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Mark Olsen : Curriculum Vitae

Palm Pre WebOS: the best smartphone OS yet?

The Palm Pre is attracting a lot of attention in the run up to its UK launch towards the end of the year. On the surface it’s hard to pin down why as the Palm Pre doesn’t appear to have any revolutionary features. It’s a touchscreen phone (albeit with one of the finest touchscreen displays ever seen on a phone) with a slide out QWERTY keyboard, lots of on board memory and high speed web access on tap. The only feature that the Pre offers that nothing else does is the operating system, WebOS, but it is this that is winning the Pre plaudits left right and centre. Built from the ground up specifically for Palms latest smartphone, join us as we take a look at WebOS to try and find out what all the fuss is about.

WebOS is powered by Linux. Although there are similarities between WebOS and Palms previous smartphone operating system PalmOS, webOS is a completely new platform. It makes use of a number of well established web technologies which Palm claim will aid developers designing applications for the platform as they won’t need to learn a new programming language. Palm have taken their time with WebOS to ensure it is perfect for a new range of phones with the Palm Pre likely to be the first of many to sport the budding OS. As critics of recently released touchscreen Nokia phones running on Symbian have pointed out, modifying an existing operating system for new hardware isn’t always ideal so the fact that Palm started from scratch with WebOS is a good sign.

The lay out of the operating system is very clear and concise. On the 3.1 inch display of the touchscreen Palm Pre, the home screen is spacious and easy to manage. At the bottom we find five icons; four customisable shortcuts (to which you can add or remove pretty much whatever you want) and a fifth icon for the ever present application launcher which takes you into the menu. WebOS is fully capable of running multiple applications at once (multitasking). Which of apps fit the device you can find on the site of app reviews, and there is many reviews about apps and mobile. Whilst this isn’t new to smart phones, the way the Pre manages them is what sets it apart from rival offerings. With other smart phones, it’s easy to forget what apps are open which puts strain on the phone and its battery life. The Pre organises open applications like a deck of cards. Cards sit on the home screen when called upon and users can flick through to swap to a different application, rearrange the order to prioritise important apps and swipe up and off screen to close an application (the Pre still saves your data so you won’t have to start from square one when you re-open later). Using the physical centre key or the touchscreen, an application is maximised whilst sweeping a finger across the gesture area (a small touch sensitive panel that sits beneath the display) takes you back to the card view.

From what we’ve seen on the Pre, the cards multi-tasking system is a breath of fresh air. Easy (and fun) to operate, the snappy touchscreen and OS keep up effortlessly and ensure it’s effortlessly easy to keep on top of tasks. More of a hardware feature but one that compliments the OS nicely, the Palm Pre features a gesture area which sits beneath the main display. Various actions are performed using the gesture area such as navigating back in web pages and dragging the quick launcher (the five icons at the bottom of the home screen) onto the page when in an app. LED’s light up to confirm your action and the whole area is as responsive as the excellent touchscreen. The addition of the touchscreen is a masterstroke as it lets users perform actions without obscuring the main display (similarly to the transparent touchpad on the LG GD900 Crystal). The main actions in the gesture area that you’ll use regularly are swiping up to zoom out from an application and open/close the application launcher, a slow swipe up to drag the quick launcher onto the screen and the aforementioned backwards swipe which acts as back in the web browser, applications and also takes you back to the card view when in an application. There is a slight learning curve with the gesture area but once you’ve memorised the basic and most common actions, using it will become second nature.

WebOS also features a universal search tool which lets users search for applications and contacts and alternatively take your search online and search Google, Google Maps, Wikipedia and Twitter. There are drawbacks to this feature. The ability to switch between searching locally (on the phone) and the web is a nice touch but the Pre draws the line at contacts so you are unable to search for content within messages, emails and documents. The fact that the one of the Pre’s biggest rivals, the iPhone 3GS, is capable of such searches is a kick in the teeth for the new kid on the block and one we’d like to see Palm remedy as quickly as possible. Another new aspect that WebOS brings in the Palm Pre is Synergy. Synergy acts as a contact management system compiling all your contacts account details into one place. The aim is to avoid the confusion of juggling multiple services on a mobile device and, for the most part, it works well enough. Handling data from a Gmail account is flawless but the real problem arises when you add Facebook to the equation. Personally, I don’t use Facebook but I know enough to know that those who do tend to have 100’s of ‘friends’ that in actual fact they have little or no contact with. This is fine on Facebook as you can have little or no interaction with these people but try telling this to the Pre. You see, the Pre will dump all of your ‘friends’ from Facebook into a contacts list thus over populating your phone with people you’re simply not going to contact. There’s no way to customise what contacts the Pre collects, it’s either an all or nothing choice. And for Facebook users, that could be a difficult decision.

As this is version 1.0 of WebOS, In addition to the problems with Synergy there are some other niggling issues. The biggest of these is concerning apps. To date, Palm have yet to push out the full software development kit (SDK) meaning that developers are only really able to scratch the surface of the Pre. This is reflected in the apps available in two ways; firstly there aren’t a lot of them and secondly the ones that are available are fairly basic. To date, Palm have only offered the basic web development kit to developers meaning that they’re unable to realise the full potential of the Pre when designing Apps. Once Palm get round to pushing out the SDK to key developers we should see the Palm App catalogue as it’s known taking off nicely but for now the rather paltry selection of 30-so apps is a major disappointment. It is worth remembering however that the iPhone went the best part of a year without having any apps to speak of and that has hardly harmed the App store in the long run. What also compensates slightly is an App that allows the Pre to run applications designed for PalmOS, Palms previous smartphone platform. A bit like backwards compatibility on a games console, this acts as a nice bridge between old and new platforms and lets users of previous Palm phones bring their favourite apps with them to the new OS and phone.

The Palm Pre is an impressive phone and easily the most impressive thing about it is the excellent WebOS platform. It does have its drawbacks. Synergy is a nice idea in theory but in execution comes across a bit heavy handed. The inability to refine contacts lists means most will choose not to sync Facebook contacts which is a shame as this could have worked really well. The Gesture control area has a learning curve and will take some getting used to. Until you’ve learnt the basic actions you will spend a bit of time going back and forth but to be fair, once you’ve picked it up, it becomes second nature. The lack of Apps is also alarming for Pre as it seems every man and his dog takes apps into consideration when purchasing a new phone. The sooner the SDK is available, we’ll see what the Pre can really do but this really is a matter that needs addressing sooner rather than later. To be honest though, these flaws don’t dent an exciting new operating system. WebOS looks great, feels even better and after a few days using it, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. Multi-tasking is a revelation. Not because it can do it; plenty of phones before and since have done it. The way the Pre manages running multiple applications is the real innovation. The implementation of cards representing open applications is a master stroke. It’s easy to see what applications and programs you’re currently running, switch between them and closing apps by flicking them off screen is intuitive and fun. Most impressive about the multi-tasking aspect is that it really can take the strain of running loads of stuff without breaking a sweat. Open a few web pages, some apps, the calendar, some messages and the camera and you’ll notice little to no slow down.

And multi-tasking is just one of the parts of WebOS that make it such a joy to use. The gesture area works brilliantly in tandem with the touchscreen meaning your fingers aren’t obscuring what you’re trying to do. Facebook problems aside, Synergy is an intriguing proposition that with a few tweaks could prove a huge hit. Universal search is a nice tool for quickly navigating the web and your content. And I hate to go on but visually WebOS is the nicest looking OS we’ve ever encountered and the stunning looks are mirrored in the execution. Everything feels fluid and considering this is the first iteration of WebOS, it will only get better. We’re really hoping the Palm Pre is a success when it launches here in the UK in October purely so more and more people experience WebOS and the platform is able to develop. Fill in your details below to register for updates for the Palm Pre and we’ll let you know as soon as the phone is available to order.