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Is webOS a non-starter?

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by apriusfan, Oct 12, 2010.

  1. apriusfan

    apriusfan New Member

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    The recent Android wave in the smartphone market seems to have really taken over the smartphone market segment. One technically innovative smartphone OS that caught my attention about a year ago was the webOS that Palm released on the Pre. There is supposed to be a Palm Pre 2 that is on-the-way: SFR outs the Palm Pre 2: 1GHz processor and 512MB RAM | PreCentral.net

    On a technical level, the specs would seem to make the Pre2 competitive with the latest edition Android smartphones (EVO, EPIC, Droid X, etc.). But with the blanketing of the smartphone market segment that is occurring, I wonder if the Pre2 is just about a year late to the party? Apple is scrambling to fight the Android wave and they have a much stronger market position than HP/Palm; how can HP/Palm even hope to compete?

    BTW, Motorola is rumored to be working on a dual-core smartphone (Terminator)....
     
    #1 apriusfan, Oct 12, 2010
  2. eagle33199

    eagle33199 Platinum Member

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    You might find this interesting... asymco | Can Android change the distribution of profit among phone vendors?
    [​IMG]

    I wouldn't go shouting that Android has "really taken over the smartphone market segment". Yeah, they made a splash... but it's nowhere near Apple - not when Apple controls something like 40% of the entire mobile phone market (in terms of profit), which includes both smart phones and non-smart phones.
     
    #2 eagle33199, Oct 12, 2010
  3. apriusfan

    apriusfan New Member

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    Meh. In terms of installed base in the smartphone segment, I think Android beats iPhone. There was an article posted somewhere to that effect, but my search skills aren't up to the task at the moment. Measuring profit is a more nuanced effort. Apple certainly is on top when it comes to profit per handset sold (Google supposedly gives the Android O/S away for free). However, Google is looking to make advertising revenues off of the handset owners. Whether Apple can compete on the handset advertising is an open question at the moment, IMO.

    But I was curious about whether other members shared my perspective that webOS is basically a year late to the party. What do you think?
     
    #3 apriusfan, Oct 12, 2010
  4. eagle33199

    eagle33199 Platinum Member

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    If you want to go that route... comScore Reports August 2010 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share - comScore, Inc


    As far as Palm goes... They've pretty much been a minor market player for many years now, and that's not going to change.
     
    #4 eagle33199, Oct 12, 2010
  5. priuscritter

    priuscritter I am the Stig.

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    as soon as the at&t exclusive contract for iphone goes away, you will see a boom in iphone sales that will dwarf everyone else. it's not that people don't like the phone; it's that they don't like at&t and it's lack of 3G coverage and high prices.
     
    #5 priuscritter, Oct 12, 2010
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  6. mojo

    mojo Senior Member

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    Yes Palm is more than a year late.These days you need to update hardware yearly to compete.Especially when the Palm Pre was such a slow seller.
    I think Palm just ran out of development money and bet the company on the Pre.
    I liked the Palm Pre and WebOS but now Ive moved on to Epic with Android.Its superb hardware and Android is as good as WebOS.
    I got tired of waiting for Palm to announce state of the art hardware.
    Palm invented the touchscreen smartphone,but dropped the ball.WebOS will never have the APPs that Iphone or Android are getting.
    Android multitasks enough to be as good as webos .But I really I miss flicking screens away with a swoosh sound .
     
    #6 mojo, Oct 12, 2010
  7. cwerdna

    cwerdna Senior Member

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    I think webOS is doomed for smartphones

    Yep, with surveys like Changewave: Android gains on iPhone - Google 24/7 - Fortune Tech, I think webOS is toast in the smartphone space. I don't think the Pre2 will prop it up much. HP seems to want to use the OS for a tablet and printers, so they may put their focus there anyway.

    As someone who owns an iPhone 4, a T-Mobile myTouch 3G Android phone (stuck on 1.6, for now) and has borrowed a Palm Pre, Blackberry Bold and Storm, T-Mobile G1, Nexus One (w/Android 2.1 and 2.2) and Nokia E71, I did like webOS although it was a bit pokey and the lack of many apps vs. my iPhone 3G at the time was annoying.

    I think we're going see Android and iOS dominating the market for awhile and webOS will have a tiny share in the smartphone space or HP might just kill it for smartphones and get out of the space. RIM's dominance in the US will continue to steadily erode unless they come out w/something breakthrough (no, the Torch isn't it).

    Them starting out on Sprint in the US didn't help much... but now they added Verizon and AT&T and they're still puny.

    One big problem for any new player is that people will need to typically pay $65+/mo for the minimum voice plan + 2 gig or unlimited data and be locked in for a 2 year contract. What's are the real compelling reasons to pick a Palm device over an iPhone or Android phone? I can't think of many that would be enough to pick something from Palm that would outweigh all its disadvantages or areas where webOS is on par.
     
    #7 cwerdna, Oct 12, 2010
  8. Trebuchet

    Trebuchet Senior Member

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    This. :thumb: I will be the first at the door repeating "Open Open Open" when that happens!
     
    #8 Trebuchet, Oct 12, 2010
  9. cwerdna

    cwerdna Senior Member

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    #9 cwerdna, Feb 26, 2013
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