Palm Engineer Showcases Flexibility of webOS 31
The Sprint Open Developers Conference wrapped up today, and some interesting things came from the 3 day event. Among them? Ben and Dion detailed Palm's upcoming distribution model, Google and Sprint announced the availability of Google Voicemail and "conditional free call forwarding" on it's network, and Palm used a Pre running on the AT&T network.
Here's another thing to add to the list of really neat things that came from the conference: showcasing just how easy it is to create and add new functionality to webOS, Palm Engineer Matt Hornyak, the lead engineer on the phone app and the creator of the clock app, added additional snooze functionality to the clock app allowing for the modification of the length of the snooze alarm. He was able to cook up the code and add it to the application in all of about 5 minutes, while live in front of 500 people.
For those interested in seeing how it's done (or those brave enough to try it out themselves), the wizardry involved is detailed in length over at the Palm Developer Network Blog, and it's my guess we'll see this updated clock functionality in an upcoming release of webOS.
Thanks to AKITAYO for the tip!
31 Comments
So why don't they add all the dozens of "fixed" patches that the homebrew community has come up with? Some fixing serious usability and productivity issues which make the phone some times useless?! It seems simple enough...
I'd rather that the Palm engineers work on the bigger issues (phone app speed, radio tweaks, CPU & GPU enhancement, etc) and leave the apps/smaller issues to the devs.
To quote elizabeth below:
So what are Palm Engineers working on then?
Another major misunderstanding palm has, when they first announced the pre they stated they will only offer basic pim functionality, because they will count on 3rd party developers to add it. Until that happens, the pre is a crippled device, potential is not going to get them far enough, without market share, and with stiff competition.
If it's needed, someone will create it. Since that person will 1) be someone who uses that functionality, and 2) focused on the solution, it will likely be better than what palm would provide themselves.
If it's something that isn't needed, it won't come about, and palm would be wasting effort better focused on other things.
Granted.
And Palm's working on ...?
>if it's needed, someone will create it.
I need repeating audible missed notification alerts, VERY badly. Now 5 months. Nobody has created it.
I need video recording. Now 5 months. Nobody has created it.
I need voice dialing. Now 5 months. Nobody has created it.
I don't think your theory holds... I am certainly not the only one needing at least those three things. And all three things are what MOST even semi-smart phones have, and shouldn't cost extra either. And none of the three things can be done with simple Javascript/html, meaning they probably have to be done at the OS level by Palm.
So if its all so easy how come the Pre is missing a bunch of features that my 10 year old phones used to have. (example: change txt messaging ring tone)
Exactly!
Wow, it's really that easy?
Palm, you have no excuse! It should only take about five minutes to add text forwarding.
Hey, the visual voicemail app must be almost finished.
Looks WebOS is a breeze.... unless you're a user.
I never thought I'd be holding this phone in November and STILL NOT HAVE A CAMCORDER! What a joke.
I never thought I'd be holding this phone in November and STILL NOT HAVE A CAMCORDER! What a joke.
I understand you might have a bit of buyer's remorse on that issue, but not why you didn't see this coming. The Pre wasn't announced with video recording capability. There really wasn't any reason to believe that we'd have to wait until the Pre's successor in order to get it. The WebOS-internals guys found it, but other than that, we'd still be waiting.
Don't get me wrong: It frustrates me, too, to know that it's possible but not implemented. But it's not something I thought the phone could do in the first place when I bought it, so I don't understand missing the functionality.
Isn't this called suffering from Battered Spouse Syndrome? You should get help...
Complain to get change, that is the only tactic that works in this "new" economy. You have patches, great, I don't. Me no likie being spanked by Palm, I spankie back...
Isn't this called suffering from Battered Spouse Syndrome? You should get help...
Actually, Battered Spouse Syndrome is serious problem. Not having video recording on a phone that you already knew you didn't have video recording on? Um, not so much...
Look, I'm not saying I wouldn't like video recording on the Pre. It'd be great. But it was never promised, and doesn't show up as one of the specs for the phone. Complaining that the Pre you bought doesn't support video recording is like complaining that your iPod doesn't support encrypted WMA files.
I believe palm has to respond in some manner within the next week. Whether it is rolling out the software update that is supposed to come out with the pixi, being able to test the software to make sure its stable on an existing platform makes alot of sense to me anyway, or maybe even pushing their app development model ahead of schedule and have it come out in November instead of December. With anything else we'll likely see a number of average use costumer's being drawn to the more developed and mature platforms. I mean it seems like over the past 2-3 weeks we have been hearing nothing but news from either apple or android whether it be a new phone or the approach to the 100,000 app mark. We really hear nothing of Palm unless it related to apple (itunes sync). Sure you can make the argument that you don't hear enough about blackberry as well but they seem to roll out a new headset every 2 weeks whick keeps them relevant
Guys doing the change is one and putting all together in a package and testing them is another. It will take more time testing it than writing it and aftr the network has to test it too. That ebing said palm better come up with some meatier updates or the compition will wipe out WebOS(just an exageration)
Here is an idea, then. How about they (Palm) stop wasting time with the iTunes compatibility crap and use THAT time to add the basic features that are missing (of which there are many).
This kind of laughs in the face of all the users anxiously awaiting an actual webOS 1.0.
I agree with some of the other posters here. Palm should not waste its time fixing a usability issue that 1% of users care about over increasing the speed of the webos architecture itself. I love my pre, but when I mess with my friends iphone the responsiveness of it simple blows the pre out of the water
WHAT ARE ALL THOSE PALM ENGINEERS DOING IF ITS SO EASY TO FIX /ADD FUNCTIONALITY????...there is so much basic stuff that is lacking....just get us back to the same things we could do on the Treo and we would be happy!
+ 1 Agreed!
+100
so actually they are saying...
"we could easily make the phone much better in just some hours, but we do not want you to have a better phone!"!?
THANK YOU!!! So this demonstrates there is NO EXCUSE for the missing functionality, especially when compared with their own Treo.
PALM - Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory again.
Ok, so am I the only person who actually researches my multi-hundred dollar acquisitions? The way I see it is people that are the market for a smart phone SHOULD fall into two basic categories...the rich and the not so rich. If you are rich...just buy a friggin iphone and be done. If you're like me, take my advice RESEARCH THOROUGHLY first. My Pre does EXACTLY what Palm said it would do. Anything extra is an added bonus. If tone changes and camcorders are your thing, then the pre is not able to meet your needs right now. Maybe its just me, but each of us unsatisfied are more to blame than Palm is for not having researched first. And I get assumptions...but you know what is said about assuming. We seem to have this fascination with comparing the pre to the iphone...the iphone was (and still is) the king of multimedia phones..again, if you wanted the best d@m thing with the most apps go to Apple..simple as that. I whole heartedly disagree with the comment about complaining brings change. MONEY brings change (more importantly the lack of it). That is the heart of capitalism...competition. I'm a former HTC Fuze/Tilt user . They are the worst @ vapor promises. My pre's not perfect, but I knew that BEFORE I bought it. Ok, off my soap box now. (btw of course the iphone is "snappier" it doesn't allow multiple things to occur in either foreground or background. Doesn't your home pc slow down when trying multiple things)
Imagine you'd been a Blackberry user for 5 years and saw they just came out with a new phone with the form factor you love and a new modern OS and you got it only to find out it didn't push email. You didn't research the product because you are intimitely familiar with the Blackberry Brand and it's been a core feature of all Blackberries. You be shocked, baffled, and upset that the feature was missing. That's what happened with Palm and their non-existant HotSync and poor PIM applications and no video recording or customizable txt alerts.
test reply, not spam
i'm starting to see the pre as a $200 "open" beta for webOS. I see great potential for this OS, but there are alot of things that this device is missing that keep palm a step behind the competition.
I think that by the time they include all of the features that should have been in webOS from the beginning, they will be ready to release a true successor to the Pre and compete with the big dogs.
PS
Its nice to see that webOS is flexible, but if its so easy to make improvements, why does the clock app (and other stock apps) suck after so many months on the market?
Whoa, what IDE is he using in that picture? Is that NetBeans?? I'd drop Eclipse in a heartbeat if I could use either Netbeans or IntelliJ IDEA for doing webos development...
I'm using TextMate, a great OS X text editor.
Am I the only one finding it a since of irony that Palm continues to stick it to apple with iTunes sync and competing with the iPhone but everyone there are using Macs??
this dork needs to get busy on some updates then if its so easy!!
I wonder if anybody here realizes that, if it weren't for the "OMG lack of features" that everyone and their brother seems to be complaining about, we wouldn't need (and subsequently have) webos-internals, the enormous patching/theming/homebrew community, Precentral.net wouldn't be nearly as interesting, and quite frankly, nobody would really care about the abilities of webOS beyond the uber-hardcore developers and hackers who already get into everything without prompting.
In my opinion, this "severe lack of features that any 10-year-old cell phone should have" or whatever is the best thing to happen to a smart phone community in the history of cell phones.
1. 100% open-source operating system.
2. An engineering department and development team in a company (and carriers) that ENCOURAGE HACKING AND BREAKING YOUR PHONE for the benefit of every other user after you.
3. Anything--repeat, ANYTHING--that gets developed in the underground has the potential to make it into webOS as an application in the Catalog or as PART OF THE CODE.
No, we wouldn't need to do anything if Palm did it for us. You wouldn't be complaining. And all those nifty little tweaks and super-handy tools you've been downloading (and subsequently asking why Palm didn't include them) wouldn't be there. At all.