Why WebOS Hasn't Lived Up to Its Potential — Yet

When Palm first unveiled webOS in 2009, the new platform was supposed to be the next mobile messiah.

With its sexy user interface, a developer-friendly backend and a host of new features like multitasking and contact Synergy, everyone was certain webOS would be the platform to rejuvenate the once-prominent PDA pioneer company.

Of course, webOS has shaped up to be less of a Jesus than an L. Ron Hubbard, as the platform's following never rose above cult status.

As of November 2010, Palm's market share of U.S. mobile platforms weighed in at a paltry 3.9 percent, according to a comScore report. Sales of the Palm Pre -- the flagship device on which webOS was first shipped -- were lackluster, with numbers never breaking the 1 million mark in the first three months of the phone's release. Weigh that against the iPhone 3GS, which launched two weeks after the Pre. One million of Apple's handsets were sold in the first three days after release.

Palm loyalists are praying for a comeback, and may see it at the upcoming invite-only event at Hewlett-Packard's San Francisco offices Feb. 9.

"The hope is that HP/Palm will be releasing some new smartphone handsets as well as tablets," says developer Justin Niessner in an interview with Wired.com. "If they fail to deliver, I know quite a few people -- including myself -- that will be switching to a different mobile OS."

So what happened? Why did webOS seem so promising and then fall flat on its face?

The Good

The mobile landscape hasn't always looked so grim for Palm's platform.

"WebOS introduced a sound development metaphor which had the potential to attract developers," IDC software analyst Al Hilwa told Wired.com in an interview. "It has a smooth and fluid interface, with good bones like multitasking and a wealth of features, making it a fairly easy platform to develop for."

Apps for the webOS platform are written primarily in JavaScript and HTML, programming languages used by developers to code for the web. So if you're already a web developer -- and after the early days of the dot-com boom who isn't? -- developing apps for webOS is relatively easy.

"Lots of people who wouldn’t have otherwise created apps flocked to to webOS," developer Roy Sutton, who runs app development tutorial site webos101.com, told Wired.com in an interview. "They could come in and port over a portion of an existing web app to webOS in a matter of hours."

Alternatively, developing for Apple's mobile operating system requires learning its tool chain. That means learning Cocoa Touch, Apple's proprietary API for building iOS apps.

Another big draw for the developer crowd: "developer mode." After entering the Konami code while on the Pre's main idle launch screen, the phone becomes startlingly easy to hack.

"Users can install anything from patches that change core functionality of webOS," says developer Justin Niessner, "to replacement kernels that enable a user to overclock their WebOS device."

Additionally, you can access and load "Homebrew" apps, or those still in beta from other developers, onto the Pre. While the Homebrew repertoire consists of a paltry 500+ beta apps, it's the kind of access that appeals to the hacker sensibility.

Palm Pre users didn't have to deal with some of the setbacks that Android OS enthusiasts ran into with platform expansion across multiple hardware manufacturers. With Google's push to update the OS an average of twice yearly since debut, version fragmentation issues have plagued both developers and consumers.

The Bad

Indeed, Palm had attracted lots of positive attention from the tech press at large after the Consumer Electronics Show announcement. While many doted over the sleek look of the new hardware, others (like Wired.com) wagered that webOS would be Palm's "secret sauce," the kicker that would set the Pre apart from other 2009 smartphone debuts.

*'It took us six months to see a product. In Silicon Valley time, that's an eternity.'*But with every advantage webOS had in the veritable mobile platform buffet available to consumers, there were just as many setbacks (if not quite a few more).

"The platform had such tremendous hype and momentum after it was announced at CES 2009," says Sutton. "But it took us six months to see a product. In Silicon Valley time, that's an eternity." The Pre was all but considered vaporware by the time its June 6 launch date came around, only to have its thunder immediately stolen by the iPhone 3GS, which launched shortly thereafter to much consumer ado.

As for the phone itself, some found the Pre's design lacking. "Palm definitely could have done themselves a favor by releasing some hardware with more modern design cues," Niessner says. "The screen was smaller than other comparable smart phones on the market. And the slide-out QWERTY keyboard was also very difficult to use."

Even if you loved the design of the hardware, "The life cycle of the Pre and even the Pre Plus [eventual successor to the Pre] was short," says developer Peter Ma. " It couldn’t catch up with the number of iPhones and Android devices coming out after it."

HTC's Nexus One, for instance, has a 1-GHz Snapdragon processor (compared to the Pre's 500 MHz), 512 MB of RAM (to the Pre's 256 MB) and a 5-megapixel camera (to the Pre's 3 megapixels) -- it's close to twice the phone that the Pre is. "While the perceived speed of the Palm Pre was acceptable," Niessner says, "the numbers certainly didn't do the hardware any favors."

The Ugly

When webOS finally arrived with the Pre's launch, Palm made some serious missteps. The SDK (or software development kit) wasn't widely available to developers prior to the platform's launch, which made for a pitiful app ecosystem from the start.

"The Pre launched with something like 30 apps in the app catalog," Sutton says, "and it stayed that way for months. Add to that, developers didn't even have access to the PDK" -- or Plug-in Development Kit, which allows developers to code native apps for webOS in the C and C++ programming languages -- until March 2010, almost a year after the Pre was first released. "It really limited the types of applications developers could create," says Sutton.

At just over 5,600 apps in Palm's market, there's no beating around the bush about it: The app ecosystem is just sad. While it and the fledgling Windows Phone Marketplace are comparable, HP's market pales in comparison to the 200,000-plus listed in the Android Market, and it's barely a blip on the radar compared to Apple's 400,000-plus populated App Store.

"If you're a developer looking at a base of 2 million user installations like with webOS," says Ma, "you're shaking your head. Developers would rather get a small portion of huge markets like Apple's or Android's, not a big portion of a small market like Palm's."

The Future

But wait, there's hope! Or at least, there might be.

When HP acquired Palm in April 2010, developers took heart. "It brought the spectacle of massive investment by a massive tech giant," says Hilwa. "The hope was that HP would provide that scalability Palm never seemed to have on its own."

*'I think HP has to look at Feb. 9 as their last chance.'*But so far, we haven't seen much since HP took over. The last webOS software update was way back in July, and the only new hardware to come out of Palm since the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus (both early 2010) went to freakin' France.

Developers are holding out for Feb. 9, when HP is hosting a huge webOS announcement at its San Francisco offices. Journalists are invited to attend a morning presentation, while webOS developers have been invited to an evening event. The 450 spots available for the developer gathering have long since sold out.

Speculation suggests we'll be seeing at least one tablet offering, if not two. Leaked internal specification sheets show HP's "Topaz" tablet sporting a 1.2-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon-based processor, 512 MB of DDR2 RAM and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat -- all stats that are on par with other upcoming 2011 tablet debuts.

Pushing the "Topaz" may be the best way HP can expand its platform. "I'll predict that HP/Palm will exit the phone space and try to make a big go of it in the tablet space," Hilwa says, "thereby avoiding some carrier issues or bottlenecks." Not having to compete as intensely in the smartphone market may give the company a better shot at expending its resources in the tablet market and attracting more users to the platform.

Though the tablet route may not suffice for the Pre enthusiasts. "Personally, I'm hoping for a new phone," Biocandy Labs developer Joshua Spohr told Wired.com in an interview. "As much as I love my Pre, I really want something new with webOS to replace it."

Whatever the company unveils, one thing is for sure -- it needs to be big.

"I think HP has to look at Feb. 9 as their last chance," Sutton says. "A lot of us have been waiting for a long time. But we can't hold out forever."

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

See Also:

• HP Buys Palm for $1.2 Billion
• Palm Unveils Cheap PDA for Masses
• Palm webOS Headed to HP Tablet, Printer
• Report: HP Palm Tablet Pictures Leaked, May Ship This March
• Palm Pre 2 and WebOS2 Announced, Adobe Flash Supported
• Verizon Unveils Plans to Offer the Palm Pre
• HP Slate Could Get a Makeover With Palm's WebOS