DJ Sundog - from the toot-lab
before you build and publish a new app for the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, consider: don't.
stop reinforcing the oligopoly. if you've the skills and resources to publish siloed apps you also have the skills and resources to not do so, to bypass their systems and get liberatory software into the hands of your audience. make that extra effort.
Kit Rhett Aultman
@mdm @djsundog By PalmOS, do y'all mean the classic PalmOS or WebOS? Because I used to work at Palm and don't recall any chatter about Sprint having to do with the downfall of PalmOS.
Administrator
@djsundog PalmOS especially -- had they not been hamstrung by the terrible deal with Sprint in the US, I still believe it could've had wider adoption.
But -- let's just make the web app reality happen, ourselves? I have a single page of apps on my iPhone -- that's it. (Most of them built-in Apple apps.)
Everything else is web apps. It works _fine_.
DJ Sundog - from the toot-lab
@mdm there's a weird alternate timeline wherein a web-app-only iOS and a web-app-based PalmOS are the dominant players in the mobile space and boy howdy I wish it was ours
Administrator
@djsundog I am _always_ surprised at that initial push for "web apps only" with iOS 1.0.
The only thing I can suppose is that the app store simply wasn't ready, and they had to do _something_.
DJ Sundog - from the toot-lab
@mdm sometimes I think about the mobile internet experience we could have if they hadn't given up on web apps after iOS 1.0
Administrator
@djsundog Seriously -- just make web apps.
I use the Mastodon web app on iOS -- it even has notification support now. There is no need for an app store app.
Kit Rhett Aultman
@djsundog @mdm I was present for the downfall of WebOS and was one of the engineers behind the HP TouchPad, arguably the product that delivered the final killing blow to Palm. My friends and colleagues were around for the creation of WebOS and the marketing of the first phones. It's widely agreed the Sprint contract didn't help but the damage done was a mix of terrible strategy and deeply idiotic marketing and advertising, leading to a badly performed acquisition by HP.
DJ Sundog - from the toot-lab
@roadriverrail @mdm WebOS
Kit Rhett Aultman
@djsundog very much so, and part of that was Mark Hurd seemingly buying out a friend's company, then curiously leave in a "scandal" that let him get a new job with his pal, Larry Ellison. Hurd's replacement, Leo Apothecker, wanted out of making devices.
But Palm was hurting before that. They needed to be a viable alternative to Android but failed to make their case. Part of that was an apps ecosystem that was unfamiliar to consumers. 1/2
DJ Sundog - from the toot-lab
@roadriverrail I appreciate the inside view! acquisition by HP is most certainly the death knell for any target at this point, and it's a long road they've paved to get that reputation haha
Kit Rhett Aultman
@djsundog But the other part was absolutely awful advertising. This was the early era of smartphones. Users needed to be told the benefit. Apple and Google went with showing how easily you'd have music and photos and stuff you love in your hands.
Palm went with...well, this. I think the idea was to show off the design and tech chops of Palm, but the ads were so weird I thought this one was an ad for Scientology until the phone showed up.
https://youtu.be/6Z3UEF-paok?si=KkX3veyRp4i_fdwp
Kit Rhett Aultman
@djsundog there are several of them. A whole series of them!
DJ Sundog - from the toot-lab
@roadriverrail haha that's awful
Kit Rhett Aultman
@mdm @djsundog I came along after the internal struggle that led to WebOS taking the place of...well, not PalmOS but the other thing that would replace it. IIRC, PalmOS was done either way, it was just a question of what would replace it. You're right about CDMA-only first launches, but I'd argue CDMA launches were a symptom and not a cause. The Kin didn't fail because of the CDMA launch. It was already doomed and could get a CDMA launch.
Administrator
Early Android wasn't great, either (PalmOS was probably better), but Android being on GSM helped more people play around with it.
Administrator
@roadriverrail @djsundog Definitely PalmOS -- and I would love to hear some of your stories about the time spent working on PalmOS. :)
(I used to use the PalmOS "Web Developer" to make phone apps in the seriously beautiful cloud designer circa 2009, or so -- did you work on that?)
My opinion comes from seeing the winners and losers from the 2006-2012 era of phones -- I definitely noticed a trend of "if it launched on CDMA, it was nearly DOA" (PalmOS, the Microsoft Kin, etc.).
Kit Rhett Aultman
@mdm @djsundog I don't think it's something that happened super intentionally. Apple got into a *very* weird and tight relationship with AT&T, and for a while IIRC, Android devices were typically GSM but non-AT&T, and I think that Verizon and others were hoping to pick up their own Big Flagship Thingy, but there was no legitimate third contender, so the CDMA networks were just kinda a churn of "let's see if this thing will do it..." This sort of thing happens unintentionally all the time.
Administrator
@roadriverrail @djsundog Ah -- I think I see what you mean.
Palm Pre/Microsoft Kin didn't fail _because_ of CDMA, they ended up on CDMA because they were already either failing, or doomed to failure.
Wow, that doesn't speak well of what the industry thought of Verizon at the time, at least as a preferred technology partner, right?
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