A Foreword on webOS for 2011

That generally seems fair; I appreciate your attempt to be NPOV. That said, I honestly have some significant amount of trouble with the concept that failure of multiple advertized core features should be met by passive equanimity. There is definitely a role for some Zen when thinking about webOS, but, while agreeing with almost everything you say, I personally judge that HP Palm AS A BUSINESS does “owe” its customers some remediation for the progressively dysfunctional product it sold. Anyway, let’s reminisce over the days of gDial Pro, functioning PDF View, and so on. RIP, webOS phones…

I see. Or rather I can appreciate that you are trying to make a point. Which is, if I understand you, that webOS is better now. OK, help me understand in what way, exactly? Because, yes, in my opinion not only has webOS slipped RELATIVE to the competition, even worse, its CONSUMER deliverability to MOST people (the average user of a consumer phone doesn’t aggressively compensate with Preware, overclocking, and all the other tricks) has declined in ABSOLUTE terms when compared to this time last year. I was citing gDialPro as an example of once beautiful features (and I could have gone on about numerous other concerns such as PDF View and the pre-installed Doc Viewer) that do not now work. Defending the current state of this OS, and accepting the slow pace of remediation at HP of these defects, is your choice, but I am standing up and calling these problems out as both distressing in themselves and potentially symptomatic of an OS that will never be technically remedied for the smartphone platform. OK, after that rant, I apologize, but I again politely ask you, what exactly is better about webOS now versus, let’s say, early 2010? Because I can think video, and that’s really it, and that’s a feature phone capability, not a smartphone capability per se, and it was always a curiously absent feature to start with (i.e. I am saying it should have been there from day 1.) So what “new half” are you experiencing?

I discontinued active use of my webOS devices a while ago as I really was forced by work needs to restore smartphone functionality. One webOS phone is serving as a hacked controller interface in a hobby project, a second is presently serving as a music player for backcountry trips or jogging outings that get too muddy for new equipment, and I gave two away to people who wanted to use them as secondary phones on shared minute family plans, so their kids could have a handset and access to the nice email and text UI. Finally, my GF still uses a webOS device as a “back up” in her backpack/handbag “just in case” her other carrier has a system issue. These are the most legitimate uses of the hardware I could come up with. I agree that there has been a sense of disappointment from launch onward. I suppose the reason I still troll this site is the sense of regret that, with so much potential (it’s an extremely friendly and functional interface for people new to smartphones, and, as you allude to, the developer aspects have been interesting) I have been very saddened by its “comatose period in ICU”, as I appreciate the “feel” of the UI.