre with me (just as I did when I switched to the Hero momentarally). I'm only worried about the Pre's future because I don't think we'll have developers on our side, even when 2.0 releases. So many people have invested time into iOS and Android that webOS seems left out in the cold. I'm also worried that Palm (althoug still independent within HP for the most part) will not be able to follow their OWN set of guidelines for development and releases, and will instead have to go by HP's agenda (who probably doesn't have the Pre and webOS as a priority, seeing as they drop leaks for a tablet and not a new webOS device).

[smscotten]

Flash cuts the battery life of my laptop in half. I don't want it anywhere near my phone. If offered I won't install it. If there's no choice I'll write a patch to remove or disable it.

I'm not really worried about that; the area I really think WebOS needs improvement is in text entry. Autocorrection beyond the five words WebOS already corrects would be good. A way to position a cursor without guesswork would help. And I hope folks are right about hardware graphics acceleration helping the digitizer precision/lag issues.

If Palm's has a new hardware platform for a phone, I pray they aren't going to follow the crowd by making a bigger slab. A tablet is one thing, but I don't want to carry a 5" screen for my phone. The Pre's form factor is pretty close to perfect. I'd be very happy to trade a virtual keyboard for more battery in the same (non-sliding) factor but I know the hardware keyboard is a must for some.

[dsei]

Originally Posted by smscotten

Flash cuts the battery life of my laptop in half. I don't want it anywhere near my phone. If offered I won't install it. If there's no choice I'll write a patch to remove or disable it.

Agreed 100%.

I'm not really worried about that; the area I really think WebOS needs improvement is in text entry. Autocorrection beyond the five words WebOS already corrects would be good. A way to position a cursor without guesswork would help. And I hope folks are right about hardware graphics acceleration helping the digitizer precision/lag issues.

Agreed. I remember Dion tweeting about some Javascript implementations of the magnifying glass text selector (ala iPhone). I wouldn't mind if Palm copied Apple completely on this. I really don't like using the Orange+tap and that's not doable with a tablet.

[crogs571]

And the original droid is already EOL'd with itKs replacement already on the market not to mention phones like the droid x, incredible, epic and evo. Using the orignal droid for a comparison just makes zero sense.

Originally Posted by sputnik767

For the record, I've played with the original Droid, and there's nothing special about it. It runs on the same hardware as our Pre, and graphics are just as choppy.

[Dark_Blu]

Originally Posted by Keegsta

I honestly don't think Flash is ever coming...

Flash better be coming. If it doesn't, My next phone upgrade will be the phone that does have it and since Apple doesn't and won't and it's already in Android 2.2, my next phone may be an Android device. I'll live without camera zoom on this thing if I have to, but Flash had better be arriving on Web OS before my next phone upgrade.....

[Dark_Blu]

I've never had any choppy animation, but it does seem as though 1.4.5. is an improvement. 2.0 can't be any worse. The Pre is light years ahead of the blackberry it replaced I'm not complaining about it's performance. Preware is awesome. I just hope that 2.0 doesn't change anything about how Preware or apps from it, works.