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[q]Not to mention the fact that JS (compiled or not) will never out perform Objective C / .NET [q/]

That's crazy talk. I don't know where you got that idea, but I'd have to see the proof (rigorously mathematical at that) for myself.

Well Unless there is some sort of *fast* equivalent to Core Data and it's Managed Object Context in JS or at least Cocoa style bindings (where delegates are built in/expected/implicit) then it will have to be slower.
It is not that it *cant * be done it is just that who is really willing to throw all of that development resources to an environment that will be second or worse to market.
See there is really only a certain of window between a developer getting 'IT' and the next 2 great technologies thar (s)he will see and then they are 31-35 and have better things than to do other than being on the bleeding edge. (Who wants to know about Carbon or CFM Mac Apps?) That just like Java used to be the future. And it was more recent but didn't catch mindshare but cocoa and cappuccino well these are matured versions of smalltalk and really. It is not that hard to wrap my head around. If HP ships a NeXTStep clone that enables cappuccino apps to launch 20% quicker (six not eight seconds to useful user input) then unlike Gruber's "Shit Sandwich" (sic) you have an environment that is standard and open (unlike dot-net) well HP is gonna eat the lunch of whoever doesn't "dig this new scene"

I agree with the article that this will be for the consumer devices only, so who cares about the speed of the underlying language? Consumers generally only need computers for web, email and maybe a bit of social networking. If they do play games then on an OS like WebOS it's more likely to be casual games.

That's not entirely true though. If consumers buy a laptop / desktop, then it's because they wanted/needed to do more than just go online or play a few games.
It's because - and at the very minimum of their usage - they have letters to type, personal accounts to tabulate or photos to crop and print.
Many might have software they need for work - from interactive whiteboards to bespoke solutions. Or perhaps they're studying at college / university and want to run the same software suites at home.

The fact is, most people who buy a laptop or desktop do so intentionally because they want the potential flexibility that comes with a fully-fledged desktop OS. Thus if they only wanted to surf the web or play games, they'd buy a tablet PC (and we've seen proof of this with how popular internet-ready gadgets have been of late). WebOS just can't compete with OS X terms of productivity thus suggesting WebOS is part of HPs plans to phase out Windows and become HP's own Mac OS - as Thom suggested - is completely bonkers.

Obviously there will be people who just want to browser some HTML yet will still prefer a laptop. There will always be exceptions to the rule. However while the majority of people only surf the net the majority of the time; I think it's grossly unfair to say that's all they do all the time.

I've seen this claimed for years but it never pans out in the real world.

Everyone I meet depends on at least one desktop application. This web-only group seems like an internet creation.

True, but that's just because people in the so called "creative industry" are snobs, not IT specialists.
OS X isn't in any way better than Windows, Linux, BSD.



What would be Os X without all bells and whistles?

Some professionals use Photoshop, which isn't officially supported on Linux/BSD. So they use Windows or Mac for that.

I didn't say it was better. However it's not in any way worse either.

That said, OS X is way better than Linux and BSD for audio professional - and I can say that safely being a non-snobby full time Linux user and IT specialist who dabbles with music as a semi-professional hobby.





What would be Os X without all bells and whistles? "
That doesn't even make sense.
Can Logic, Garage Band, Photoshop or Quark run on WebOS? No? well then OS X isn't just WebOS with some "bells and whistles".

Android apps are Java based, not JS (javascript) based.

Java apps are compiled, not interpreted. The loss of speed is from JVM - the virtual machine which runs the interpreted code. .NET is also compiled and runs also in a virtual machine.

Speed wise, I saw C and C++ apps running faster than Objective C.

That could be because of Obj-C Message Dispatcher.

Edited 2011-02-10 19:45 UTC

Android apps are Java based, not JS (javascript) based.
"
I know but Android has f--k all to do with this thread. However WebOS (which is the platform we're discussing) /DOES/ use JS.


Actually they're both. They're compiled to byte code that then gets interpreted by the Java Virtual Machine


Yes, .NET is also byte code. Thanks for pointing out something we all ready knew.


That would be down to shoddy programming then as your point is as nonsensical as arguing that C apps run faster than C++.

Edited 2011-02-10 22:48 UTC

Most home users pretty much only use their computers to access social networking sites...

A device which is cheap, fast and stable for doing this without having to worry about malware, software updates and all the other crap average people would rather not have to deal with should sell quite well. Computers are excessively complex for what most people use them for, simpler devices will benefit most people.

[q]Most home users pretty much only use their computers to access social networking sites...[q]

Citation needed.