Sure, HP and Palm officially launched webOS 2.0 a few weeks ago, but I got my first chance to check out the new operating system at an event in New York last night, and I have some video to prove it.
In the video after the break you can see how “Stacks” works to group together currently running apps that are linked. For instance, if you open an attachment from an email, they’ll be grouped together. If you open the web browser by clicking a link in OpenMenu, those apps will be grouped together.
There’s also an in-depth look at the new Facebook app, which lets you view multiple items without closing cards. If you want to see your messages, news feeds, friends list, or other data, you can just keep opening new items and the cards will be added to a “stack.”
Finally the friendly HP/Palm rep showed how the new “Just Type” feature makes it easier to find what you’re looking for just by entering a few letters in the search bar.
In other news, while he wasn’t able to comment on exactly when HP would release a tablet-friendly version of webOS, he did confirm that it’s on the way — and that existing webOS apps should run on the tablet version although the reverse might not necessarily be the case. After all, if an app is written for a larger, higher resolution display, it might not look right on a handheld item. Just look a the iPad and iPhone email apps to see how that works.
Sorry about the poor visibility in the video. The lighting was awful and the table twas apparently shakier than I thought when I rested my camera tripod on it.
I’m not a “smart”phone guy, at all. Never have been. However, I was intrigued by webOS and feel that sales suffered more because the mobile phone market tends to be more like other consumer markets (consumers acting in compliance with traditional forces like price or branding) than because of a lack of quality or value inherent technical value in the software. If somebody gave me an Android or iOS product, then I would give it away, sell it, or throw it in the trash. This is a device that I would keep and use (but may eventually share the same fate). Believe it or not, that’s praise coming from me.
I’m going to watch your coverage closely, and I still feel that webOS is probably the most likely candidate to provide a quality user experience on a pure slate compared to any of the other preexisting handset operating systems (MeeGo being a second, but it’s being developed concurrent with non-handset applications).
why are you doing this in a bar????