[jacksonbird03]

What features of WEBOS make it different from other operating system.
and which is the best operating system present in the market...

[johncc]

Its multitasking implementation is tops, along with the the cards metaphor.

[Buddy1969]

Which is "best"? By what measures??

WebOS is lean, fast, easy to use, intelligently designed and a joy to work with.
Sadly, the App Catalog (the respective market like AppStore or PlayStore) doesn't have too many Apps. But there is something called "Preware", a kind of AppCatalog where you can download Apps, Tools, Patches, Themes and Tweaks, all for free, which allow you to make your WebOS device fit to virtually all your demands.

WebOS is a really great OS. The trouble with it is, that there is currently no new hardware, that runs it.
Hopefully that changes soon. LG puts it on their Smart TVs and the open Source version of WebOS is constantly worked over by the community to make it run on Android devices like the Nexus type phones...

Hope this gives you a good dlimpse of the situation.

You still get the old hardware (Pre, Pixi, Veer and Touchpad) over the internet. It doesn't cost too much, so if you wanna get a glimpse of what WebOS could do even 4 years ago, then give it a try.

[hellonnnewman]

<thread title updated to clarify>

[draftex]

Just bought a Pre 2 off ebay to satisfy my long curiosity for webOS.
Watching a lot videos of the OS, I believe it was way ahead of its time when it was released 4 years ago.
can't wait to receive my Pre2 and give it a test drive and find out what I have been missing these years.
I currently use a Nexus 4 but hate size of it. it is too big to use one handed. I also have an eye on Blackberry Q10 which sort of incorporates some of great features of webOS.

[RumoredNow]

What features of WEBOS make it different from other operating system.
and which is the best operating system present in the market...

One of the greatest features of webOS is this community. There are some very smart, talented and dedicated people here who are helpful for troubleshooting and are still trying to develop the OS...

"Best" is highly subjective. webOS users would say webOS is best, but Apple users would say iOS is best, or Android users claim Android is best. They all have strengths and weaknesses. You have to decide which is best for you...

[laingman]

I think if you ask people in the business, analysts, bloggers etc and got an honest answer they would probly say webos.

Yes most people will defend what they have, and most have never heard of webos or would tend to confuse operating system with other things.

To answer the question, webos has a certain amount of flexibility I have not seen otherwise. And stacks is pretty cool.

[RumoredNow]

...To answer the question, webos has a certain amount of flexibility I have not seen otherwise. And stacks is pretty cool.

+1 for the flexibility. IMHO, it's way easier to mod and make your own than other OS's...

[fatclue_98]

This is something that rarely gets mentioned but my favorite feature of webOS is the 5 minute boot time.

[xandros9]

This is something that rarely gets mentioned but my favorite feature of webOS is the 5 minute boot time.

Let's you go get coffee!

Anyways, the thing webOS nailed is that multitasking was made central, not a bolted-on afterthought like literally everyone else.
And "jailbreaking"/"rooting" the phone is easy. Really easy. It can potentially put Android phones to shame with its Konami code. I've experienced iOS jb'ing and Android rooting and webOS was hands-down the easiest and fastest. Information on rooting this phone I acquired was rather intimidating, despite my knowledge.
I think it struck a good balance between iOS and Android.

[Shadowflank]

Which is "best"? By what measures??

WebOS is lean, fast, easy to use, intelligently designed and a joy to work with.
Sadly, the App Catalog (the respective market like AppStore or PlayStore) doesn't have too many Apps. But there is something called "Preware", a kind of AppCatalog where you can download Apps, Tools, Patches, Themes and Tweaks, all for free, which allow you to make your WebOS device fit to virtually all your demands.

We may not have MANY applications, but we have more QUALITY applications in the app catalog. Atleast, this is from my perspective.

As for my favorite parts of WebOS, multi-tasking and the standard linux system that WebOS runs on. There is practically nothing I can't do on a WebOS device that I couldn't accomplish on a linux workstation.

[zer0nix]

definitely the usability. the 'cards' interface is very intuitive. it feels natural and practically anyone can pick it up almost instantly. i had much more difficulty getting used to ios or android. also, it feels fast. opening apps, multitasking, etc... it almost never feels clunky or cludgy, unless there are just way too many apps on one page. i honestly think webos' interface is mattias duarte's finest work.

'just type' is also quite handy and very fast but personally i prefer navigating through the icons and the pages (i'm still in the process of weeding through apps and can't bother to remember their names )


there are a few drawbacks... selecting text and copy/paste is a little more difficult than it needs to be (it shouldn't require any keyboard presses at all. i can think of a few ways to initiate these actions by simply using the gesture area, but that discussion probably deserves its own thread) ... and certain features aren't universal, such as autocomplete ... also, the default notes app becomes nearly nonfunctional when used in combination with the touchscreen keyboard, but this is much less of a drawback when there are so many fully featured alternatives which function perfectly, such as scratch word processor and p2 snippets.

i really wish this os had been given time to fully mature. the voice recorder app needs an interface overhaul, although it does function well (the buttons are a bit too small and a little difficult to use for seniors). i can't seem to find out how to speed up playback through recordings, which ought to be a default capability since it doesn't require that much processing power and dramatically increases its usability. i wish webos had swiftkey. actually, that's the one thing i'm really missing and unfortunately it's a big one. i don't even really care for siri. having on device voice transcription would be nice but that's kind of a dream considering the amount of cpu power that is required to even get a decent transcription. i also wish the virtual keyboard were less buggy (the usability problems with pretext are particularly bad, unfortunately). finally, i wish the browser had wordwrap, or whatever it's called where the webpage adjusts to fit the size of the screen.

swiftkey, variable speed playback, better text select + copy/paste, a more professional virtual keyboard implementation, wordwrap on the browser and the ability to save my thoughts as txt files (whilst using the virtual keyboard) are really the only features that i wish webos devices had that are missing at the moment (pretext is basically unusable with the virtual keyboard, and scrolling through text with the vkb open in landscape mode is a complete chore). also, although i haven'[t used it much, i imagine that having on device ocr capability with auto translate would be nice. everything else is cruft.


also, although this is a bit off topic, the hardware for webos devices always been quite decent imho ... good screens, the touchstone battery system is pure brilliance and the battery functions quite well; a single charge using the default battery lasts 6 hours or more and it recharges in like 20 minutes. fantastic.

the camera software is also quite decent, with each of the phones being one of only a few of their generation that could record decent 30fps video (albeit only with good lighting and something well lit at the center reticule) with the unfortunate drawback that the video settings cannot be adjusted by the user; one of my gripes is that you can't set the software to favor fps over image correction, which would be more preferable since having smooth video looks far more impressive than having a high resolution slideshow (imho). of course, the webos phones don't have the more advanced camera functions that an iphone has but i can't imagine using those functions very often -and a professional digital camera would function far better as well.

it would be a damn shame if webos couldn't survive somehow. i would love to have the card interface ported to ios or android, just so i can have swiftkey and some of the newer smartphone functions.

[sgcheco]

For me the synergy implementation is really elegant and functional, having emails, calendars, sms, messages(yahoo, skype, aol, gmail, work ) all in one place make it perfect. I have tried Android and you have to haves several apps(for each email, and for each message account) and with ios you need diffent app for each message service.

[sledge007]

.... It can potentially put Android phones to shame with its Konami code. I've experienced iOS jb'ing and Android rooting and webOS was hands-down the easiest and fastest. Information on rooting this phone I acquired was rather intimidating, despite my knowledge.
I think it struck a good balance between iOS and Android.

Must be an HTC thing, because rooting a Samsung is just as simple.

1. Put phone in download mode.
2. Connect to PC.
3. Start Odin.
4. Click button.
5. Wait 5 minutes.
6. Reboot phone.

One thing I do like about Android is the ability to make a backup that backs EVERYTHING up. You screw up your phone, you restore it and it's like nothing ever happened. With webOS you could always hit up the Doctor, but then you'd have to spend some time getting everything back the way you had it.

[geekpeter]

Must be an HTC thing, because rooting a Samsung is just as simple.

1. Put phone in download mode.
2. Connect to PC.
3. Start Odin.
4. Click button.
5. Wait 5 minutes.
6. Reboot phone.

One thing I do like about Android is the ability to make a backup that backs EVERYTHING up. You screw up your phone, you restore it and it's like nothing ever happened. With webOS you could always hit up the Doctor, but then you'd have to spend some time getting everything back the way you had it.

depends who built the android variant, some are easy and many of the "1 click" methods work fine, still theres just as many that dont work at all, every android device ive touched, be it mine or someone elses, ive managed to "1 click" root maybe more than 1/2, the rest ive had to do manually.

[sledge007]

depends who built the android variant, some are easy and many of the "1 click" methods work fine, still theres just as many that dont work at all, every android device ive touched, be it mine or someone elses, ive managed to "1 click" root maybe more than 1/2, the rest ive had to do manually.

That's why I was pretty specific with Samsung and Odin. although I will agree there are some other more daunting methods. I've never had the luxury of using

[imurrx]

The swipe navigation and cards.

When I use the tablet and looking at multiple PDF for my gaming session, webos is by far the easiest to use. Swipe up, flick over and tap to the PDF I need to use. That takes about a second. Need to access the web browser, swipe flick tap and your there.

On the phone, the back swipe is such a great feature. You can navicate the whole phone with your thumb.

[chalx]

1. card metaphor for multitasking.
2. unobtrusive, logical, natural and easy to learn gestures
3. universal search (just type)
4. synergy with multiple exchange accounts support
5. unobtrusive notifications, banners
6. wireless charging
7. sliding panes

[PalmPixi_User23]

The swipe navigation and cards.

When I use the tablet and looking at multiple PDF for my gaming session, webos is by far the easiest to use. Swipe up, flick over and tap to the PDF I need to use. That takes about a second. Need to access the web browser, swipe flick tap and your there.

On the phone, the back swipe is such a great feature. You can navicate the whole phone with your thumb.

Those are my favorite things of Pre WebOS device, totally agree with those features makes navigation much easier in a phone. In my opinion, despite the ill-fated fated that was bestowed upon WebOS with the works of HP and LG....I don't even think that no-one can deny that the touch sensitive button that acts like the gesture area in my pre 2 makes multitasking much easier that the home bottoms on android or iOS. I can simply just navigate through my device single-handily without having to use two hands(except when zooming in). I will be heart-broken to leave my WebOS device, but webOS team and LG are forcing to do that....


My list of favorite things of WebOS:
- Multitasking
- LED notifications
- gesture bar - notifications(but needs to be improved badly) - synergy(wish to have a synergy hub, with deeper integration with social networks and evernote). - Just Type(only wish that it included something like Siri or Google Now)

My least favorite things:
- Web browser
- App Catalog
- Facebook(it just to be one of my favorite things of WebOS, now that app is broken) - some bugs when email are syncing
- no WiFi sync
- camera app.( its unbelievable that WebOS team did not integrated HDR and filters into the app).
- The laziness of the WebOS Team( when creating/releasing updates and slowness of their open webOS project and not releasing Isis for WebOS tablet and phones too).

[xandros9]

One thing I do like about Android is the ability to make a backup that backs EVERYTHING up. You screw up your phone, you restore it and it's like nothing ever happened. With webOS you could always hit up the Doctor, but then you'd have to spend some time getting everything back the way you had it.

Yea it does vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.
The backing up EVERYTHING is terrific. Love the feature.