TouchPad Emulator Beta 5 leak reveals Mojo "compatibility mode" [exclusive] 74
Thu, 26 May 2011 9:52 pm EDT 
It’s been several weeks since we previewed all there was in the Beta 1 TouchPad emulator for HP webOS 3.0. In the weeks since, HP has apparently pushed out several iterations of the emulator and Enyo SDK into the Early Access Program, most recently hitting version number five. Thanks to a tipster, we’re getting a first look at one of the murkier aspects of webOS 3.0: how it would handle older Mojo apps.
Turns out, HP wasn’t kidding around when they called it an emulation window. In fact, our tipster tells us that emulator might be more accurate: as you can see it runs as a Pre-sized 320x480 window (this is apparently the first released draft of the Mojo emulator, so ignore the fact that it’s sideways relative to the menu bar) with a simulated phone around it, complete with gesture area below that responds to forward and back swipes and presumably meta-taps (it’s difficult to click in two places at once with a desktop-based emulator).
According to the documentation included with the Beta 5 emulator, Mojo apps “compatibility mode” will run by default at 320x480. The only other option requires developers to add a tag to their Mojo apps that will allow it to run full-screen, which completely eliminates the simulated gesture area (and thus requires that the app have some other means of navigating if necessary). We can’t help but question the 320x480 resolution – it’s just strange to default to so small of a size when you have a big 9.7-inch 768x1024 screen to fill. HP could have done an iPad-style pixel doubling of Mojo apps to 640x960 and still had plenty of space on the screen for the faux-gesture area.
Alas, it’s not such. So why this implementation? We can’t speak for with certainty on this, but HP’s been making a lot of noise on the TouchPad apps front, so it might be that HP believes they have a good enough stable of apps ready for the TouchPad that running Mojo apps in this compatibility mode will be a niche occurrence. We’re hoping that’s the case, or that they have plans for additional options for compatibility mode, but in the end it’s a stop-gap transitional measure like Classic was for Palm OS apps.
Apart from the Mojo compatibility mode, our tipster provided us with a few more screenshots that show refinement to the darker Enyo interface we saw a few weeks back, the copy/paste selection tool and dialog box, multi-select in Email, traffic in Maps, a Photos & Videos app that apparently dumps the side-scrolling film-strip interface, and Calendar in Exhibition mode. Check out the pictures after the break.
Thanks anonymous!
74 Comments
Sorry for my ignorance, but what exactly is an "emulator"? Thanks.
It's a program in a window that emulates an operating system.
Oh, so an emulator is an emulator? Good clarification. :-P
haha, well in this case it's like having the TouchPad without the hardware. If you have a Pre emulator then it will imitate the Pre on your computer.. You will get the same screens and functions as the device on your computer, pretty much. Just different since you won't be using touch or making calls. That should clarify it.
In before the rapture.
Wikipedia: "An emulator in computer sciences duplicates (provides an emulation of) the functions of one system using a different system, so that the second system behaves like (and appears to be) the first system."
I much prefer having a full size app and most of them won't suffer that much from pixelation
I think MOJO was Palm's biggest mistake. Inefficient, buggy, and a lot of work for existing smartphone developers to port their existing apps to. I know they were trying to attract the web development community vs. the C++ coders, but we see how that has worked out. Less than two years in and it has already been scrapped. If Palm had created a "real" SDK at the start I wonder where we'd be now?
Wasn't the SDK and API implementation always lagging, tho? Would that have ever changed?
I'm sure they would still have been as slow at releasing it, but at least we wouldn't be doing a complete restart less than two years later. Also, by now we should have had plenty of serious apps available, for example Documents To Go.
It was not, Mojo is an excellent framework. It is not inefficient, and it is not buggy. A few bugs here and there do not make it buggy. Any good web developer can adapt to Mojo within days, and if you had good C++ skills, you can learn web development within days as well.
Note: The Enyo SDK is still using web development technologies. Both Mojo and Enyo are "real" SDKs.
Sure a good developer can learn any development environment, but not many will be motivated to unless there is already a large installed base. Plus, unless they are a webOS-only developer, they will have a whole separate code base to maintain and update. We're even seeing apps that were converted to MOJO (like Epocrates) being dropped because they aren't worth the effort for the small market. I'm convinced we would have many more and better apps for webOS right now if Palm had made it easier to directly port existing software from the start.
If MOJO's performance is so great, why is it being replaced already with ENYO? Why are all processor and graphics intensive games created with the PDK? As for ENYO, I suspect it will have the same problem, but hopefully HP has the resources to prime the pump, write software themselves, pay developers to port apps, and sell enough devices to get iOS and Android developers interested. I don't want to have to use an OS with an inferior UI, but it is getting harder every day to stick with webOS.
I think this nails it for me! I have yet to recoop the dev time/cost with the Mojo version of my app. Now HP wants me to buy new test hardware (since my pre/pre+ "can't" run webOS 2.x much less 3) that won't even work with my carrier (Sprint) and rewrite my program using Enyo just so they can say they have apps for their unkown launch?! Fat chance HP!
I think I'd sooner port over to Andriod and iOS then make a 2nd version of my app for an even smaller segment of an already small and non-profitable community.
At least BlackBerry had the decency to offer devs a free Playbook as a thank-you for developing for their launch.
HP gave out free pre2s to developers. So they did the same thing. They are now offering the veer for 279.
Of course, the PDK will provide the processor strength needed for games. This technology isn't available for web yet. Canvas 3D is still a very young technology.
BUT, games are only a small part of the market. For general purpose apps, Mojo was, and still is, quite capable. The reason the apps were being dropped is because of the small market, not because of Mojo. It's the same in web browsers. For example, only the web apps with the highest traffic will waste their time supporting smaller browsers like Opera.
In my opinion, the reason why Mojo is being replaced with Enyo is because Enyo makes it even MORE easy to develop apps. It's based off Ares, a WYSIWYG web-based IDE developers can use to rapidly develop webOS apps without having to worry about the code. Web developers and general developers can pick up Mojo easy. More people, even non-devs, will be able to pick up Enyo with little effort. You won't have to worry about setting the percentages yourself in the CSS, Enyo will make screen resolution-independent apps much easier.
"This technology isn't available for web yet."
Bingo!
"BUT, games are only a small part of the market."
Oh really? I'm not that interested in games myself, but I beg to differ with that statement.
Mojo/Enyo may be easy to develop a new app for, but that doesn't mean it will be worth the effort to port an existing app that's already written for iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, WinMobile, or Palm OS (all of which have C++ development environments) much less maintain the separate code. The reverse is also true, if you develop your app first for Mojo/Enyo then it will be more work to port it to any of the other platforms. No matter how elegant or easy Mojo/Enyo are they are non-standard and proprietary and in my opinion have done more to hinder webOS development than to encourage it.
No, webOS code, written in either Mojo or Enyo, is much more portable than code written in C++. This is javascript we're talking about. It truly is write once, run anywhere. Plus, Mojo/Enyo are only one part of the equation. The CSS you write is not proprietary to Palm, the HTML you write is not proprietary to Palm, most of the javascript you write is not proprietary to Palm. I have a few web apps I've written that I've ported to webOS in mere hours, most of that work going into adding a Mojo wrapper to give it a webOS feel. These same apps work fine in the web browsers of all smartphones. There are ways to get the web app to install "natively" on those smartphones. There is no hindrance here.
The only problem is marketshare.
I definitely agree market share is the problem. I think we are talking apples and oranges here (or maybe river stones.)
Web apps are fine, but that's a whole different ecosystem than the C++ apps available on other platforms, and all the heavy-weight apps are C++. I'm not saying it's bad to have a way to program web apps for webOS, I'm saying Palm should have had an SDK to create and port native apps in C++ right from the start. Web apps are a lower priority in my book, but we obviously disagree.
It seems we do agree on one thing, we're both passionate about webOS!
bad
Hopefully Enyo is out of SDK soon.
huh?...
i think you mean NDA
It hurts me to the core to see gestures being omitted from the TouchPad.. they are the heart and soul of user interaction with webOS. I can't imagine liking my Pre2 nearly as much if it didn't have the gesture area.
Nice they include them in the emulator, though.
This really gets to me too. Is it possible they'd keep gestures only on the phones?
Can devs write the same app to run on a TouchPad and Pre3 if one has gesture area and the other doesn't?
Yeah, this is especially disconcerting given the news that many other platforms are adding gesture areas to their hardware. I truly don't understand their reasoning for removing that functionality. While they can probably get away with it on the tablets, it will really kill the experience on the phones. The gesture area is part of what made webOS such a cohesive, compelling experience.
Have they said they will remove it on phones?
ITS NOT GOING AWAY ON PHONES!
Dude, get it out of your head that not having a gesture area means that gestures will not be present. You lose a few gestures, but you don't have gestures omitted wholesale. You follow me?
Bring back the gesture area! Arg.
+100000000000000000000000
I'm with you on this. I'm actually considering getting a Playbook instead of a Touchpad because of this. If/when the Playbook can use the Android apps I bought, I'll likely get it for sure. I like the size of it as well.
But who on earth at HP made the decision to get rid of the gesture area? Whoever they are, they should be fired. Or at least given a really stern talking-to.
Nice to see some new news. Thanks. I'd really love a new video too.
Another Richard Kerris flop. The hits just keep on coming. It is very obvious that HP could give a s*** about their legacy customers and in their mind they are completely starting from scratch with both users and developers.
Which leads me to believe the "make it right" promise will never come and will be another addition to the HPalm stack of lies.
Just like Rambo explains in First Blood Part II "we are all expendable".
HOly Rambo obsession Batman, or Rambo , or sumethin' tss tss
Why is everything Richard Kerris' fault? I'm not seeing the connection. What basis do you have to think that the head of developer relations is responsible for all of the decision making happening with regards to webOS 3.0?
While I disagree with many of the recent decisions from HP/Palm, I don't think you can lay much of the blame on Richard Kerris (please refrain from calling him 'Kerris', it just feels disrespectful). I think part of the reason gestures are being eliminated is that it required too much learning on the part of the end user. One of the great strengths of iOS is it's ability to be quickly and easily understood. If you hand a webOS phone to some one, they simply have no idea how to go back, and touching the ball/glowing white horizontal bar seemingly gets them 'out' of the app they're in. Another issue is that tablets don't tend to have an obvious orientation compared to phones which have mics and speakers for your ear. Where do you place the gesture area, do the gestures change in function with the orientation much like the browser on the Pre/Pixi? It's confusing and unnecessary. I personally think multi-finger gestures on the actual screen are better for shortcuts so advanced users can still do their own thing and novices are not left confused. This is seemingly what Apple's recent dev builds are moving towards.
Are you kidding me? What level of respect does a guy that works at a computer company deserve? He is not the pope!
Sorry, I'll call him "Sir Richard Kerris" from now on.
There is a reason he no longer works for Apple, they didn't want him anymore.
He's not talking about prostrating yourself on the floor and worshiping him. It's about treating everyone with dignity and respect, regardless of whether you have differing views from them. If you practiced that here on P|C, you'd be much less hostile and people might actually agree with you on some of the issues you bring up.
Better make it Knight
Disregarding the pompous tone in your last paragraph, I can understand your concerns and see your point of view. However, I don't think they really relate to the above article.
Maybe they didnt double the resolution as they want the apps to run on pre-3 as well, when verizon agrees to upgrade the 2.3 on pre-3 in 4 years to 3.1 or whatever.
I'm pretty sure they mean double the resolution on the tablet only. i.e. exactly what Apple does on iPhone vs. iPad
This IS still in beta. I don't necessarily agree with the NDA approach (and certainly not its duration), but this is why they do it - so people don't freak out over something in Beta 5 that gets changed in Beta 7 or whatever.
Maybe this is how the end product will look, or maybe the "make an emulator" guys were faster than the "do pixel doubling" guys, but they wanted to get the emulator into the beta for devs to start testing.
Exactly, and what irks me the most is that Precentral is passing judgement on BETA SOFTWARE.
"It's just strange to default to so small of a size". Hey Precentral, this is BETA, this isn't finished yet. When you give out your opinion irresponsibly like this, you cause an uproar. Great job on that, but I guess you don't care about responsibility, you care about page views.
While I agree in principle, I also know that the touchpad is launching next month, which basically means that we're in a very near to final state, I don't think we're going to see any drastic change sin the next 3-4 weeks, if any, since at some point Palm has to decide it's good enough and ship the thing. I also get the vibe that HP wants to make a dent in the tablet marketshare before the Android tablets get their legs and the consumer chooses them by default.
it's good to finally see how they implemented CCP
Bing to the rescue, I hope there is an option for google maps as well.
I personally don't care which it is as long as they actually support the product. Google built the Maps app for webOS (and not even very well, the design really sucks) and then threw it in the dungeon and left it.
It looks like maybe the support has changed to first party this time so hopefully HP is in control of it now and we shouldn't have to worry.
EDIT: I should add that I do agree with you though and that as long as Google makes an effort to improve the app, I hope we have the option of either one as well.
It would be nice to have streetside viewing and google map bookmarks. I second the hope for some sort of google maps support.
geez, another shot at taking from apple's book. it looks exactly as the ipad does when it emulates iphone apps. it's really sad that they keep copying from them. the gestures were a cool idea for the phones, but i dont think its a strong enough functionality to continue on to future devices. they will eventually phase them out completely, as the software will be compensating for navigation rather than it be part of the hardware. everything is going innnnnwarddd. the hardware is disappearing. the only thing you have to worry about is the screen now, its so much easier.
its nice to see more touchpad leaks to tie us over though
O_o emulators all pretty look the same when they emulate things... what visual approach would you have taken?
yes, i know emulators do the same things as all emulators everywhere, the definition is pretty obvious. i am talking about the graphic approach. 1) why the straight black background just like the ipad does with native iphone apps, centered in the middle? why not experiment with incorporating half the screen, the other half does something useful? 2) uses the same glossy black 'phone' with the same gray outline around it. these are little things, but there is more than one way to do it! look at the their mail app, the music app, the maps app, the photos app; it's the copycat game! all the same decorators, button placements, grid systems, looks and feels. do you not see the resemblance or do you have rosy glasses on?
1) The leak mentions that devs will have the option of going full screen, or do you not like that either?
2) Really, who cares dude? If it's functional, nobody will care.
1) if you like pixelated full screen apps, go for it. 2) nice attitude. you can tell that you will never own your own business because you could care less about anything. good luck moving up in your career.
1) Have you ever seen a website pixelated? The difference between iPhone and webOS apps are that the latter ones are web apps, ergo, they get all the benefits from the web, being the resizability one on them.
+1 this. I hate it when people who are completely ignorant of the topic they talk about share their opinion.
1) What alvaro_qc says
2) I'm not an aspiring businessperson, so again, who cares?
maybe they did experiment with other approaches and determined that centered was the most visually appealing and practical. Maybe the background is customizable. Maybe the SDK isn't finished and this isn't indicative of the final product.
I just dont understand your insistance that the design has anything to do with apple. Apple didnt originate that look. not for the emulator, not for the email app, not for any of these things.
what you are complaining about are essentially basic UI fundamentals that users understand immediately and are pretty similar across all platforms and form factors.
HP/Palm have plenty and are doing plenty to differentiate their UI from the competitors.
its not that my glasses are rosy, your are just apple tinted.
It would be cool if the background was customizable, at least with homebrew. Just like there are "turn your Pre into Droid/iPhone/Blackberry" apps/skins in the catalog, these could be turned into actual skins for the emulator.
I thought webOS was supposed to automatically resize for whatever screen it was on?
I wonder if the emulator will run Classic? That way you would be using a full size tablet to run an emulator that is running another emulator that is running Palm OS. That would be a riot!
I wonder how long people are going to be willing to run 320x480 apps on a tablet?
Couple things, WebOS Mojo in general does resize (Pre to Pixi for example), PDK apps not so much (this is why there are Pixi and Pre versions). The thing is, this is Enyo, not Mojo. The emulator is emulating Mojo, in the Enyo environment.
As the article said, code can be added to allow it to run in full screen. But that requires the dev adding that line of code.
....Aaaaaaaaand we're back to fragmentation. Weren't people around here lampooning Apple's "multitasking" precisely because it had to be enabled by developers using one of Apple's pre-made behaviors (e.g. background audio)?
It's more like people here kept saying that webOS would automatically reconfigure the UI to adapt the smartphone app to a tablet screen so much better than iOS. Well, this looks worse than iOS because it seems that you're stuck with a Pre-size screen in the middle of your big tablet screen.
Given how many webOS apps have probably been abandoned by their developers, users are going to be stuck with this kind of emulation indefinitely. Developers simply don't jump in right away to update apps that didn't sell very much.
oh, wait. I can write mojo touchpad apps? Heck Yeaaaaaaaah!
Well, probably not forever.
Yes you can, but remember that app has just 12 months of support and then HP will kill the Mojo emulation.
I think webOS 3.0 is coming along rather nicely. its beautiful to say the least.
Its a shame they haven't double the resolution for mojo apps, but this is a beta release, so they do have time to make more changes.
To be honest I am thrilled with this:
"The only other option requires developers to add a tag to their Mojo apps that will allow it to run full-screen, which completely eliminates the simulated gesture area (and thus requires that the app have some other means of navigating if necessary)."
I am just at the final steps to making my app fully compatible at any resolution.
Just a few more tweaks to certain images (mainly backdrops and previews) and it is complete.
All I would need to make my app compatible without the gesture area is a way to close the preferences screen in addition to back-swipe.
My current thoughts being a simple 'Back' option in the drop down menu exclusive to the preferences scene which pops the Preferences screen.
Phone users wouldn't really notice it, or need it and tablet users would use it as standard.
This means I will have very little to worry about when the TouchPad gets released before making my Enyo version.
Thanks. Great to know.
Is a back menu item the standard way of going back in 3.0? Or has HPalm not defined what the standard should be?
I have honestly no idea, this is just a temporary solution for my particular apps Mojo version. When I rebuild in Enyo things will be different.
How about running Mojo apps on Pre 3? In what mode? If they can scale Mojo apps to 480x800, why wouldn't they do it in 1024x768 case? Or in order to run Mojo apps in native Pre 3 resolution developers will still need to include that tag in their apps? So all the apps must be updated to run on Pre 3?
Pre 3 I think was not announced as 3.0, so this doesnt apply to it?
Portrait-mode wallpapers?
So this looks to be emulating a 3G/4G TouchPad that hasn't actually been announced. I see a signal in the menu bar and how else would Bing be able to use my location.
I want GPS on my TouchPad. I think I read this isn't in the WiFi version just 'future 3G/4G.' What if I bought 3G/4G with no plan and just used WiFi. Would GPS work while tethered to my 'soon to own' Pre3?
I'm dreaming I think...
Amusing to see the 'tipster is another Canuck from the GTA!
Speaking personally, I don't think I'd mind this 'emulation mode' at 320 x 480 too much IF you could launch two Mojo apps simultaneously and have them active on the screen at once (think two open cards side-by-side).
Once again I can't believe that PRECENTRAL need to publish these so called "LEAKS".
It looks like they fell on PRECENTRAL's desk by accident!
Tipster? It is another name for someone that does not honor the NDA they accepted with HP.