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Comment by heavyset_go | Hacker News Reader

Palm's webOS was ahead of its time, too. Apps were written in JS, HMTL & CSS, all messaging systems were integrated into a single inbox, there was universal search, and it took years for Android and iOS to adopt its card metaphor model for multitasking, too. The way app switching works in Android and iOS now is the way app switching worked from the beginning with webOS.

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WebOS may very well be my favourite mobile OS.

What really lost me was the hardware. Unfortunately the Pre/Pre 2 was very underpowered and extremely limited in choice of carrier.

There’s a lot of reasons why WebOS never ‘made it’, but I think hardware, for myself - was a huge limitation I could never get past.

The original pre had issues. The slider mechanism developed play, the screen or plastic cracked close to the charging port, it was underpowered… the pre 2 however was nearly perfect. A bit too late though. A shame.

The palm pre was possibly a decade ahead of it's time, I loved that thing. Amazing hardware keyboard, decent screen for the time, webOS, magnetic wireless charging!!

It's still hands down the best phone I've ever owned.

I feel like Android has mostly "caught up" on the things that the Pre was better at; maybe around 5 years ago? I do remember switching from my Pre to a Droid 4 after dropping the Pre on its power button, and it was a massive step backwards in pretty much all dimensions.

This was also the death of my Pre, that plastic case probably could have been improved a bit... I went to a droid bionic after I think, it was...alright? I enjoyed that it was linuxy, but soon learned that I needed a device I couldn't hack as a primary communication tool.

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