I liked Windows, DOS and Psion’s granular control. I wasn't ready yet for this new-fangled way. I had given Google and Gmail a pass since 2004 because everything could be run on the desktop, with a keyboard and mouse, in the way I was used to operating. No mobile phone with a tiny screen was going to meet my needs - and, to a large degree, they still don't. Not even the minuscule keyboarded devices. Phones to me were, and are, very secondary devices to how I function. By a huge margin, the vast majority of my ‘computing time’ is in front of my Windows PC. If I have to use a phone, it's a second-rate experience compared to the one I prefer - huge screen, proper keyboard, precise input devices. So much easier. But yes, Android went the same way in the end, to a point where every OEM it seems is copying the horrible (in my view) Apple/Palm/webOS thing. Symbian Series 80 was usable, S60 with the E90 was there too, but even then, it was drifting away. I still, always, wanted my desktop experience which I had been using since about 1986.
Some people seem to feel the need to minimise for the sake of it. Some because they can, some because they need a ‘mobile’ solution and many because they just want to see what tech can do. Look at Shane Craig as an example - he works from home and by his own admission (and clear practice) everything is much easier on a big screen and full-size keyboard with a mouse. But no, he wants to push the boundaries of split-screen multitasking and folding tablets into phones - which, unless one has to (or is interested in tech for tech’s sake), is stacked full of compromises. Which brings us back to webOS - pocket devices that feel like they were bought in Toys R Us, Apple's iOS, and then, yes, Android. As I say, everyone is just copying each other, making the ‘mobile computing’ experience dumbed-down and accessible to non-geeky, non-nerdy people just to flog hardware.
I realise that, as a user of Google services, this now sounds like a contradiction, but the same applies. I constantly try to find ways of controlling my Google apps and services from my desktop PC. Google are generally good at that, with browser-based echoes of most of their services (with a few exceptions, like Journal and Screenshots just now). This means I can get to my desk and do what I want, see the screen (not squint at it) and type like a pro (well, maybe not quite a ‘pro’)!
I reject the whole ‘search’ thing, too - like swiping down then typing to find an app, relying on the system to find it. No doubt it does, as it does for Apple and webOS, but I want to be in control of that. I want to know where the app shortcut is, and use it. It is the same mentality as knowing where stuff is on my PC and being organised. Perhaps that's the point - the Apple/webOS philosophy accepted that people weren't (or didn't want to be) organised and methodical. For the person on the street, that was likely true. So the opportunity was there to make a fortune on the ‘it just works’ claptrap, leaving geeks and nerds to be content with (now) Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish and other non-mainstream solutions. But I'm drifting away from the point again!
WebOS was one of the first to embrace the idea that you should never have to ‘plug into a computer’ to update or back up. For those of us used to ActiveSync, PsiWin or Nokia PC Suite, this felt like black magic - or rather, losing control over one's device hardware. I liked hierarchical, file-based interaction. I like my big monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I didn't want finger-based gesture control. I like having access at the registry level of Windows. I liked what Psion did with that, what Windows Phone did with that and what Symbian Series 80 did with that. Then, it slid away in lieu of mass-market appeal and financiers making as much cash out of (dumb, uninterested in what's under the bonnet) Joe Public as they can. It was a masterstroke (well, not for webOS, as it happens) for Apple, and increasingly Google, with Microsoft sadly being left behind in the mobile space. It was the RIP of the wonderful control under Symbian and Psion.
WebOS was one of the first ‘human’ OSes. It didn't feel like a computer shrunken down into a pocket - which is what I would have liked - but rather a new category of device (from which Apple and Android stole directly). Hated it. Still hate it. I hate what Apple does, I hated what webOS did, and I don't particularly like what Android does in terms of the pocket device. But until I'm brave enough to embrace the likes of Ubuntu/Sailfish and accept the inherent compromises, it's the best thing on the table for me. Much as I hated the whole Windows 10 Mobile thing and the clunky ‘live tiles’ front-end, at the moment, I think I might still prefer it. And lastly, Palm devices were tiny! Presumably if they had kept going (in any meaningful way) today's Palm devices would by now be much bigger, but looking back, you'd need a child's hands and eyes.
WebOS for me is in the same league as iOS - a dumbed-down UI, not for geeks/nerds who want granular control (on device). I'm coming from the place where I started in 1986 with my IBM PC/XT, a Psion and Sony Ericsson in my pocket - and dial-up CIX. Great days!
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