Crossing the webOS Desert

A funny thing happened at my local Sprint store this weekend.  I was exchanging my wife’s Palm Pre for a problem my “9 Simple Fixes” couldn’t fix. Of course, I secretly volunteered so I could catch a glimpse of Android’s newest baby, the HTC EVO. As beautiful as the hardware was — really, it’s gorgeous — playing with it merely reinforced my resolve to stick with webOS. My reasons remain the same.

But that’s not the story.  Here it is:  a lady had come into the store wanting to look at the EVO.  She saw me playing with it and could tell I was familiar with the device.  She began to ask questions.  I answered them one by one, and the more we spoke, the more I realized that the Palm Pre was better suited for her.

But then it happened:  I said nothing.

I was actually surprised at myself:  me? One of webOS’ biggest supporters, does not advertise the Palm Pre?  She went on to buy the HTC EVO and happily left the store, thanking me on her way out for “all my help.”  That’s when it hit me:

We’re crossing the aptly named “webOS Desert” with nothing to drink but cold, hard facts.

1)  The Pre and Pixi are old. As in, really old. Say what you want about Android and iPhone OS (excuse me… “iOS”)…  but those two operating systems, however inferior we feel them to be, are wrapped in far superior hardware.

Despite their love for webOS, many other fans have moved on and will continue to do so.  The reason:  Palm’s hardware is now way, way, way below par.  Throw into the mix recent reports of their higher-than-average return rates, and it makes these phones (particularly the original Palm Pre) really tough to recommend, awesomeness of webOS be damned.

2)  Palm’s gone radio-silent. At a time when Android is unleashing cutting edge 4G devices and Apple is pushing the envelope on turning phones into jewelry, Palm has gone silent.  Totally understandable, of course.  For one, their silence following the HP acquisition announcement is a common thing with mergers.  Plus, I’m pretty sure they’ve learned their lesson on waiting for blockbuster EVO/iPhone4 hype to die down before announcing any new developments.  (The iPhone4 launches June 24, so we can expect to hear little if anything about new hardware before then.)  … Be these things as they may, they’re still tough truths for consumers and webOS fans to swallow.

3)  There will be goodbyes. As we’ve seen recently, some members of Palm’s team — talented ones — will be leaving Palm in the wake of this merger.  That is the way of things with mergers, but it still leaves room for much speculation and doubt.

4) The questions: Okay, so everyone knows HP is going to buy Palm, but no one can say with 110% certainty that this is necessarily a good thing.  We’ve had to endure HP’s perceived indifference to smartphones even though we’re starting to feel these criticisms are unfounded (we talk about it at length in our second podcast at the 1:04:30 mark).

The Oasis Ahead…

Stay strong, webOS fans… for an oasis lies ahead! /cheese

1) New hardware. We all know Palm has been working on it for a while and HP has indicated that current product roadmaps would be released on schedule.  But this time, imagine better hardware with HP’s scale of distribution and advertising know-how. Not a bad picture, right?

2) Software updates: The one thing Palm has not been quiet about is that big changes are in store for webOS.  We will first see minor updates (1.4.5) which will put the finishing touches on the PDK, and then in the fall, we should see significant performance improvements to the snappiness of the user interface. Don’t believe me? Read the cool stuff from Palm’s Developer Keynote and tell me that doesn’t make you geek out!

3) Bring on the PDK apps! As you know, Palm announced the second phase of the Palm Hot Apps program, this time for PDK apps only.  It runs for the entire month of July.  This tells us two things.  First, we will definitely see a flood of new high-powered PDK apps starting very, very soon.  Second, Palm will definitely launch a webOS update before this all happens.  Exciting stuff!

In short, it’s hunker-down time, guys.  There will be some goodies along the way, and we’ll do our best to keep ya informed and entertained (you can start with our awesome new podcasts!).  When we finally cross this thing together we’ll all know that it was worth it.