Let's briefly talk about the dark horses in the mobile OS world.
WebOS
When I first read about the upcoming HP Pre3 (officially styled as Pre3), my first reaction was much like the gentleman in the latest Xtranormal video: HP wants to fail. Why else would they wait until the release of the iPhone 5 to release a phone with specs that are worse than the iPhone 4 and on par with an average 2011 Android phone? Worse resolution than the Retina Display, worse screen than the brilliant efficiency of Super AMOLED screens in many Android and WinPhone7 phones, worse battery capacity than both the iPhone and Nexus S, no gyroscope (for gaming), no HDMI out, no LTE, no WiMAX, and a mind-boggling lack of external memory, leaving only two embarrassing options for memory: 8GB and 16GB.
What are the Pre3's strengths? WebOS 2.2, an update to a relatively well-received OS; HSPA+, the "4G" technology available on AT&T and T-Mobile, and 5GHz n-Wifi. None of these features are blockbuster features that will put the Pre back on the map and I can't imagine that Apple and Google phones won't best these specs in almost every way come summer. And while WebOS is supposedly great, iOS and Android both become better every couple months. I suppose the Pre3's greatest strength is actually its compatibility with upcoming HP TouchPad, the upcoming WebOS tablet. If the TouchPad is really successful, just maybe HP won't follow Nokia's lead and quietly kill off their phone division sometime in the next couple of years.
As for the TouchPad, I'm not sure what to say about it. According to the specs, there is one interesting bit of information: it will have a 1.3MP front camera and no back camera, which makes sense. In this area, HP seems to be the only one that gets it. Front-facing cameras are necessary for video chatting, and you're seldom if ever going to hold up a 9+ inch tablet to take photos of your family. Other tablet makers all have a back-facing camera with a higher resolution than the front facing camera. While the addition of a back camera is definitely a positive, it is secondary. The front camera should take better pictures.
Also, the TouchPad will have a 32GB model, which is nice and a battery comparable to the Xoom and PlayBook. A bit heavy and thick, but the hardware seems decent. We just need to see how WebOS holds up on tablets.
Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone 7 is a really cool OS that I had high hopes for until recently. The hardware is great. What's more is that Nokia, who has a history of making good mobile phone hardware, has finally given up on Symbian and got on board the Windows Phones train. So WP7 should be able to keep up their solid hardware. The only issue is their software and its lack of features. It's been 4 months since the US launch of the new WP7 phones and they still lack copy and paste, multitasking, Flash, and unified email. They also trail behind in apps. WP7 has around 9,500 mobile applications, which is rather small when compared to Android's 275,000 and Apple's 350,000. Does MS really think they can just deliver a feature-less phone and have users eat it up because the UI is pretty and innovative? Who do they think they are, Apple? However, I don't predict MS will give up any time soon, as they can keep pouring that XBox and Office suite money into their phones.
As for a tablet strategy, there is none. All signs point to Microsoft tweaking their desktop OS to be more tablet friendly.
BlackBerry OS
Where to begin. I never liked BlackBerrys (BlackBerries?) since I first messed around with one a couple years ago. I found the organization of settings confusing and the trackball inferior to the up/down/left/right buttons found on most dumbphones. Since then, RIM has updated the OS and the hardware to compete in this new age of capacitive multitouch smartphones. However, it seems they have failed. Blackberry has dropped from #2 to #3 in the top smartphone OSes in the US. There doesn't seem to be a lot of excitement about BlackBerry anymore, and BlackBerry Messenger, the main reason for owning one is rumored to be coming to other phones. I'm not sure what and when their next phone will be and I don't really care.
But there is a tablet. The inappropriately-named business-oriented PlayBook is RIM's upcoming tablet. We can gather a few things from the specs. The 7" size is simply too small for me (that'swhatshesaid), but others will praise the size of this almost pocketable gadget. USB, HDMI, and Flash are all excellent features that will make this more useful out of the box than the new iPad 2. The cameras look excellent, spec-wise, and there's plenty of storage choice with 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models. 4G is promised.
On paper, it looks great. But will the OS be a big bucket of fail, like it is on their phones? BlackBerry Tablet OS is based on QNX, an operating system RIM bought in 2010. It actually looks decent (check out Engadget's video preview), with some comparing it to HP's WebOS (including HP themselves). Like all other phone-tablet combos, the tablet will run the same apps as the phone. What's more is that you can sync your PlayBook to your BlackBerry using Bluetooth so that the information is synced on both. That is, the phone and tablet play nice.
The small size kills it for me, but if this thing is really $500 like the rumors have hinted, the PlayBook might hold its own against the iPad 2, especially for enterprise BB users.
