Mastodawn

people forget how influential Palm webOS was. lots of modern iOS uses similar patterns.

palm was basically the OpenAI of their time. such talent density that Steve Jobs had to threaten them to stop poaching.

• horizontal app card multitasking w/ flick up to quit
• edge swipe gesture nav for back nav and quick app switching
• swipe away banner notifications
• swipe down system tray (like Control Center)
• "Just type..." global search bar
• threaded messaging
• magnetic charging puck

Alex Pretzlav 🥨6d ago

@stammy the apps were JavaScript “web” like apps that interfaced with the OS, with a strong cohesive design language. I built the Yelp app for it: it was really fun. Truly ahead of its time, as node.js was just coming out too.

John Allsopp 1d ago

@pretz @stammy the road not taken.

Alexandre B A Villares 🐍6d ago

@stammy oh, much better than OpenAI. Altman is a fraud.

goxonline 6d ago

@stammy I still have my Palm, I have the Pre, the Pre 3 and the Palm Veer (Everyone asked me what it was and was surprised to know that it was such a small phone).
The charger, Touch Stone was amazing. You put it on and the phone transforms into a desk clock. Same thing you do with the iphone now when you put it sideways on the wireless charger.
Everything you say is true, a lot of the advancements they have today in the iPhone and android are the same ones the Plam already had.

@stammy the design lead went on to build Material design and is still one of the design leads for Android at Google.

F4GRX SÃ©bastien 6d ago

@stammy palm delivered actual useful results, which openai does not.

maarten brouwers 6d ago

@stammy never owned one or even held one, but what I like to be copied is the compressed by harmonicas style folding calendar view!

Internet Rando 3d ago

@stammy AND HARDWARE KEYBOARD!!1!

@mousey @stammy Oh these bad boys were so lovely! I was lucky enough to use an LG model for a short while with one of these..!

Duncan Bayne 3d ago

@stammy I was sad when Palm died ... my first smartphone was an old Treo, and I wrote some (very simple) apps for them in (IIRC) some dialect of BASIC that was popular on the devices.

Peter Bayne 3d ago

@stammy I loved these phones. I still have one (probably dead) in a desk drawer somewhere

@stammy That phone was awesome

Kevin + Drupal + Beard 1d ago

@stammy I use a Samsung Fold now. Love the freedom of having a small tablet in my pocket, but the UX still feels disconnected compared to the WebOS. Palm took a big swing & executed it amazingly well on the technical side. It is unfortunate that the business & marketing weren't able to deliver the sales/profit. Great tech isn't enough. You need to deliver the right tech for the market at the right time. Most companies can't afford a Lisa level miss... let alone get to make a Newton mistake.

Flaming Cheeto 1d ago

@stammy if only the GPS on my Verizon Pre had worked, I might still be rocking it

George Mari 1d ago

@stammy @codinghorror Its UI concepts and implementation- especially notifications - is still light years ahead of iOS.

Fritz Adalis 1d ago

@stammy @codinghorror
WebOS was great, it's a shame what LG has done to my boy.

Larry Garfield 1d ago

@stammy Not just iOS. The lead designer for WebOS was one Mathias Duarte, who went on to become lead designer for Google, especially Android.

Android *is* WebOS 2.0, at least from a design perspective.

iOS borrowed most of those ideas from Android, not WebOS directly.

Offbeatmammal 1d ago

@stammy loved my Palm devices, started with a III, loved the Vx, migrated to a Sony Clie for a while (might still have that in storage). Modern phones are great, but Palm did just a good job of just making things work and approachable to regular people (Graffiti you could be fluent in by the end of the first day and decent battery life on a device)

Cassandrich 1d ago

@stammy "palm was basically the OpenAI of their time. such talent density"

There's not an eyeroll big enough for this. OpenAI has zero talent density. They have extreme wealth density and own-koolaid-drinking density to make the charades happen without talent.

Hakan Bayındır 1d ago

> lots of modern iOS uses similar patterns.

This is an understatement. Original iPhone's UI is just (classic) PalmOS' standard launcher without the categories. Remove the four physical app buttons and tuck it as bottom bar.

...and they even copied "Today" app as in some form.

This is why I like iOS this much, as I figured out. It's just PalmOS, rebranded and evolved.

@stammy I owned the pixi and LOVED it. If only that platform had been allowed to mature. It truly was amazing(ly good).

@stammy in my imaginary universe where every kitchen counter has a sparkling water tap, WebOS was bought by Sony or Nokia.

Troed Sångberg 1d ago

@stammy Can confirm. Worked at Symbian (Quartz UI) and when in doubt "Do what Palm does" was an outright mantra amongst our UX people.

rednikki 1d ago

@stammy I loved the Palm Pre so much and I wish it had persisted.

@stammy How interesting! Very enlightening.

Colin Jackson 1d ago

@stammy and the hardware ‘silent’ switch on the side of the phone so you could tell by touch whether an incoming call might embarrass you

danielkrah 1d ago

@stammy On the other hand the first iOS came out 2 years before webOS

torokunai 1d ago

@stammy Prelude was such a great typeface, too

Kyle Davis 1d ago

@stammy Palm’s webOS was the Xerox Alto of hand held computing.

I was an independent webOS application developer and I went to one of their events. At that event the employee admitted that webOS grew out of the ashes of the ill fated Foleo project.

So really, we owe it to a never launched, press-ridiculed fiasco of an aborted product. The lesson I take away from this is that no project is really a failure if you learn from what you built.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Foleo

Palm Foleo - Wikipedia

@stammy I literally joined HP (as a coop-student) in 2011 because I thought webOS was so cool and would take on iOS and android. Then they fire-sold it a month before my contract even started. :(

Steven Barnhart 1d ago

@stammy I loved the design too. Was going to say I am confused how Matias went to google and designed…android but it’s not like iOS 7 was nice either. Flat design sucks.

Chuck Skoda 22h ago

@stammy @nivrig I feel like we were robbed of the future where webOS stayed as a third pillar to influence the mobile landscape.

@stammy @snipe as an avid old palm fan, "the openai of their time" is probably the most offensive personal attack i'll suffer this year 😓