A comparison between Palm webOS and Android UIs

With the Hero Sense UI buzz, it seems that one can finally have a capable Android device with the elegance of the Palm Pre. The UI appears to behave very similarly to the Pre, and some may think it's a wash between the two.

As an owner of both a G1 and a Pre, I've given it some thought and tried to summarize the differences between the webOS and Android UIs, keeping it relevant to HTC Sense. It's a bit long and unedited, and since most of this would have required videos, I've done without screen captures. I hope some will find it useful.

Launch an app:

• webOS: Start typing or swipe out launcher and find icon on launcher screen
• Android
  • App: swipe app drawer and tap or start typing and tap, or locate icon on a screen
  • Widget: find an available screen, hold down and select from a list

Close an app:

• webOS: swipe off screen
• Android
  • App: automatic, not available to user
  • Widget: drag off screen into drawer

Rearrange apps:

• webOS: drag and drop
• Android
  • App: not available to user
  • Widget: drag and drop

Switch between apps:

• webOS: swipe between cards
• Android:
  • App: hold down home button, tap app icon if available
  • Widget: swipe between screens of widgets

Access single functions:

• webOS:
  • Music controls: dashboard
  • Wireless settings: universal menu
  • Search: start typing (automatic Google suggest in browser only)
• Android:
  • Music controls: widget (need to find screen first)
  • Wireless settings: settings app or widget (need to find screen first)
  • Search: start typing (universal Google suggest)

Launcher vs. app drawer and desktops:

• webOS: launcher can be hidden or shown, and is divided into screens of icons
• Android: app drawer can be hidden or shown, but only desktop screens can be navigated and they need to be populated with icons first. Desktop screens cannot be hidden. Drawer also serves as widget and icon "trashcan"

Notifications:

• webOS: one liners, for example, system messages or incoming text, are shown immediately, and then collapse into icon. Notifications of email messages are shown as icon first and can be expanded to see sender and subject and launch the app. This provides real time updates without a widget
• Android: icon shown on top of screen. Summary of notifications can be seen by dragging down notifications drawer. Email notifications require launching app to see sender and subject.

A few observations:

In webOS, the cards metaphor is an easy and simple way of launching, switching between and closing apps. Start typing to launch is a very handy shortcut.

In Android, the app drawer is a general place for all apps, which can be organized within but the drawer is a single long scrolling window. Grouping is available only on desktop screens, which are always open. If your device has a physical keyboard (G1), you can open the drawer and then start typing to launch from within it (you still have to tap the icon).

From everything seen above, it's clear that launching, switching between and closing apps is more complicated with Android. There are fundamental reasons behind it:

Android is a mobile OS that's general enough as an embedded OS for other uses. It needs to manage available resources on whatever device it is running, and this means managing running apps for the user. Because running apps are outside the control of the user, there is no sense in the user organizing them spatially. For this purpose, widgets serve as lightweight apps that can be arranged spatially, and run under the user's control.

On the original G1, or basically, the Google Experience variant of the Android UI, widgets were not widely used, and were extremely basic. HTC's Sense UI went further and tried to make the app switching scheme easier with widgets and a higher number of screens. In the Sense UI, widgets stand in for apps for the purpose of switching activities. They are anchored to desktop screens, which the user can move between using swipes, an effect that resembles switching between cards on webOS. While these are only widgets, not apps, HTC likely worked with the assumption that most of the time the user is passively monitoring information via widgets, viewing Tweets, incoming email etc; and only occasionally entering information or performing a more complex operation with the data. When this is required, a full app is launched.

Aside from the redundancy and potential confusion between apps and widgets, the user must also organize their running widgets on screens ahead of time, just so they can switch between them. They must also locate screens which have available space for the widget. HTC is presuming that this is not imposing on the user, because organizing widgets is desirable in general. In practice it does impose additional effort as the user most often wants to launch something quickly. And further, the user has to remember on which screen a particular widget is located. For example, if they wanted to pause music playback using the music widget, they need to remember where they placed it or have to look for it in all available screens.

In webOS the user launches a few apps and since new ones always push older apps to the left, it's easy to remember where an app is. Or, it's always possible to just zoom out and find the card quickly. But the user is not expected to create elaborate groupings of apps running concurrently. Using the music example above, apps can make their essential functions accessible via universal miniaturized dashboards at the bottom of the screen.

Finally, widgets appear to be filling in for missing UI elements: a wireless settings widget where a universally accessible menu is missing and a music widget where a universally accessible dashboard is missing. One can look at widgets as offering great flexibility, or question the need for them in a more carefully designed UI.

All this brings to mind Palm's (an Apple's) idea of controlling the entire experience, both the hardware and software to create a compelling product. Android is free and aims to be general enough for wide adoption by various manufacturers and for different purposes. It will likely succeed and it is flexible enough to provide a decent user experience, as seen in HTC's Sense UI. But it's also easy to see Palm's advantage in optimizing its OS strictly for its own purposes, resulting in a consistent and easy to use interface.

As a consumer deciding between a Palm Pre or HTC Hero, here are what I think are the core considerations:

If ease of use, simplicity and elegance are important, the Pre is more tightly designed and integrated. But the smallness and focus of Palm in making the Pre can come at the expense of market share and access to apps and variety of devices. Strong competition is likely between Android handset manufacturers, potentially driving costs down and adding more functionality.

In some way, the question is subjective: can you do more with less if it's well made?

Should a device be tightly designed and integrated at the expense of variety and number of apps? Or is some degree of loose and generic design better for a larger variety of devices and functions?