About webOS design: multitasking and gesture manipulation

Article Description: webOS two or three thing.

Now casually stroll the major science and technology blog, information site, about iOS, Android, wp7 several current mainstream mobile operating system news overwhelming, if again catch up with the release of new products, it is the limelight for a moment no two. The previous Google I/O Assembly and Android 3.1 version of the official launch, this is WWDC Congress and iOS5 release, reasoning to talk about "petty bourgeoisie", "Non-mainstream", so today to talk about the story of webOS.

For many people, webOS is a strange thing, but if we mention palm, many of them will suddenly come to the point, "Oh, it's him", yes, that's him, fat pear! In fact, it is not entirely true that webOS, formerly known as Palm OS, developed by the company, has emerged as the company's next-generation mobile system, after the market has been squeezed and dispirited. With HP acquiring Palm and its webOS in 2010, the subsequent development of webOS was also done by the HP team, and today webOS has entered the 3.0 era.

When it comes to webOS, be sure to introduce its famous multitasking and gesture operations.

　multitasking:in webOS, the traditional concept of the program is weakened and replaced by a card system. All tasks are in the form of cards. Any time you click on the gesture area, you will enter the card view. The card view shows the running tasks, which are rendered in multiple windows. You can see all the tasks running, you can switch by sliding, click to enter the task, such a way, is extremely wonderful. More importantly, the multitasking fluency in webOS can be well guaranteed, and it can be said that webOS's multitasking is the best mobile system multitasking platform in the world.

October 2010, the WebOS 2.0 launched, proposed the "stack" concept. As the name suggests, when you use multiple tasks on your phone, multiple-task cards are stacked in a sector based on correlations between each other. Based on a groundbreaking card metaphor operation, HP calls it the next-generation multitasking operation.

The multitasking before webOS has been excellent, but the downside is that once you run too many tasks at once, switching between tasks can become a bit tricky. The stack feature automatically categorizes the tabs of different tasks, then arranges them by group, and you can drag and drop your own task cards, so that the speed at which you switch between multiple tasks is increased and the operation becomes easier and easier.

gesture manipulation: gesture area is a great idea in palm, and users can interact with the system through various gestures. Especially on the webOS platform, with gestures to complete the card closure, switching and other commands, very convenient.

webOS gestures can implement a variety of behaviors such as the following:
1. Card browsing mode, slide up the card out of the screen to close the current card.
2. When using an application, slide the finger area up to the screen two times and start the launcher.
3. Back operation (keep all operations in the current interface and return to the superior).
4. Card browsing mode, click and hold a card, all the cards will shrink, and then drag the card to change the order.

On February 10 this year, HP convened a new "look Beyond" launch, released two versions of the webOS system, the webOS 2.1 is mainly for smart phone devices, and webOS 3.0 is a newly optimized and designed system for tablet-PC devices. and HP's newest Tablet PC Touchpad will carry 3.0 systems.

WebOS 3.0 compared to the previous system interface has changed significantly, mainly to adapt to the large size of the tablet to make adjustments, many new features are worth looking forward to, and some of the old advantages can be retained.

The following is a comparison of the interface with the iOS system on the ipad.

Launcher:
webOS3.0 The Home page added just Type, the top right corner of the menu is still the same as the previous version of the integration of such as brightness, mute, flight mode and other common settings, providing users with great convenience, and in the iOS system needs to enter the Setup menu, divided by users only through the crack installation SB Setting can integrate these common functions into the upper-right menu bar.

The webOS page has a different tab to categorize the program, and the user can also customize the name. At the same time a screen can display multiple programs, vertical scrolling can be viewed; in iOS, a screen defaults to display 20 programs, by sliding left and right to switch pages, in the 4.0 system to increase the folder function. You can drag multiple programs to a folder, support custom naming, and a folder can hold 20 programs.

Notification System:
The notification system has always been an advantage for webOS, and 3.0 is the same. 2.0 times when there is a notice, Palm will appear at the bottom of the interface a notification bar can be used to host the notification. This approach, whether in the home or the program page will appear, will not rudely interrupt the user's operation, and click on the expansion can be clearly displayed notice content.

The 3.0 notification system is all integrated in the top right of the menu bar, to the left of the system menu. Its rendering is also improved, some only display icons, some such as messaging directly in the menu bar to display content Preview and icon, and similar to the calendar this is a pop-up more eye-catching balloon.

In the iOS system there are only two types of message notifications, Badge Notification and alert Notification. Badge is more than instant processing messages, using the red number as a reminder, and alert will be rude to interrupt the user's operation, in the form of a window, users need feedback to operate.

Mail:
webOS, the message defaults to three column display, by clicking or sliding, you can adjust the column display ratio. When you pull the message content to the maximum, you can display the contents of the message in full screen. In addition, when you create a new message, a Full-screen page pops up to facilitate the preview of the compose message.

The default for the iOS system is two-column display, when you click on the list of mailbox contents, the left side switches to all messages under the current message category (for example, all messages in your Inbox), and the message details are not fully previewed in horizontal mode, and the new message is rendered as a pop-up card window above the background dimmed. Email previews are less convenient than webOS.

Map:
Maps are a place to be highlighted, and Microsoft's Bing in WebOS 3.0 replaces the previous Google Maps, and one of the best new features is Hawkeye, which supports the 45-degree view. Other ways, such as wiring and search, are basically similar to the Google Maps of iOS from features to interfaces. To say that there are differences is also a control layout fine-tuning.

The iOS interface is similar, if different points may be to integrate the address book into the map system.

Photo:
The layout of 3.0 photos of WebOS is still unique, and the iOS interface is more complex. Photos and videos are integrated together, with a two-column interface in the horizontal disk mode. When you click on the album, you will see all of the pictures in the album and click Edit to Share, move, print, and delete. What's interesting about this is that you can also see Facebook's two-way sync comments.

The photo interface in iOS is very concise, with albums and photo categories. After entering, you can view all pictures and single pictures under the category. The easy point is that the ipad lock screen will provide a quick access to the album, click on the icon to directly view the picture.

The above content is webOS3.0 system and iOS system some interface based comparison, in fact, there are a lot of content, but such as browsers, players and contacts and other interfaces are not very significant, because the iOS interface design is a simple Acme, webOS in the design will inevitably have a greater reference, so for the moment not to watch.

iOS and Android Two strong hegemony, followed by Windows Moblie, such as a group of younger brother, webOS how far it can go is still unknown. Throwing away the styling and interface factors, I think the following two points are more important:

1. Whether there is enough application, that is, whether there are enough developers.
Apple's products are sold, of course, inseparable from its exquisite industrial modelling, good user experience and successful marketing strategy, but the app store million of the huge application is also an essential factor in its success, countless developers and companies for Apple to develop a variety of applications to attract a large number of consumers to buy, And these developers also profit from this, such a mutually beneficial and win the model to maintain the application of the continuous increase and update.

iOS and Android are still the most interesting platforms for developers, according to IDC's latest survey data. As you can see from the figure that iOS and Android are firmly in the top four, the share of webOS is still very small, so there's a lot to do.

2.HP of determination and strength.
Palm is a less successful company in some ways, but Palm OS and later webOS are a good system, with both Apple and Google giants behind iOS and Android, with huge funding and research and development support. HP's acquisition of palm, some say, is for the webOS system, and it does seem to be the case now. HP has influence, resources, funds, a variety of marketing teams and channels, a large number of enterprise-class old customers, as long as HP has enough determination and action to provide excellent products and services, then the market has great potential!

This Friday, July 1, the latest webOS3.0 system of the WiFi version of the Touchpad tablet will be officially released, what the future, let us wait and see! WebOS, go all the way!