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Preliminary studies have shown that software developers working with location-based services weren’t all that keen on the Palm Pre’s operating system, WebOS, but anecdotal evidence suggests other types of devs are actually really excited about the platform.
“It’s a completely new way of thinking about an OS on mobile devices,” says Christian Sepulveda, vice president of business development at Pivotal Labs. … “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.”
“Palm started with a clean sheet of paper,” says Tom Conrad, CTO for Pandora … “Everything about the Pre feels like it’s ‘future-oriented,’ not an iPhone-inspired knockoff. … Palm has all kinds of great APIs to talk with the rest of the Pre architecture, to get location data, for example.”"
“I think you always run the risk of a programmer running amuck,” says Eric Marthinsen, a partner at Agile Commerce … “But the way Palm has approached multitasking is very smart. It really mitigates that risk.”
Glowing testimonies overall. Developers can currently check out the first three chapters of the webOS guide and see for themselves if it’s their cup of tea. Although writing in web-based languages like JavaScript and CSS might have been done for a long time, it’s the first time a mobile OS has used it so heavily, and it sounds like it’s a breath of fresh air for many. So far, the app selection looks just fine, but we’ll have to see how many devs hop on board after launch before giving webOS a pass/fail.
[via The Standard]
About The Author
Simon Sage
Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.
