Why Geeks Should Love HP WebOS • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Geeks Should Love HP WebOS

#51

Post by warthogkernel » Thu, May 12, 2011, 12:58 AM UTC

mhd wrote: post #12

m0hit wrote: post #8

if only there was a good (and hopefully cheap) hardware device to go with webOS, it would definitely be cool to hack with. The Palm Pre, however, in my opinion did not function as a useful device, mostly because of the hardware (and lack of applications compared to iOS and android devices).

Care to elaborate on the hardware? Speed seemed decent enough (compared with e.g. the first iPhone) and I personally really liked the "pebble" form factor. Sad that it'll never see webOS 2...

webOS 2.1 can be installed on the Pre if you make use of the Meta-Doctor.

Some additional hoops to jump through but it's entirely doable along with overclocking, you end up with a pretty snappy device.

http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/WebOS_2_Upgrade

Re: Why Geeks Should Love HP WebOS

#52

Post by warthogkernel » Thu, May 12, 2011, 1:01 AM UTC

evangineer wrote: post #34

blinkingled wrote: post #9

webOS sorely needs Galaxy S2 class hardware. HP should stop all else and get a slick device out like yesterday.

One of my main issues with WebOS from day one has been the lack of what I would regard as decent hardware. Another issue in the past, which I hope has much improved since is the developer outreach which really sucked when I tried to engage. This was pre-HP acquisition. The fact that @unwiredben is active in this discussion is a good sign.

The Pre actually had decent hardware except for being light on mem. The OMAP chip was particularly overclock friendly and once overclocked along with some additional tweaks was nice and fast.

The problem was the earlier webOS versions had no GPU acceleration at all and ended seeming sluggish sometimes.

Re: Why Geeks Should Love HP WebOS

#53

Post by bfrog » Thu, May 12, 2011, 1:06 AM UTC

Maybe if they made a good device that was available for my carrier of choice I'd be more willing to consider it.

As it stands I have half a dozen android phones to possibly choose from and the venerable iphone. I'd love to have a webos phone if it was closer to the iphone in terms of form factor, resolution, speed, battery life etc but from what I've seen its not even close.

Top it off with the fact that it seems like HP hasn't advertised a penny for the thing compared to verizon's droid adverts plastered everywhere.

Honestly HP needs to team up with a carrier and make it happen in terms of marketing. Windows Phone 7 might beat out webos in terms of mindshare at this point.

Re: Why Geeks Should Love HP WebOS

#54

Post by martingordon » Thu, May 12, 2011, 1:13 AM UTC

firefoxman1 wrote: post #19

treorock wrote: post #6

1. Ares 2. Cards 3. Notifications 4. Just Type 5. Exhibition 6. OTA updates 7. Gestures 8. Synergy 9. The WebOS community 10. WebOS Internals

Wow, I hadn't seen Ares before. An in-browser SDK. Sweet. Honestly, WebOS itself is way better than android or iOS, it's just that Palm sucked at marketing it, the Pre was only available on Sprint, they didn't attract many app developers, and they only sold 2 WebOS phones. I hope it's not too late for HP to fix it. Between the gestures, notifications, card-based multitasking, and JS/CSS/HTML apps I'm in heaven.

Not only can you design and code your app from the browser, you have full debugging support in the browser that can remote debug on a physical device that's plugged in to the computer.

I love iOS and its SDK, but Ares sure beats 4 GB Xcode updates.

Re: Why Geeks Should Love HP WebOS

#55

Post by irons » Thu, May 12, 2011, 1:50 AM UTC

noonespecial wrote: post #38

I love it simply because its the best SSH experience of all of the smartphones. One click gets me the phones real terminal and then "ssh -l me whereever.com". No bogus setup screens, with each server requiring a 5 minute fill in the blank session to connect to, no menus full of special keys to transmit (most covered with the orange key), just pure .ssh/id_dsa public key in my home-dir win . Its 10x easier than the be…

Is Prompt already the best thing on your iPad? If not, I'd be curious to know how it stacks up. (Prompt costs US$5 for an iPad/iPhone version. Nobody get the vapors.)

Re: Why Geeks Should Love HP WebOS

#56

Post by diamondhead » Thu, May 12, 2011, 1:51 AM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #45

diamondhead wrote: post #43

I would love it but I can't make myself like an HP product because HP has been selling thousands frozen WindowsXP + IE6 computers to the universities in my country.

Considering how many management changes ago it was and the number of different divisions in HP, that's almost like not liking Germany today for WWII. How many years ago that happened? (IE6? must've been ~2004)

I wish it had been ~2004 but it has been happening since 2008. They sold that crappy computers to one of the biggest and newest university libraries in Europe.

So, I have a real reason to ignore HP products even if they have great platform.

Re: Why Geeks Should Love HP WebOS

#57

Post by p1itopre » Thu, May 12, 2011, 1:54 AM UTC

Argorak wrote: post #26

Why Geeks should hate HP WebOS: Only one recent device (at the moment) and it is carrier exclusive in most countries (for me, in germany). I like the new devices and the operating system, but sadly, I also have a good contract with a different carrier. So: sorry HP, but i'll pass. I never bought a locked phone and I will not start because of your hypergeeky operating system.

You have been able to buy the unlocked Pre2 for quite some time: http://www.shopping.hp.com/store/product/product_detail/FB32...

There are lots of reasons to avoid webos; but this is not one.

Re: Why Geeks Should Love HP WebOS

#58

Post by irons » Thu, May 12, 2011, 1:56 AM UTC

azakai wrote: post #33

WebOS is definitely very cool. I doubt WebOS can overtake Android or iOS at this point, but it should be a solid third place in this market (I don't think other competitors like WP7 or Bada can make it).

Nokia makes WP7 #3 by default. A respectable #4 by volume would be fine if WebOS has a shot at #2 in quality.

#1 in quality is, I trust, sewn up for practically everyone reading this, though with disagreements at great length and volume on which name to fill in.

Re: Why Geeks Should Love HP WebOS

#59

Post by p1itopre » Thu, May 12, 2011, 1:58 AM UTC

mdiep wrote: post #44

If HP made an iPod Touch competitor, I would buy one in a heartbeat. I don't want to buy another phone, but I'd love to have a WebOS device to play with.

I get the feeling that HP does not care about the phone market too much. However, the table market is something they are scared will eat into their PC business. So, I expect HP to push the TouchPad with all its might. If that happens, an iPod touch device seems the next thing they will release. I am looking forward to that too!

Re: Why Geeks Should Love HP WebOS

#60

Post by antihero » Thu, May 12, 2011, 2:01 AM UTC

noonespecial wrote: post #38

I love it simply because its the best SSH experience of all of the smartphones. One click gets me the phones real terminal and then "ssh -l me whereever.com". No bogus setup screens, with each server requiring a 5 minute fill in the blank session to connect to, no menus full of special keys to transmit (most covered with the orange key), just pure .ssh/id_dsa public key in my home-dir win . Its 10x easier than the be…

Connectbot is pretty excellent for Android, I'd have to add.