Android from a webOS Perspective - Smartphone Round Robin Contest Thread
- Thread starter Dieter Bohn
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Maybe WebOS will be a serious competitor. Maybe. Neither Android nor WebOS is very far ahead of WinMo and Symbian. It's still anybody's race. Android can still clean up the app store and unify the platform. (Look at Apple's app store. It's a mess but it is successful). WinMo has very little problem with screen scalability. Android can learn.
What is the purpose for clearing notifications one by one. Either you read it or you didn't. If you are worried about forgetting to check your unread e-mail, little numbers appear next to your mail and message icons anyway (At least on Sense anyway. Everyone else can get apps that do the same).
I avoid task managers (I've heard bad things). Astro has one built in for those rare occasions I need one though.
Sense keyboard is great. I haven't had a need to switch.
I'm just looking forward to 2.1 or 2.0 on my Eris. 1.5 is good enough though. I haven't really had problems. (Except Bluetooth sucks on 1.5. No OBEX or FTP)
Yup I know some less intelligent people who love it!
What is the purpose for clearing notifications one by one. Either you read it or you didn't. If you are worried about forgetting to check your unread e-mail, little numbers appear next to your mail and message icons anyway (At least on Sense anyway. Everyone else can get apps that do the same).
I avoid task managers (I've heard bad things). Astro has one built in for those rare occasions I need one though.
Sense keyboard is great. I haven't had a need to switch.
I'm just looking forward to 2.1 or 2.0 on my Eris. 1.5 is good enough though. I haven't really had problems. (Except Bluetooth sucks on 1.5. No OBEX or FTP)
Yup I know some less intelligent people who love it!
- Oct 11, 2009
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1 - Not exactly sure what you're saying here. A quick visit to opensource.palm.com show just how little of WebOS is open and can be built/modified by users. Compare to android.git.kernel.org .
2. Clearing one by one is superior. An option for both is preferred
3. Very judicial use of Advanced Task Killer. Needed if you're apt to run buggy apps or modifying the system, otherwise no. Phone model makes no difference in this matter, as all run on the 2.X.xx Linux kernel and memory management is identical. I don't need a "task manager" on any of our RHEL servers, why would I on an Android device?
4. HTC sense devices use the best OSK Android has to offer. The rest are fair, but a distant second.
5. No. I have to option to build and use any version I'd like on any of the devices. See #1.
6. Yes, but I believe the out-of-box experience of other platforms is better suited to most non-techie users.
Actually WebOS is a mixture of open source and closed source code, and it's actually MOSTLY open source. Aside from all the apps in Javascript+HTML+CSS (which by their nature are open source), they've actually released almost all the webOS code as open source:
Welcome to opensource.palm.com - Palm
There's actually very little code that is not open source.
I agree, but I wish webOS had the ability to do both. I think webOS does alerts/notifications and multitasking more seamlessly (and non-intrusively) than any other mobile OS.
Not sure about others but I found that while the HTC Hero is more accurate than the Palm Pre, you have to push a lot harder - it takes more effort to type something than a touch screen keyboard should. The Pre's touchscreen felt smoother but again, the android was much more accurate with figuring out where I meant to click and a little faster in registering that click.
As a user, no. As a developer, yes. But Palm has that too. Not only Pixi vs Pre (diff. screen sizes) but now the Plus vs non-plus.
Hey all,
I'm hopping over from PreCentral to talk about my 30 day experience with the Sprint HTC Hero. I now own a Palm Pixi.
I liked:
-Web browsing with the big beautiful screen. It was a real treat.
-Customizing with all of my widgets.
-Notifications staying out of the way until I want them (much like WebOS)
-The big clock with the little moving weather icons
Why I took it back:
-LLLLAAAAAGGGGGG...no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get it to run properly, or at least what I thought was properly. I put on a taskkiller..then someone told me to take it off, so I did...then I created new SenseUI screens to try and see if it was my widgets or what I had running in the background, and it did run a little smoother when I stripped it down. I still had terrible lag in the keyboard...like it would get three words behind when I was typing, then when it caught up, it wouldn't auto-correct those words...argh! It was so frustrating.
In the end, I decided I liked the features - in your face multitasking, swiping to end apps, the physical keyboard on my Pixi (which is second to none), and simplicity of WebOS over what I liked about Android, and I took my Hero back. In fairness, I only had 1.5...I'm sure newer versions are much better, or maybe the hardware on the Hero isn't as good? I don't know. That's my two cents.
Thanks!
Annie
I'm hopping over from PreCentral to talk about my 30 day experience with the Sprint HTC Hero. I now own a Palm Pixi.
I liked:
-Web browsing with the big beautiful screen. It was a real treat.
-Customizing with all of my widgets.
-Notifications staying out of the way until I want them (much like WebOS)
-The big clock with the little moving weather icons
Why I took it back:
-LLLLAAAAAGGGGGG...no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get it to run properly, or at least what I thought was properly. I put on a taskkiller..then someone told me to take it off, so I did...then I created new SenseUI screens to try and see if it was my widgets or what I had running in the background, and it did run a little smoother when I stripped it down. I still had terrible lag in the keyboard...like it would get three words behind when I was typing, then when it caught up, it wouldn't auto-correct those words...argh! It was so frustrating.
In the end, I decided I liked the features - in your face multitasking, swiping to end apps, the physical keyboard on my Pixi (which is second to none), and simplicity of WebOS over what I liked about Android, and I took my Hero back. In fairness, I only had 1.5...I'm sure newer versions are much better, or maybe the hardware on the Hero isn't as good? I don't know. That's my two cents.
Thanks!
Annie
I can't actually comment as a user as I have no smartphone yet, (thus my trying to post regularly for this contest), but I have to say I love the look of WebOS in general. It's the fact that the phones aren't available on Rogers that keeps me away.
Still, I like Android better from what I've seen for a couple of reasons. Mainly, the Google integration (I'm a big Google user), and the apps. (And, on the Nexus one, the voice recognition. Though, it'd probably have trouble with my voice. I have a chronic cough and my voice is all croaky all the time.)
Still, I like Android better from what I've seen for a couple of reasons. Mainly, the Google integration (I'm a big Google user), and the apps. (And, on the Nexus one, the voice recognition. Though, it'd probably have trouble with my voice. I have a chronic cough and my voice is all croaky all the time.)
- Android is open source, webOS is not. Yet it seems to me that maybe webOS is more accessible and therefore more 'open' even though it's not technically open source.
Currently I am running Android on an HTC Touch, which originally runs Windows Mobile. If it weren't for Google open sourcing Android, this never would have been a possibility for me, and I would be stuck with Windows Mobile. From a consumer standpoint, Android seems more open only because of all the manufacturer's using it.
- I see Pros and Cons to the notification systems on both webOS and Android. I like Android's "clear all" button, but I also like the ability to dismiss notifications one-by-one on webOS. Do you have a preference?
Personally, Android's notifications system feels more unified to me than webOS, only from a graphical perspective. I definitely would like a way to clear notifications one-by-one without going into different apps, but notifications still feel more suited to my needs on android.
- Do you use a task manager app on Android? Which Android phone do you have? Is a task manager necessary?
The custom build I am using has Advanced Task Killer installed by default, but I never use it. The phone I'm using is an old WinMo phone with little Ram, but Android handles background processes well enough that I never notice. I'd say a task manager isn't necessary at all unless you want that control, but a quick, and graphically flashy way to multi-task would be beautiful \
- How do you rate the various touchscreen keyboards on Android?
The only ones I have used are the HTC Keyboard, and the default Google one. The Google one works well enough that the average user wouldn't care, but the HTC Keyboard is fantastic when it comes to spell correction, which is important when typing on a resistive screen with fingers. I'd say it even beats the iPhone's, from what I've seen using other peoples.
- Does the fact that different Android phones have different versions of the OS bother you?
Does it bother me? Yes. Will the average user notice? I don't think they will until they find bump into someone with another Android phone, and notice that other person's phone has a feature their own doesn't.
But when you look at the Linux world in general, it is both a blessing, and a curse. Sure, it makes it hard to provide a unified front, like iPhone has, but one doesn't have to mold themselves to the phone. It is like when you and your friends are eating ice cream. You can try different flavors, the flavors that suit your tastebuds. But you and your friends are all still having the same thing: ice cream.
- Is Android accessible to the average, non-geek user. I think the answer is yes... but how could it be better?
The thing that would make Android more accessible to the average user is something Android already has: a setup tutorial the user has to go through. Does it help acclimate the user? Yes. Does it show them how to copy and paste? No.
It doesn't even tell them how to install apps. I know enough average users of iPhone and Android to know that most have no idea you can install apps from the App Store/Marketplace.
I think webOS is better about acclimating the end user, and Google needs to get better at this if they want people using Android to use the mobile web (if only for their profit margins)
Currently I am running Android on an HTC Touch, which originally runs Windows Mobile. If it weren't for Google open sourcing Android, this never would have been a possibility for me, and I would be stuck with Windows Mobile. From a consumer standpoint, Android seems more open only because of all the manufacturer's using it.
- I see Pros and Cons to the notification systems on both webOS and Android. I like Android's "clear all" button, but I also like the ability to dismiss notifications one-by-one on webOS. Do you have a preference?
Personally, Android's notifications system feels more unified to me than webOS, only from a graphical perspective. I definitely would like a way to clear notifications one-by-one without going into different apps, but notifications still feel more suited to my needs on android.
- Do you use a task manager app on Android? Which Android phone do you have? Is a task manager necessary?
The custom build I am using has Advanced Task Killer installed by default, but I never use it. The phone I'm using is an old WinMo phone with little Ram, but Android handles background processes well enough that I never notice. I'd say a task manager isn't necessary at all unless you want that control, but a quick, and graphically flashy way to multi-task would be beautiful
\ - How do you rate the various touchscreen keyboards on Android?
The only ones I have used are the HTC Keyboard, and the default Google one. The Google one works well enough that the average user wouldn't care, but the HTC Keyboard is fantastic when it comes to spell correction, which is important when typing on a resistive screen with fingers. I'd say it even beats the iPhone's, from what I've seen using other peoples.
- Does the fact that different Android phones have different versions of the OS bother you?
Does it bother me? Yes. Will the average user notice? I don't think they will until they find bump into someone with another Android phone, and notice that other person's phone has a feature their own doesn't.
But when you look at the Linux world in general, it is both a blessing, and a curse. Sure, it makes it hard to provide a unified front, like iPhone has, but one doesn't have to mold themselves to the phone. It is like when you and your friends are eating ice cream. You can try different flavors, the flavors that suit your tastebuds. But you and your friends are all still having the same thing: ice cream.
- Is Android accessible to the average, non-geek user. I think the answer is yes... but how could it be better?
The thing that would make Android more accessible to the average user is something Android already has: a setup tutorial the user has to go through. Does it help acclimate the user? Yes. Does it show them how to copy and paste? No.
It doesn't even tell them how to install apps. I know enough average users of iPhone and Android to know that most have no idea you can install apps from the App Store/Marketplace.
I think webOS is better about acclimating the end user, and Google needs to get better at this if they want people using Android to use the mobile web (if only for their profit margins)
-I would like to be able to dismiss notifications one at a time, but the clear all works just fine for me. Plus, you can open the notification which clears it.
-I use Advanced task manager on my droid. The Droid is pretty good at running itself so its not really necessary. It was though on the Eris which I had for 3 weeks.
-On my droid, I've downloaded and installed SWYPE which is the single greatest thing to come to touchscreens. It's still got a few bugs (auto-capitilization after periods and double spacing) but its great. I've used the physical keyboard exactly ONCE, just to try and see how it works. Though, it is quite necessary for some cutting/pasting operations.
-I think there needs to be consistency with regard to the OS's. It was annoying that I could only ahve 1.5 on my Eris and I'm eagerly awaiting 2.1. Plus, I know it makes it more difficult for app developers.
-Android OS is accessible to the average non-geek user. Though, it just isn't as intuitive as the Iphone OS. That being said, there's so much more you can do with it and it's not a difficult OS to figure out. Though some things are just a little too buried in menus. Plus, when I hit the menu button, I want all the options to come up, and not have to hit more.
I'm on AT&T, probably to stay looking at my corp discount and 3G availability in my area; was waiting on a Pre, but now looking hard at an Android phone. Maybe it's a matter of if either has a real offering to replace my Treo680 and stop my wife's good-natured ribbing for an iphone!
On topic, I can adjust, and LIKE to adjust, to new technologies, it keeps my brain fresh, so not hung up on hard/soft keyboards and the like, even though I'm <gasp> over 50!
On whole, reading everything I can, I'd say hardware, available apps, openness goes to Androids. Operating system and UI and polish, clearly Palm/WebOS, and probably that will increase as the GPU *and hopefully other internals WebOS programming doesn't lend itself to today* gets exploited. From what I read, the PDA centric apps I use the most are better on WebOS, and I like synergy capability.
Supporting infrastructures & ecosystem(s): Honestly, if google gets to where they offer a Nexus type product on any carrier, the whole open thing is like open squared. I'd never buy into the Apple ecosystem, for example. My concern watching AT&T CES pitch and having worked with parts of them as both a vendor and a customer is that they appear to do what any large IT company does, standardize the crap out of everything for cost reasons, like dumb-phone messaging, app store stuff we saw in CES. In essence, more control to save costs, and it fits the vast majority of folks who aren't on these tech forums. Like I think most of us here, all I want is bandwidth, coverage, pricepoint. Lest you think I'm digressing to a carrier discussion, the tie in goes back to Openness and Nexus One. If they can produce a product (or product set) that works anywhere, I'm probably going to reward them with my purchase even if I like the Pre better, because my gas and electric companies don't tell me what appliances I can buy, and I hate my bandwidth provider trying to control what hardware, and worse, what apps I use.
ADS
On topic, I can adjust, and LIKE to adjust, to new technologies, it keeps my brain fresh, so not hung up on hard/soft keyboards and the like, even though I'm <gasp> over 50!
On whole, reading everything I can, I'd say hardware, available apps, openness goes to Androids. Operating system and UI and polish, clearly Palm/WebOS, and probably that will increase as the GPU *and hopefully other internals WebOS programming doesn't lend itself to today* gets exploited. From what I read, the PDA centric apps I use the most are better on WebOS, and I like synergy capability.
Supporting infrastructures & ecosystem(s): Honestly, if google gets to where they offer a Nexus type product on any carrier, the whole open thing is like open squared. I'd never buy into the Apple ecosystem, for example. My concern watching AT&T CES pitch and having worked with parts of them as both a vendor and a customer is that they appear to do what any large IT company does, standardize the crap out of everything for cost reasons, like dumb-phone messaging, app store stuff we saw in CES. In essence, more control to save costs, and it fits the vast majority of folks who aren't on these tech forums. Like I think most of us here, all I want is bandwidth, coverage, pricepoint. Lest you think I'm digressing to a carrier discussion, the tie in goes back to Openness and Nexus One. If they can produce a product (or product set) that works anywhere, I'm probably going to reward them with my purchase even if I like the Pre better, because my gas and electric companies don't tell me what appliances I can buy, and I hate my bandwidth provider trying to control what hardware, and worse, what apps I use.
ADS
That kind of alls in line of one of my feelings towards purchasing a Droid over a Palm. When I was testing out the Palm in store, I found myself constantly closing the Palm because I wanted to keep the size smaller and focus on the screen. Of course, there was constant need to open it up for the keyboard, which, petty as it may sound, actually annoyed me.
Though I do hear that the Pre Plus has a better slider mechanism that is much more enjoyable.
I would be interested in hearing a comparison of the multitasking on androids vs. webos. Particularly playing music and doing other stuff, like surfing the web or texting or some such. I suppose its somewhat phone specific, but pre vs moment would be most interesting for me since I'm on sprint.
Pre v. Moment
Pre v. Hero
Pre v. Droid
Those are good multi-tasking points since they are different levels. The interesting thing I find is even though the blogs laud the Hero as one of the most amazing phones for Android, but all I hear from the forums is how it's laggy, hard to deal with, etc. I was in a Sprint store the other day and I felt the Hero was a little difficult to use compared to other Android phones, even compared to the Eris.
Pre v. Hero
Pre v. Droid
Those are good multi-tasking points since they are different levels. The interesting thing I find is even though the blogs laud the Hero as one of the most amazing phones for Android, but all I hear from the forums is how it's laggy, hard to deal with, etc. I was in a Sprint store the other day and I felt the Hero was a little difficult to use compared to other Android phones, even compared to the Eris.
HardcorePooka
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- Jan 13, 2010
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Contest entry, woo!
I will say that I have used both WebOS & Android(Not extensively, but enough to get an okay feel for them). I like android more, but I'm a techie. I love playing with stuff and customizing and all that sort of stuff. I liked WebOS but had some issues when I first used it(very shortly after the Pre came out) and haven't had a chance to try it since then. I thought some of the things WebOS did were nice, but I have to say I'd much prefer Android as my "daily driver".
I will say that I have used both WebOS & Android(Not extensively, but enough to get an okay feel for them). I like android more, but I'm a techie. I love playing with stuff and customizing and all that sort of stuff. I liked WebOS but had some issues when I first used it(very shortly after the Pre came out) and haven't had a chance to try it since then. I thought some of the things WebOS did were nice, but I have to say I'd much prefer Android as my "daily driver".
Looking forward to reading your review - I'm likely to get either an Android phone or a Palm Pre for my next cell phone, so your impressions will be valuable to me!
Are we supposed to say contest entry? If so... um... contest entry? I just figured we can enjoy the conversation.
What really makes Android open source from a consumer standpoint outside of the fact that manufactures can use the OS freely and WebOS is tied to Palm? Do developers have more freedom? From what I've been following with the Pre, Palm practically invites you to hack/homebrew WebOS.
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