Windows Phone 7 multitasking interface rips off WebOS?

February 14, 2011 8:24 AM
Devindra Hardawar
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Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 operating system will be getting multitasking later this year with an interface that looks like a direct copy of Palm’s (now HP’s) WebOS platform.

Multitasking refers to the ability to use more than one application at once. For mobile devices, it usually involves creative methods to keep apps running, as well as easy ways to juggle them.

To switch between apps, Windows Phone 7 users will be able to use a card-like task manager that gives them a live preview of running apps. The interface is heavily reminiscent of (read: almost exactly the same as) Palm’s WebOS, which was praised for its intuitive approach to multitasking. Microsoft isn’t the only company that’s imitating WebOS,  by the way — RIM is using a similar card-based interface to move between apps on its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

The multitasking update will be available some time later this year, Microsoft announced today at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona. According to Joe Belfiore, vice president of Windows Phone Program Management, multitasking for third-party apps was left out of the initial release of WP7 due to battery concerns. Now it seems those issues have been resolved. Belfiore didn’t explain what improvements made multitasking possible.

Speaking of features that didn’t make the cut for launch, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer mentioned that the long-awaited copy and paste feature will be available on WP7 in an early March update. That update will also bring CDMA compatibility, which means Windows Phone devices will finally be able to work on Verizon and Sprint’s network.

Microsoft also demonstrated some other new features that will hit Windows Phone 7 later this year, including integration with Twitter in its People hub (currently only Facebook is supported), and an update to the mobile web browser with the release of Internet Explorer 9 for mobile. IE9 will feature hardware and graphics acceleration that will make browsing the web faster than the iPhone — in fact, Microsoft brought out an iPhone on stage to show just how slow it was in comparison.

Via Engadget

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  • http://techvirtuoso.com Michael Stanclift

    So much of webOS is a direct copy of iOS, that for Microsoft to use the same concept as webOS in WP7 seems like it's just par for the course.

  • gdiddyphone

    Are you kidding. The multitasking interface in WP7 looks like Windows. Windows has done this since Windows 3.1 in 1992. Also, you may be interested to know that Microsoft got rid of a number of developers and marketing folks from the old Windows Mobile 6.x team and they showed up at Palm before the WebOS shipped.

  • http://www.google.com/profiles/jhboricua jhboricua

    Considering that the iPhone didn't have true multitasking until spring of 2010, almost a full year after the original Palm Pre release, I call bs on that statement.

  • http://twitter.com/RowdyBullGaming RowdyBullGaming

    Sure looks just like windows 95-Windows 7 to me how many ways can you make it?!?

  • Crowd_Sorcerer

    WebOS is widely regarded has having the best multitasking in the business.It's not unlike Microsoft to copy its competitors. However, Microsoft is so slow. Each update seems to be 6 months or more apart, with not very many fixes in each update. Microsoft is famous for slow OS updates, but mobile is too competitive for a slow tortoise to survive.

  • http://cheslow.com acheslow

    Looks like Alt-Tab to me

  • duk3togo

    I agree with boricua above how can you state WebOS is a direct copy of iOS. If we go by your logic then all OS's are copy of Symbian which used the icon grids forever. WebOS has one of the best multitasking ideas out of all the OS's. Personally I would not doing that way, I would make it look something like Opera where the tiles appear at the top shrinking the page you are in. I would do this by taping the top bar and have the tiles scroll side to side. That is just my idea on it but for now it'll do.

  • http://forums.precentral.net/webos-discussion/291706-editorial-if-hp-lets-ex-palm-unit-palm-its-doomed-tablets-phones.html#post3071211 EDITORIAL: If HP Lets ex-Palm Unit be Palm, It’s Doomed in Tablets, Phones – PreCentral Forums

    [...] And I quote: From Article: "The problem isn't so much that webOS 3 is terribly bad. It's that it's not as good as the competition" "with the proper TLC and imagination could be reborn into something bleeding edge (like Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) ambitious Windows Phone 7)." "Windows Phone 7 multitasking interface rips off WebOS?" Windows Phone 7 multitasking interface rips off WebOS? | VentureBeat [...]

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