Cloudy Thinking: How many mobile operating systems will thrive?
Martin Hill
· 10 months ago
By the sounds of it, WebOS is just Linux with a shiny interface (it is a vary nice interface by all accounts though).
However, what is worrying is that apps written for WebOS are just HTML 5 and javascript widgets, not native apps.
Remember that everyone blasted Apple for doing that originally with the iPhone. It was only once Apple released the native Cocoa SDK that app development for the iPhone really took off. The other issue is that the Pre is completely incompatible with the thousands of apps written for all other Palm devices which run the old Palm OS or Windows Mobile.
That's a lot of disadvantages straight off the bat. Then of course you have the fact that it looks like it is going to be more expensive than the iPhone upfront and all the other issues such as no equivalent of the integrated online iTunes Store for music, movies, music videos, TV shows, audio books, podcasts etc.
I think you're right that Palm faces a very steep uphill battle against the competition.
All Comments
However, what is worrying is that apps written for WebOS are just HTML 5 and javascript widgets, not native apps.
Remember that everyone blasted Apple for doing that originally with the iPhone. It was only once Apple released the native Cocoa SDK that app development for the iPhone really took off. The other issue is that the Pre is completely incompatible with the thousands of apps written for all other Palm devices which run the old Palm OS or Windows Mobile.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/01/12/palm-p...
That's a lot of disadvantages straight off the bat. Then of course you have the fact that it looks like it is going to be more expensive than the iPhone upfront and all the other issues such as no equivalent of the integrated online iTunes Store for music, movies, music videos, TV shows, audio books, podcasts etc.
I think you're right that Palm faces a very steep uphill battle against the competition.
-Mart