Palm's webOS Is The Bomb

Some developers who've gotten a head-start working on applications for Palm's webOS have indicated that they like what they see. A lot. Pandora's CTO noted, "Everything about the Pre feels like it's 'future-oriented,' not an iPhone-inspired knockoff."

After hearing that some developers aren't all that interested in creating apps for the Palm Pre and webOS, others are offering the opposite opinion. NetworkWorld interviewed a bunch of different developers, who all appear to be pretty bullish on the new mobile operating system from Palm.

webOS is Linux-based and has a number of Palm innovations and additions. The main ingredient, apparently, is the mixture of the Webkit engine to control some of the user interface, including HTML and Java support. NetworkWorld writes:

The potential power of webOS lies in three capabilities that Palm has brought together into a coherent whole. First, mobile applications are written entirely in JavaScript, HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, which are technologies that an army of Web developers has been using for years. Second, webOS was designed from the outset to run multiple applications at once and, these developers say, to minimize the well-known potential problems that arise when doing so. Third, the application model is designed in turn to fully exploit both these features, creating, these developers say, a simpler, far more intuitive user experience.

In the limited time I've spent with the Pre, I'd definitely agree that the user interface is intuitive and works amazingly fast. That's because much of the user interface is based on these Web technologies, which are lighter on their feet.

Tom Conrad, CTO for Pandora, seems particularly enthralled with webOS. He says, "Your application is running as though it were a kind of series of dynamic Web pages in an embedded browser. It's not compiled into 'non-Web code.' It executes within a true Web environment."

Christian Sepulveda, vice president of business development at Pivotal Labs, says, "It's a completely new way of thinking about an OS on mobile devices. webOS has fully embraced the notion of applications running at the same time, as PCs do. You can now write applications that are more complex."

These comments help to provide some contrast to those offered by other developers, who feel that webOS isn't worth developing for. SkyHook Wireless recently reported that just 8% of LBS developers are interested in porting their applications to webOS. Hopefully the excitement that these developers offer will spur others to take an interest in webOS.

From informationweek