Earlier today I went on a mini-Twitter rant about switching platforms from webOS and apparently some people didn’t quite follow my point, so, I’ll explain here.
Laying Down the Facts
I’ve been a webOS user and developer the same amount of time — since October 2009. During those two years, I’ve learned a lot about development, business, and the mobile industry. I’ve made a bunch of internet friends, and made some extra spending cash. webOS has been the best mobile OS I’ve used or tinkered with, and I’ve played with them all. webOS will always be the finest choice in mobile OSes, built by people with a true passion.
The Turmoil
We had Palm floundering and then HP picked them up and we felt cautiously better. Then, HP did a half-assed job at pushing webOS, and then killed off hardware production, mere days after the launch of the TouchPad. webOS software development has continued and 3.0.4 is the most solid build of webOS we’ve ever had. Now, HP is still deciding what to do with webOS, and rumors speculate that it’ll be killed off, and not sold off.
Switching
As a result of no new hardware coming out and a lot of people running half-working Sprint Pre-s and the Pre3 being extremely scarce, people are looking for new mobile OSes. Our cellphones are important aspects of our lives. For many of us, they’re the only way to contact us (no landlines), and for work, most of us need a constant e-mail connection. Texting and Twitter and Facebook are how many of us stay in touch with distant family or old friends who’ve grown up and started families elsewhere. Our phones are very important to us.
It’s Just a Phone
Yes, I have said it before, I said it again today, and I’ll continue to say it. At the end of the day, it’s just a phone. However, it is also a tool. Tools are personal things. Grab 10 construction workers on a jobsite and ask what brand power tools they use. Some might say Dewalt, some might say Stanley, some might say Ryobi. Some might say they use a Dewalt drill, but a Ryobi saw. They looked around, tried different ones and found that different tools work for different jobs. Different tools work for different people.
The same thing is true for phones. Grab 10 people on the street. Some use iOS, some use Android, some use BlackBerry, and other may use webOS or Windows Phone. If you ask them why, they’ll all have different reasons. Some might say they have an Android phone, but use an iPad. That’s because they’ve looked around, tried different things and found different devices work for different jobs. Different phones work for different people.
Loyalty
The webOS community is quite possibly the most impassioned community of any tech community. We’re a loyal bunch. Most of us have been here since the Sprint launch, many more have been Palm fans since the Centro. And it’s not just the users — the engineers behind webOS believe in their product and honestly care about it, like a parent for a child. The webOS Developer Relations team is equally loving and have put thousands of hours into making sure everyone got the apps they wanted by helping developers through every step and making sure they had access to devices. It used to cost money to be a webOS dev — then they made it 100% free. Ask an iOS developer how much it costs to be an iOS developer.
But from this loyalty of the community comes a lot of what I consider to be misguided passion.
I am not implying that being passionate about webOS is misguided. I am extremely passionate about webOS. I have been for a long time. I defend webOS every chance I get. I evangelize it to friends and people I meet. I get excited about seeing webOS devices in the wild.
But being passionate about a peace of technology is one thing. Being passionate to the point of being rude to others is a whole other thing. That’s what my tweets were about. A lot of people are switching platforms right now. Their webOS phones are falling apart and they’re under contract and finding inexpensive webOS hardware that isn’t a Pre or Pixi Plus is often difficult. Sometimes, you need a new phone and the only option is to pick from the menu of devices your carrier has. Unfortunately, that menu doesn’t have webOS devices (except a Pixi Plus on AT&T?).
I’ve seen a lot of webOS diehards tweet and post harsh statements about people that have left webOS for iOS or Android or Windows Phone. That is completely inappropriate. That way of thinking and acting is completely the opposite of everything that the webOS community stands for. Remember when people would mock webOS and we’d get offended? How is it okay to do the same to people that moved to another platform? It’s hypocritical and sad and immature.
Seeing people talk about sticking with webOS while others are leaving, like they’re somehow better people because of it, is scary to me. Who have you become? These same people are the ones that mocked iPhone “fanboys” and yet, they’re behaving the same way.
Clarification
When I said on Twitter that it doesn’t matter what mobile OS people use, I meant that, as a community, it should not matter to you. Derek Kessler said that it matters to him. As the Editor of a website devoted to covering webOS news and apps, this is obvious. The success of webOS directly affects Derek.
He also mentioned that it matters to the people working in the webOS GBU at HP. As the sole reasons webOS is what it is, they even more so directly benefit from the success of webOS. As I said earlier, these are some of the greatest people in the industry and they do not deserve to see webOS — a true labor of love — be cast away like yesterday’s jam. These are some of the best and the brightest people working in tech today and they deserve to carry out their project and see it grow to the amazing platform it should be. Of course webOS’s success matters to them.
Derek added that it should also matter to developers, like myself. As a developer that has made some money from apps, this is absolutely true. My apps, like webOS, are a labor of love. I built my apps because first and foremost, I wanted these apps. I spent time designing and developing them, spending thousands of hours in front of my laptop. My apps, and equally webOS, mean the world to me. I obviously benefit directly from the success of webOS.
But I’ve only made a little bit of cash over the years. Enough to subsidize the cost of running my webserver and buy a thing here and there, but nothing much to speak of, like the tens of thousands of dollars some of my fellow developers have reported making recently. If I develop my apps for multiple platforms, I’d probably stand to make a little extra than I do now, but not much more, since it’s a bigger pond with many more fish.
But for me, as a dev, money was always a bonus. Having thousands of people use and enjoy something I created was the part I enjoyed the most. I got into mobile development because I wanted an app, and that app is free today AND open source. Obviously, money wasn’t the issue here.
So when I said what mobile OS people use doesn’t matter, I meant it, but obviously it affects certain people. Just how if you don’t use iOS, it affects people at Apple and iOS developers. Yes, it would take a many, many more Davids to take down the Goliath that is Apple, but the principle remains the same.
The point of my Twitter rambling wasn’t to upset people about webOS. It was actually quite the opposite — I was trying to appeal to those that are acting downright childish about people leaving webOS and convince them that it’s not a big deal and that their energy is better served elsewhere.
The community collectively congratulated Richard Kerris and wished him luck via Twitter the other day. That is the true spirit of the webOS Community. Wishing luck to the man that was one of the bigger cheerleaders for webOS at HP (maybe if out of requirement of his job) as he moves over to a competitor to do the exact same job is The Right Thing. Kerris should remain a respected member of the webOS community, as should anyone that has held respect in the community.
Will I move to another OS? Probably for my daily phone, yeah. I’m getting curious about new OSes out there. My two years with webOS has been the longest I’ve stayed with any one OS. I’m itching to play with a new gadget. I’ll always be a webOS user though, as my TouchPad is more than just a developer device.
And as I said on Twitter — as long as there are people using webOS, I will be a webOS developer. If I buy a different phone, I will still update and maintain foursquare, neato!, and growlr. I will still update and maintain incredible! and my next app (yep, I’m almost finished my second TouchPad app), and my next app, and my next app…
I’m in the webOS community now, and I will be tomorrow. You can re-read that sentence every day and it will always be true.
