WebOS 2.0 and HanDBase

[dhaupert]

Hi all,

I'm surprised this hasn't been posted here yet but wanted to mention that when WebOS 2.0 ships, HP/Palm has decided not to support Classic meaning you won't be able to run HanDBase for Palm OS on your webOS device. I'm not sure if WebOS 2.0 is going to be a forced update like the updates have been thus far on the Pre and Pixi, but if that is the case, I think that's pretty bad news overall.

I was asked by Precentral.com about my thoughts on this whole thing. Here's a link to the article that followed:
http://www.precentral.net/developer-pov ... s-and-palm

Here's hoping this and other discussions causes HP to consider how to improve their future by embracing what was good about their past!

[chungfoulds]

start off with that before I get upset! I take on board all the stuff that has been said in different forums, in the end I won't have any way of maintaining my business records without handbase. The competition looks promising, but reminds me of handbase in its infancy. I need the functionality and ease of use that I have now. I don't want to progress backwards, if my timing had been better I would be on an android phone now, howeve I am not, sadly that is because of brand loyalty, misplaced it seems. Oh now I am upset. Anyway I and probably many others would appreciate a port to webos 2 hopefully HP won't shaft you again, since many of us business users live in the real world such an upgrade would be expected to come at a cost, so how about it?

[dhaupert]

Hi there,

Sorry to see you're caught up in this mess. You mentioned that other products are like the Palm version in it's infancy. Even if I were to write a version for WebOS, it would surely be well behind other versions that are even just a few months old- it took me 9 man-months to develop the Android version to it's current state and WebOS would likely be about the same amount of time to get it to the same point!

As you can imagine, by that time, most people who are stuck in contracts with their Pre can likely be out of their contract and onto something else.

I will continue to watch the space, but as of now we unfortunately don't have any plans to do a webOS version. Hope that changes if HP can pull it all together and find a way to grow the user base substantially and/or deliver on the tools developers would need to port their apps over.

Sorry!

[moneil]

Hi all,

I'm surprised this hasn't been posted here yet but wanted to mention that when WebOS 2.0 ships, HP/Palm has decided not to support Classic meaning you won't be able to run HanDBase for Palm OS on your webOS device. I'm not sure if WebOS 2.0 is going to be a forced update like the updates have been thus far on the Pre and Pixi, but if that is the case, I think that's pretty bad news overall.

I was asked by Precentral.com about my thoughts on this whole thing. Here's a link to the article that followed:
http://www.precentral.net/developer-pov ... s-and-palm

Here's hoping this and other discussions causes HP to consider how to improve their future by embracing what was good about their past!

I haven’t been following the technology news recently, but checked in last night, and … wow, I was not a happy camper. I appreciated your remarks at Precentral.

I’m wondering if those of us with the old fashioned original Pre from Sprint will really have to take WebOS 2.0 (Precentral has some “homebrew” tips on how to block it when it comes ~ I’m not that smart but the folks at the local Sprint store are helpful that way, which has a lot to do with my loyalty to Sprint). I’m hoping that there will be enough protest (I certainly plan to communicate with them) to cause HP to reconsider not supporting Classic, or someone will come up with a “homebrew” patch to keep Classic running under WebOS 2.0 (or I can at least keep running on 1.4.5 until next spring).

Many claim the Pre is the best phone they’ve ever owned; not me, I’d go back to Blackberry in a heartbeat if HanDBase could run on it with even a moderate degree of performance. I tried a trial version of HanDBase for Blackberry on my Pearl last year, before choosing the Pre, and it was a painful experience (I could have my grocery cart half full before the first checkmark on my shopping list even registered ~ ink well and quill pen would have been more efficient).

I have, however, become absolutely addicted to WebOS, particularly the multi tasking, that would be REALLY hard to give up. Also, though I was a long time holdout, I’ve gotten very use to having PDA and communications functions integrated into one pocket sized unit, so I’d rather not dust off the Palm TX at this point (and since I have Windows Vista I’d have to Bluetooth synch to the desktop, which is a tedious pain).

I’m hoping that one way or another I can get to next March with the Pre and Classic, when I’m eligible for another upgrade. Everybody is hoping, and most are predicting, that there will be better WebOS hardware available then (at this point the Pre2 is not slatted for Sprint, as far as I know). However, unless there is some kind of database with full desktop synchronization available for WebOS, or Classic will run on the latest WebOS versions, I’ll have to consider other choices.

A lot of people get all “goo-gaw” over all the apps at Apple and Android, *shrug*. Other than a good program for syncing MS Office and Adobe PDF applications (I have to do that through Classic now), I’ve found all the basics I need at Palm’s App store. As long as I can have HanDBase, I can put together anything else I need, just the way I want it, though I would defiantly prefer a WebOS version of HanDBase, and hope the market will allow Dave to look at developing that.

[dhaupert]

Thanks for your comments. I honestly don't see why Classic needed help on the OS level to run since it was at it's heart just an app. My theory is that since it pre-dated the PDK and they needed to write C code, it was a requirement. But since the PDK now allows C code to compile, the Classic emulator could be written as a regular app that runs on WebOS2. I'm hoping Palm/HP comes out with a response that verifies that, but wonder if it's too late for MotionApps as it appears they've wiped the dust from their feet and moved on.

We'll see what happens!

[Boscovec]

Somehow I missed this whole thread, but I am glad the link was posted here. I posted in a number of forums to Motion Apps about developing for other platforms as I felt that Palm had made an ideological decision to abandon its loyal developer and user bases, with the Pre.

Although Palm has to be competitive to survive and that means tough decisions have to be made at times; I always felt they shot themselves in the foot.

Yet another thing that affirms my initial decision not go to the Pre.

So sad.

[Brian_Houghton]

You echo my sentiment well. I really want Palm to do well, as I am fond of the operating system. There are a number of great things about WebOS, and although I've never spent much time with it I liked what I saw. In the end, I'm afraid that not doing anything, as Dave mentioned, to bring over the multitude of existing Palm OS apps to WebOS may be their Achilles heal.