[stockh]

The reason I ask two questions is to make a point.

What makes webOS is the user interface and the way it handles multi-tasking. It is by far the strongest features of webOS and what primarily sets it apart from other mobile os's.

The answer to the 2nd question is Palm is not making it clear what makes webOS so special. As it currently stands all the advertising for Palm conveys one thing to me..... Palm sells smartphones.....Big frickin' deal!

[nsabournemouth]

It all comes down to the apps. The offerings to WebOS are pretty dire to say the least. The UK user, well we have a shop full of crap. Developers aren't writing the apps for it and the apps people want are....on the iPhone so what will they buy?

[Achill3s]

Here in the states, word-of-mouth is very powerful. Current word is that the hw is very unreliable and is of poor quality (unfortunately true). WebOS rocks, no question better than any other mobile OS.

2nd, Marketing of this phone redefined FAIL. The ball was seriously dropped on the marketing side.

[tyea]

1. It has a very user friendly interface for vieing and sending various forms of multimedia.
2. It is streamlined for information flow to and from the user with personal information management well thiught out.
3. It's supposed to leverage the knowledge base of the abundant mass of web programmers.

[thesmj]

The OS itself is very solid aside from the occasional memory leak, which is a problem with non-plus pre/pixi. Other than that the hardware itself feels a little jank like others have already said.

[fernandez21]

What makes webOs special is the fact that Palm was able to blend the power and complexity of an old school mobile os (like winmo or palm os) with an incredibly fluid and simple modern ui.

Whats killing it is that first it was a sprint exclusive, 2 when it got on verizon it had not only gotten a bad rep for build quality but also verizon had already found its identy phone (Driod). 3. There is no GSM version. 4. They keep scheduling announcement and releases around apple releases and get over shadowed. 5. They took too long to release. When they first announced the Pre it was pretty cutting edge, but they took half a year to releas it, and now only a couple months later their hardware has been completely outdated by all their competitors.

[kill_dano]

Two major things.

1-It had bad marketing
2-sprint exclusive

Both of these major problems have ended. I hope the worst is behind us. Palm needs some new hardware to get people talking again. WebOS has gotten very mature. It's turning into the best mobile platform. A new device could make sure everyone knows it when the reviewers finally forced to admit it.

Verizon pre just got 5 out of 5 on G4. They said the phone was pretty much the same as the old one. WebOS has gotten much better.

[jephdood]

It all comes down to the apps. The offerings to WebOS are pretty dire to say the least.

I don't have experience with the app store/catalog/whatever on the iPhone, but on Android you have to wade though 11 tons of crap to find one good app. It's so tiresome.

[fryedchikin]

webOS is failing to catch on for the same reason most of us are using a computer running Windows instead of Linux. It all comes down to marketing, developer support and ease of use for the majority of users.

[fernandez21]

What makes webOs special is the fact that Palm was able to blend the power and complexity of an old school mobile os (like winmo or palm os) with an incredibly fluid and simple modern ui.

Whats killing it is that first it was a sprint exclusive, 2 when it got on verizon it had not only gotten a bad rep for build quality but also verizon had already found its identy phone (Driod). 3. There is no GSM version. 4. They keep scheduling announcement and releases around apple releases and get over shadowed. 5. They took too long to release. When they first announced the Pre it was pretty cutting edge, but they took half a year to releas it, and now only a couple months later their hardware has been completely outdated by all their competitors.

Let me add marketing to the killing list, I hadn't realized the damage done until tonight as I was talking with my wife on how the pre got a perfect 5/5 on AOTS and she couldn't belive and responded with "That mom phone got a perfect score? They must have been paid off or something". As tried to convice her how great the phone actually is, she just couldn't get over the fact that in her mind it is now a mom phone. *sigh*

[barkerja]

WebOS looks good, but that's all it has going for it. Good apps are few and far in between, the OS is sluggish, half-baked (1.4 is horrendous in terms of bugs) and not really feature-filled. Yeah, it handles multitasking very well, but it fails on other basic things.

People want an iPhone because of it's simplistic design, but the main reason: applications. Hate Apple all you want because of their draconian ways but you can't knock the fact that they've created a great product that people love.

Palm needs new hardware that's comparable to devices such as the iPhone, Droid, and the new HTC devices that are about to rollout (Incredible, Supersonic, etc.) if they want to remain in the game.

Right now, WebOS is nothing more than a niche product; and that community can only be found here on Precentral, you go anywhere else, any other mobile forum or tech blog and it's either iPhone or Android. Those two are obviously leading the pack simply because they're innovating at a much faster rate.

Just my $0.02. Sorry for the ramble, and if I come off as a bit of a pessimist here it's only because like many others I'm frustrated with Palm; so much potential that's not being tapped.

[Fozz929]

Multi-tasking is unquestionably the strongest selling point of WebOS. Unfortunately, the number of people who actually understand the usefullness of multi-tasking is too low for people to say "I need a Palm device". There are two types of people who buy a WebOS device:
1. People who understand technology and realize how powerful WebOS can be/is.
2. The technically illiterate (who aren't on AT&T (small amount of people))
Take my dad for (anecdotal) example, he was given a Pre for his job and hated it when he first had it (switched from an iPhone). Then I Preware'd his phone and it was a brand new device for him. He still doesn't understand how to use Preware or do anything other than check e-mail but he now see's how versatile WebOS can be and enjoy's using his phone. What does that mean? Palm needs to make the phone more accessible to people who aren't willing to research the phone or don't have the technical skills to patch their devices. I think WebOS is plenty easy to use but my dad, mom, brothers, and friends are lost when they pick up my phone. Also, definitely agree with barkerja.

tl;dr

People are too stupid to use WebOS.

[cgk]

Normal people don't give a rat's *** about multi-tasking or what OS a phone is running - they just care that it looks good and it has fun apps.

[jjeffcoat]

It's like a catch-22.... you won't have tons of apps until it's a more popular platform, and it won't become a more popular platform until it has tons of apps.

Or so it would seem.

I have a feeling webOS will always be playing "catch-up" with the iPhone. I only know of one other person where I work who has a Pre, and we were showing off our phones and how they are to someone else, and all she could say is "I like my iPhone so much". So the iPone appears to be the de facto standard right now for what's "popular".

What would really help, IMO, would be if we would ge some of the more essential apps for productivity that we are currently lacking. Like document editing. Like voice memo. (Nice job, Classic, but it's still a major pain to go this route just to leave a brief voice note). And the list could go on.

And a lot of things we are able to do with patching should be built into the system via preferences. Lot of the features I had on my Treo are simply absent on the Pre.

Until these problems are addressed, the Pre will remain quite a ways behind the iPhone no matter how good webOS is. (And it's really good, IMO.)

Hope Palm is listening! I really want to be able to continue using their products.

[netwrkr9]

The three most important words in releasing a new product:
Marketing
Marketing
Marketing

[strikerage]

The Sprint partnership did not kill this phone. The serious delay of release and letting the hype drop off is what truely killed the phone. That, combined with the horrible marketing strategy hurt its chance at having a 'cool' value. I can't tell you how many times I talk with friends and co-workers with their iPhones now and they all make fun of me saying that I have a 'mom' phone. God that gets me ticked off!

Of course, then when It's time to travel or use my wifi hotspot, suddenly I have the coolest phone around. Go figure.

[vza33]

The three most important words in releasing a new product:
Marketing
Marketing
Marketing

+1
When the iPhone first came out it didn't have many apps as a matter of fact I would say the Palm app catalog is growing faster than the other platforms did at this point. PPl think the iPhone is the coolest phone around because of marketing even though as a "phone" it sucks. Driods popularity comes from all the money spent on marketing. The first droid commercials didn't even express what the phone does. In the U.S. especially, the "I've gotta have one of those" mentality come as a result of great Marketing.

[dbpaddler]

subpar hardware
flawed engineering and cheapness
of the pre
lesser internals of the Pixi

subpar marketing
self explanatory. Even the new
commercial that shows off the OS
still makes it seem like a chick
phone. Way to alienate the real
target demograph.

[rawvega]

The three most important words in releasing a new product:
Marketing
Marketing
Marketing

Agree 1000%

The Sprint exclusive wasn't the big hinderance that some make it out to be. If they had launched exclusively on metroPCS or Cricket, then I could see the point. The cheap and flimsy feeling hardware also didn't help their cause

The main problem with the Pre was their God-awful marketing. If you think about, how many effective iPhone ads do you see from at&t? The meaningful iPhone ads come from Apple themselves. While Sprint was running commercials highlighting the benefits of their network, what did Palm give us? The Borg Queen surrounded by the People's Liberation Army clad in orange...Oh and "Bing, Bing, Bing". If they had shown the people how powerful and revolutionary webOS was, they'd be in a much better position right now.

[nsabournemouth]

Look at your apps and compare them to what the iPhone can run. In the UK the apple app store is full of apps from big UK companies, apps that are useful. On a trip to London and using the Underground my GF's iPhone came in handy with a route planner and maps of the underground with updates on service. Also came in handy in the car with updates on traffic news, it also came in handy with booking a train, also came in handy checking up on her ebay account and catching up on the news. My Pre......can't do any of that.