Date: 2011-07-04 17:57:08 Created: 2011-07-04 13:51:30
HP’s mobile operating system Webos and the devices running it has me more excited about a new platform than I have been since Ios started showing its potential. I owned and loved a Palm IIIe back in the early bronze age, and have been checking what the company is doing every now and then ever since. Webos and the Palm pre appealed to me from the start, but unfortunately no Palm phones have been officially released here in Sweden yet. Happily, this will change soon enough, and so last week I tagged along (thanks a lot for the opportunity Bobby!) to Stockholm and attended a Webos meetup where, among other things, some nice guys from HP demonstrated (and let us all play with) the new Touchpad, phones and the OS itself. I have the tools installed and have browsed some documentation, but I have not yet taken the time to actually code anything. I am definitely looking forward to it though, both on the off-chance I will create something useful and also for just sitting down and getting a feel for how all the parts fit together and how much things differ between there and on Ios.
Of course, I had no project of my own to bring, but I should have taken the chance to grab someone and get a quick rundown of how the basic development cycle would work on my own machine. I half expected people with more experience to fill all available time up with interesting questions, but in the end there was plenty of time and attention given to anyone with a question so I could have grabbed a larger chunk.
I think Webos can gain a lot from its decision to rely on web technologies. Applications being Javascript, CSS and HTML, HP can actually go out and tell every single web developer that they already know how to create apps for Webos. My feeling is that a lot of web developers would be motivated to get into app development with a carrot (or reassurance, if you will) like that. No new languages to learn, and you can even keep on using as many of your frameworks as you like. Why not give it a try?
Overall, the thing I had least expected was how good an impression I ended up getting of HP and their plans for the platform. I left feeling that HP has a good plan, a good attitude and that they are genuinely interested in supporting and communicating with their developer community. It feels like they have thought through what they should and should not do to find space in the market, that they have come up with good decisions and are now making sure they work according to that.
As revealed by the very text I am writing, I left the event with plenty of new development thoughts and a suddenly renewed interest in phones the names of which do not begin with the letter ”i”. Getting to chat with lots of new and nice people was almost a bonus.
I am sure to follow Webos closely going forward, regardless if I end up actually developing for the platform or not. Hats off to everyone working with making Webos great, you have done a grand job so far!