webOS Refugees - Meet Here

[lichtwerke]

Hi,
nice to be around here with you:
End of August I quit WebOS due to the HP decision ...
I had developed in webOS for 2 years learnd Mojo and Enyo - the last being a real beauty and ease.
But when I received my Samsung Omnia 7 I was struck by the awesome great hardware - I never thought about that (used a Pre-). Its great and I love the metro style -
but of course thee are some webOS beauties I miss a little bit, but from a developer perspective it seems that wp7 will develope fast - faster than we were used with webOS.
I started developing for wp7 now to. But that means studying C#, .NET, Silverlight, WP7-framework and the tools: Visual Studio and Express Blend - > 4500 pp. to read for the start - it seems to be fun then, but quite some ...
Fine to have found some emigrant-colleages here

 

[comwom]

Thinking about switching from a Palm Pre- to a Sprint WP7 (I think there's only one available at the moment). Do I wait for one with Mango pre-installed?

Also, two things I use all of the time in webOS are (1) the Device Megamix patch and (2)Google calendar. I also like to have different "text" tones for different people's texts. So, what does WP7 have that approaches the capabilities of these? Will I need to export all of my calendars over to Windows Live?

 

[nyquistjack]

Thinking about switching from a Palm Pre- to a Sprint WP7 (I think there's only one available at the moment). Do I wait for one with Mango pre-installed?

Also, two things I use all of the time in webOS are (1) the Device Megamix patch and (2)Google calendar. I also like to have different "text" tones for different people's texts. So, what does WP7 have that approaches the capabilities of these? Will I need to export all of my calendars over to Windows Live?

Not sure what all is on the megamix patch, but whatever it is won't be on WP7. The patching/homebrew is anemic compared to the Pre.

Ring tone handling is embarrassing, even in Mango. You have to make ring tones, circa feature phones from 2001. They can only be 40 seconds long, have to be a specific genre and you can't even add custom alert sounds without hacking the phone. So custom text notifications are a no-go.

Google calendar works just fine. I didn't use my Live account for anything outside of the app catalog. I had 3 gmail accounts sync'd to the phone.

It depends on if you are a die-hard physical keyboard fan. The keyboard on the only sprint device (the arrive) is quite nice. But look through my other posts and you'll see I HATE the way the OS works with (or more accurately, doesn't work) with the physical keyboard. The screen is just too small to just use the onboard keyboard all the time (the vkb is amazing...practically magic).

So, I'd wait for a few weeks to see if Sprint gets a new device. I am leaving Sprint. They royally ticked me off over a technicality. Plus, it is painfully clear they are going to be pusing Android and the iPhone and nothing else. There will likely never be more than 1 or 2 WP7 devices on Sprint. So, I am going to ATT since they offer pretty much every phone ever made. I am probably going to hold off until they get the Titan in a few months.

Whatever you choose, good luck!

 

[1jaxstate1]

WebOS sucks major assage, and I see why it's being tossed around like a overpaid $5.00 whore. I read all the review and though, sure why not. Man it's horrible.

 

[scottitude]

Don't hold back, tell how you really feel.

 

[nyquistjack]

WebOS sucks major assage, and I see why it's being tossed around like a overpaid $5.00 whore. I read all the review and though, sure why not. Man it's horrible.

Is there a particular reason you felt the need to post this in what has been a very friendly thread?


-- Sent from my HP TouchPad using Communities

 

[scottitude]

Good question. I'm thinkin' maybe the Kool-Aid (Flavorade for the sticklers) must taste a little bitter today :lol:

Sent from my T7575 using Board Express

 

[admcgrath]

Hey fellow WebOS'ers, (still running my pre - on wifi...) Just Mangoed my Arrive and LOVE IT! Great points in this thread as a help to a cellphone salesman. But one question, my music app stays on in the background and kills my battery. If I power down the phone and back up, my battery lasts twice as long! Small price to pay but any thoughts?

 

[sinime]

IDK, feels like a hit a brick wall with WP7 the other day. It's hard to explain, but I guess I'm feeling confined. I miss my webOS cards. Multitasking feels like a pain in wp7, although having said that, I don't think it's any better on ios or Android. My wife is hating the way you add events in the calendar... Add event, set time, save, open to edit, change event length, select ok, select save.


edit: maybe it's just that I'm using a lot of non mango apps on mango. :-/ I've got 19 days left to either get used to it or return it.


Sent from my SGH-i917 using Board Express

 

[foosball]

IDK, feels like a hit a brick wall with WP7 the other day. It's hard to explain, but I guess I'm feeling confined. I miss my webOS cards. Multitasking feels like a pain in wp7, although having said that, I don't think it's any better on ios or Android. My wife is hating the way you add events in the calendar... Add event, set time, save, open to edit, change event length, select ok, select save.


edit: maybe it's just that I'm using a lot of non mango apps on mango. :-/ I've got 19 days left to either get used to it or return it.

No doubt about it, webOS was the king of multi-tasking. I will always miss cards until someone else thinks of a better way and nobody has yet. That being said, give it another week or 2 so that you stop trying to turn WP7 into webOS and start using it for its own merits. In the end I've found that or for all its quirks WP7 has alot going for it...hopefully it works for you.

 

[Vulak'Aerr]

IDK, feels like a hit a brick wall with WP7 the other day. It's hard to explain, but I guess I'm feeling confined. I miss my webOS cards. Multitasking feels like a pain in wp7, although having said that, I don't think it's any better on ios or Android. My wife is hating the way you add events in the calendar... Add event, set time, save, open to edit, change event length, select ok, select save.


edit: maybe it's just that I'm using a lot of non mango apps on mango. :-/ I've got 19 days left to either get used to it or return it.


Sent from my SGH-i917 using Board Express

I'm not sure about your calendar experience there. You should be able to hit More Details whilst creating the appointment. To change the length you may need to hit the Custom option. It's all done while creating the appointment though. Both on WP7 and 7.5

 

[sinime]

K, that removed a few steps, ty.

Sent from my SGH-i917 using Board Express

 

[fifthGear]

I'm RonLongo from PreCentral. Owned my Sprint Pre since day 1. I was the first in line at my local Sprint store.

I just got my Windows Phone three weeks ago, an HTC HD7 on T-Mo. Really wanted a less expensive carrier so I'm testing them out right now on a pre-paid plan. Right now my Pre is still my primary phone. I'm about to cancel Sprint, T-Mo has good coverage wherever I need it. However, while I do like Windows Phone (I wanted something that wasn't what everyone else has), I still prefer webOS. When the Galaxy II and Amaze come out I plan to check out those phones and may get sucked in to Android. The main things I dislike about WP:

- Multitasking? WP is not running anything (except for maybe music) in the background. On my Pre, some apps continued to update the card even in card view. THOSE apps were actually running in the background. I think WP just takes a screen shot of the app before shutting it down. Sorry, that doesn't meet the computer science definition of multi-tasking/multi-processing.

- Audio quality is terrible. The damn GSM sound you hear when a call or text is about to come through on the phone? When I listen to music with phones on I hear that same sound almost constantly very softly but it's ther in the background of the music. It bothers me enough that I can't live with it.

- No front-facing camera.

- Too many of my favorite apps are not present. I don't care about slacker or any of those other music services, just give me my Pandora.

- The buttons on this phone are a PITA to manipulate. In particular the power and camera buttons. They need to be pressed quite hard to get them to respond.

- Too little storage. 8GB on my Pre wasn't enough, and neither is the 16GB on this phone. The Amaze will support up to 48. THAT's what I'm talking about. I should be able to get half my music collection on that beast.

- Lots of minor issues.

- I have no use for all the social networking stuff. I think Twitter is pretty dumb and FaceBook is VERY rapidly falling out of favour with me.

- Navigation... let's not talk about how bad it is. SprintNav is pretty damn good.

Of course there are a lot of good things that I really like. Didn't think I would like a larger phone, but my Pre's screen feels too now small compared to this.

 

[failmatic]

Been on HTC Arrive from Pre- for a week now. Feel like its time to move on to a platform that is supported and closes resemble the pre as possible.
What I like about WP7.5
1. The quick switch, not true multitask but it'll do. I feel like all it does though, is save a screen shot and relaunch the program whenever you want go back on it. Its not Cards, but it'll work since most of the time, I need it for a screen shot anyway. I miss CARDS
2. I keep accidentally touch the touch sensitive buttons (back,start,search) whenever im typing on the screen. Its annoying during a text message and especially Netflix since it has to reload the show over.
3. No Universal search. I keep opening they keyboard, like i do with the pre- to look up a contact and tap sms button. Now i have to slide open/press the power button, unlock the screen, tap people/messaging, tap new and type in the contact I want. Before, all i had to do is slide open, type name and tap sms.
4. EASE OF PATCHING. The thing I miss the most is the homebrew and patching the crap out of OS. Instead of waiting for implementation of features, you can just install them. The guys at webos internals along with jason and others are great at that. Bring a feature to webos that the developer hasnt implemented and making it easy to install. Need FB chat? Just download FB chatspoof. Want icons in 4x4 grid, dl the patch. Want glass like launcher? DL the patch. Want the phone to auto restart at 4AM so you got a fresh system every day, dl the program. It was awesome.
5. Ability to have default ringtone for all contacts and custom ringtone for certain contact. Custom alert and notification for certain contacts. Send blocked and unknown number to to voicemail. Ability to have media volume at max, notification at 50% and SMS at 75%.
6. Touch stone.
7. Threaded email with Google, Facebook, SMS. Just threaded messaging in general. I know WP has this for for SMS and FB only. I harldy talk to people on FB, but Gtalk, all the time. I use it more than SMS on my Pre. This goes back to patching. If WP has webos internals equivalent team, this would've been fix. Im using a buggy app call gchat right now. Its not great but atleast the option is there.

What I like from HTC Arrive and WP7
1. Phone is really nice. The screen size and the phone size is ideal size. I would like it a little thinner but this is a slider, so it its good enough. The hardware in this is good. Its snappy and responds well.
2. Voice input for SMS, search, launch program etc. When it recognize my voice its awesome. Its quiet frustrating when it doesn't and sometimes it thinks it knows what you want, you cant just press back and retry. You have to exit and hold down start again. Also, Im Asian, so most of my friends and family has Asian names. So when I want to text them, I try to sound non-Asian when i say their names for it to recognize. I wish they implement a word learning mechanism we can us for our contacts. Im imagining all the Hindi people trying to do voice search for their family contacts. I imagine its a nightmare for them too.
3. Zune music player is really good. Its similar to Music Player Remix, which I like alot.
4. Picture hub is good at integrating pics from FB, camber, and etc.
5. WIRELESS SYNCING. Its great. I charge my phone, all music and media is sync when I go to sleep.

 

[cj-m]

i probably have double refugee status

HP Touchpad user and N900/maemo. walking around now with WP7...but i must admit, i much rather prefer the fluidity of webOS.

that being said...i think that i am going to stick with WP7. Looking forward to the Nokia WP7 phones next year.

 

[Forgewizard]

First few days with HTC Arrive on WP7 and was lucky enough apparently to get to start with Mango from the get go. Had the Palm Pre "classic" (I refuse to call it a Pre Minus because the device was anything BUT negative until recently).

A couple reasons I didn't go Apple is that I don't like sealed batteries, and devices that make YOU conform to their parameters!

Didn't go to ANdroid because its too fractured and gamey to suit me.

Started way back when with a Royal Electronic organizer then to a Sharp Wizard, Up to a Clam shell device Called a Jornada LP760 running WINce! Moved to a Palm T2,Then to the T3 and then in to Smart Phones - Several Treos, Some WinMO devices and then to the Palm Centro and the Pre. So I've gotten used to several different platforms. The WEB OS just never got the backing it deserved and while the PRE was a device with promise in it's size (for the time) and the sleek design -the theory was there,but the practicality was not. Too many corners got cut and the hardware failed to live up to the software.

THe Homebrew & PAtches community have held the pre afloat and it will be interesting to see how things eventually turn out. As for me I'm tired of treading water and want to get out and sun myself! THe Arrive and WP7 seem to be the lifeboat I needed!

I already miss some things from the Pre - like the Vertical slider - easy to open one handed. I guess with practice I may get the hang of opening the Arrive one handed, but for now I keep slipping, even two handed and if the device is on when I open it I manage to tell it to go somewhere other than where I am!

The slick Gorilla Glass face is nifty until I try to turn off the alarm in the dark and cannot locate the off button! When reaching for it in the dark I can't tell which way is up or which end has the power button! The Pre's face button gave me a tactile way to figure that out.

WHY oh WHY didn't they make this Arrive with the ability to be a simple USB drive? Drag and drop of files is sooooo much easier than ZUNE OR SKY Drive!

Everytime I pick up the Arrive my thumb hits the volume rocker - will be searching for a way to "lock" the volume and ignore stoopid key presses. I think they could have gotten away with a smaller rocker switch -don't you? ANd maybe have it located a little closer to the top corner of the device?

I LOVE the rounded corners and heft of the Arrive - kind of looks what I thought the next iteration of the Pre should have been - not the shrunken VEER - what's up with that anyway? Who really wants to put MORE info on a TINIER screen?

THis is a perfectsize - definitely still pocketable, the EVO and Samsung are just too big.
My Pre Speakers are much louder than the Arrive, but sound quality seems equal.

WP 7 is WAYYY better than WinMo (and so is the screen resolution). Still new to the platform so don't have too many gripes. Wished WP 7 implemented Flicks to close and having a history with Win Mo I'm constantly backtracking to close things running in the background. But some threads say this is not necessary in WP 7. Time will tell.

Battery so far has been excellent. But then again itsnew, and I'm not using it much for calls yet. But it has gone an entire work day and then several hours at the house without needing a charge, whereas the PRE couldn't get too far away from a power source.

Speaking of - the TOuchstone - WHAT a concept! I have three - One at home, at the office and in the Jeep. Likely because of the Pre's need for juice. Hoping the Arrive isn't that thirsty. But still induction charging is awesome! No fiddling with cords and sockets in the dark or when bleery eyed.

Used the camera to photograph a Gopher Tortoise trying to get above the flood waters. And it was easy. Pic is focused and looks to have good color rendering. App came right up. Where the PRE would sometimes have to take multiple launchesfor the camera to come up.

All in all I am liking this Arrive and its OS. 16 GB is twwice what I had for storage so only time will tell if I reallyneed more. WIth 25 GB in the cloud at my beck and call - I think it should be more than adequate!

I specifically hunted for a Windows device because using Classic on the Palm Pre was at best O.K. and at worst cumbersome. Trying to get the Pre screen reverse engineered to act like a Centro screen just didn't cut it. I couldn't work with manyof my office documents. I dumped a TON of money into Docs to Go and then they slapped us in the face by dumping WEBOS! I vowed to never use them again! But WHY can't I edit the plethora of OFFICE files I have from 1997 through 2003? THey are actual MS files!

Do I REALLY have to invest in 2010 Office to fully utilize my Arrive? Is WP 7 backwards compatible to MS office 2007? THis will entail more digging on my part. I was lookiing forward to being able to edit my docs wile mobile, but alas I am back to simply viewing them. Grrr!

SO that's the differences that have come to light for me. All in all I think the Arrive shows more promise, is a sturdier device and has the backing of real development behind it as well as a burgeoning homebrew crew.

Browsing breifly through the Marketplace, I've already spotted some apps that look surprisingly similar to many on my Pre. Coupled with the MS Office & One Note ability and Yeah, I'm getting that warm fuzzy feeling again! Oh wait.... that's the Arrive vibrating again!

CHEERS!

 

[11B1P]

got to look at the whole package

I'm RonLongo from PreCentral. Owned my Sprint Pre since day 1. I was the first in line at my local Sprint store.

I just got my Windows Phone three weeks ago, an HTC HD7 on T-Mo. Really wanted a less expensive carrier so I'm testing them out right now on a pre-paid plan. Right now my Pre is still my primary phone. I'm about to cancel Sprint, T-Mo has good coverage wherever I need it. However, while I do like Windows Phone (I wanted something that wasn't what everyone else has), I still prefer webOS. When the Galaxy II and Amaze come out I plan to check out those phones and may get sucked in to Android. The main things I dislike about WP:

- Multitasking? WP is not running anything (except for maybe music) in the background. On my Pre, some apps continued to update the card even in card view. THOSE apps were actually running in the background. I think WP just takes a screen shot of the app before shutting it down. Sorry, that doesn't meet the computer science definition of multi-tasking/multi-processing.

- Audio quality is terrible. The damn GSM sound you hear when a call or text is about to come through on the phone? When I listen to music with phones on I hear that same sound almost constantly very softly but it's ther in the background of the music. It bothers me enough that I can't live with it.

- No front-facing camera.

- Too many of my favorite apps are not present. I don't care about slacker or any of those other music services, just give me my Pandora.

- The buttons on this phone are a PITA to manipulate. In particular the power and camera buttons. They need to be pressed quite hard to get them to respond.

- Too little storage. 8GB on my Pre wasn't enough, and neither is the 16GB on this phone. The Amaze will support up to 48. THAT's what I'm talking about. I should be able to get half my music collection on that beast.

- Lots of minor issues.

- I have no use for all the social networking stuff. I think Twitter is pretty dumb and FaceBook is VERY rapidly falling out of favour with me.

- Navigation... let's not talk about how bad it is. SprintNav is pretty damn good.

Of course there are a lot of good things that I really like. Didn't think I would like a larger phone, but my Pre's screen feels too now small compared to this.

Multi-tasking - is different in WP7. The last 5 apps are what I would describe as in short-term memory. They are in a suspended state. Makes for easier loading. You're gonna have to quit trying to make this into webOS. Yes, the tiles are actually changing. You will get notifications on those tiles when something new happens.

GSM sound?- sorry, that may be the providers fault. I have a Trophy on Verizon and I don't have any feedback sounds.

Front-facing camera - not very many phones on the market right now with it. I don't need it, so it doesn't bother me. Your Pre doesn't have it either, so you can't compare that feature. And you've got to have someone to talk to with a front-facing camera.

Apps - they are coming. Microsoft has the fastest growing market right now. Once again, I don't use Slacker or Pandora. Otherwise, contact those devs you want to see on WP and encourage them to dev for WP.

Buttons - if they are that hard to manipulate, sounds like you may have a faulty device. I don't have any trouble pushing my buttons.

Storage - I'm guessing your not familiar with Zune and/or the Zune Pass? I don't have a Zune Pass because I'm not into music that much to pay for the service. I have a 32gb Zune HD that is my main music player. With the streaming of music, storage is not necessary. You have access to thousands of songs through streaming with a Zune Pass. 48gbs? Overkill.

Social-networking - this is a huge part of WP. You don't have to link all of the various accounts, that's up to you. This is a feature that is here to stay. You will only see it get more intergrated as time goes on.

Navigation - I have a stand-alone GPS in my wifes car and in-dash GPS in my suv. What few times I have used the maps, it worked great for me. No complaints here. Much better than my Pre Plus.

Just keep in mind, this is not webOS. Things are accomplished and handled a little different. WP7 is part of an ecosystem; to be used in conjunction with Zune. It takes some time in the ecosystem before you start to see how everything goes together; and why WP7 is designed the way it is. Yes, there are some things that can be improved upon, but for a new OS, I think it's pretty darn good.

 

[nyquistjack]

Been out of the forums a good while, trying to catch up. The last several posts have been very interesting. I am finding it interesting how a lot of the former webOS users are coming to the same conclusions that I came to during my 3 week stint with the Arrive.

I also enjoy the responsesfrom the current Windows Phone 7 fans. I am trying to belong to both communities so I really try and see the discussions from both sides and in the end, I think everyone is right

The number one missed feature from webOS is the multitasking. Mango is better than nodo, obviously, but as everyone agrees, it is not webOS. That being said, the argument of "get used to, it aint webOS" is a funny one. Mango obviously will "never" have the fluidity of webOS, the whole underlaying layout for the OSes is just that much different. However, just shutting down the conversation isn't all that helpful either. I've thought ALOT about what makes webOS good with multitasking (fluidity, no thoughts it just works) and what's bad (battery life, performance). While I don't expect Microsoft to replicate webOS there are some improvements that I think could asuage our concerns.

1) Allow us to "pin" an application so that it is always open and in the running apps thingy. I would get REEEAAALLLYYY annoyed anytime an app I had been using was no longer in the quick app thingy. Then I'd have to go poking around in the launcher
2) Put a little X at the bottom of each running app in the quick app tihingy so we can easily cleanup running apps by quickly tapping the X's and not having to go into the app then hit the back arrow, which is clunky at best

There are a lot of other points to discuss, hopefully I'll have time to hit on them cause they are very interesting. But, I have to share this thought.

webOS, almost certainly...is dead. It will NEVER get the mindshare it needs to succeed at this point. It's become clear to me that webOS was always competing with Microsoft. Think of it this way: you are a company, a school district, a politician, and you are going to release some mobile apps. At this point, IOS is 100% gurantee, Android is a pretty close shoe-in too for a target. At that point you might write your app for Windows (soon to work on the phone AND desktop with Windows 8) or for webOS...which is doing nothing. It'll be Windows almost every time (or nothing).

So anywho, whether you agree with my explanation, at this point there is no chance of a new handset being released in 2012 with webOS. The only webOS phone on par with even the oldest windows 7 phone is the Pre 3, which is now dead. That leaves IOS, Android or Windows Phone 7.5 for us refugees.

Chances are if you loved webOS you will HATE Android (I wanted to beat my Evo 3D with a hammer after 1 week of use). IOS is IOS. The 3.6" is the deal breaker for me. After using the 4.3" screen on the EVO 3D, I can't go back. That leaves Windows Phone 7.5

WP 7.5 is modern (can actually do things like UPC code scanning, AR apps, photo editting apps, open the camera within 20 minutes of wanting to take a picture, and other such things). WP 7.5 has cardish multitasking...SO much better than stupid icons in IOS and Android, just needs some more refinements. It's, of course, stupidly fast and smooth. Lastly, it is just starting. The promise of HP to make your data seemless across all devices was ditched, but Microsoft is running with it. This is where Microsoft will start to catch up and eventually overtake Apple. Windows 8 tablets + Windows 8 desktops + Windows 8 phones will equal a nearly seemless user experience. Once Windows 9 hits, we will forget about how we used to have to manually copy files or drag and drop music or worry abuot accessing our pictures on one device but not another.

This all leads to this thought constantly running through my head:
"MAN I miss webOS, maybe I should just get a Sprintified Pre 2. But no UPC scanning, AR, and fun apps like adding speech bubbles to my vacation pics and sending them to my family. Plus, its going to be slow. Windows Phone isn't as good as webos, but it doesn't drive me insane like Android. Plus, when WP8 and Windows 8 comes out it will likely be pretty awesome. Yep, I am going Windows Phone 7.5, just need a good device

 

[IamDefiler]

2) Put a little X at the bottom of each running app in the quick app tihingy so we can easily cleanup running apps by quickly tapping the X's and not having to go into the app then hit the back arrow, which is clunky at best

Or let us flick it off the top of the screen from card view. ;o) I can't stand the constant back button mashing to close everything.

Picked up a used (looks new to me) Arrive a couple of days ago and am loving it so far.

I just jumped through hoops to get the calendar to accept multiple gMail calendars. This was one of two major things I needed. The other I still haven't figured out yet. And that is the ability to select the "Send email as...". I have multiple email account funneling into gmail and I want the ability to send from another account like I did with my pre. Anyone know how to do this?

Other than that, Mango is a HUGE step in the right direction and, in most areas, leaps and bounds over the pre and webOS.

 

[fifthGear]

Agreed. So much of WP7 is amazing... then there's the copied webOS card-ish screen. It's great as an app switcher, but let us close apps from there as well. I understand that only the last 5 are kept open and it closes things automatically for me -- maybe I'll get used to it.

The other thing I would like to see is Flash. MS and Apple have to get off their high-horses and allow people to have what they want rather than policing and deciding what the world can and cannot have access to.

OTOH TellMe is amazing! I use it all the time. Even vlingo on Android, while similar in principal is far less accurate than TellMe. My Android friends are jealous since vlingo is more a novelty (being barely usalbe) to them while TellMe is usable.