Man, WebOS was truly excellent. I had a Palm Pre back in the day and to this day there are moments when I'm using Android and I wish I was using WebOS instead. It had such a natural interface for multitasking too.

Unrelated to WebOS, but the Pre's wireless charging accessory is IMHO still the best to date.

IMHO a large part of WebOS's excellence was the UX design work of Matias Duarte. Android improved immeasurably once he came to Google.

> [WebOS] had such a natural interface for multitasking too.

On the MeeGo OS used on the Nokia N9, it requires swiping in one direction a couple of times to get to the open tasks screen. You can then press and hold on the screen to allow for closing any app(s) you want and click on the done button after you're finished.

Closing an app requires just swiping from the top to the bottom. IIRC, WebOS required you to swipe upward to get to the task screen and then swipe upward again to close the app.

The multitasking interface from webOS is very similar to what iOS has now.

Yeah, but on WebOS it was a little different... the home screen was actually the open app list, and the app launcher was accessed from that home screen; compared to iOS, which has the app launcher as the home screen, and the open app list as a semi-hidden double-click feature.

I much prefer WebOS's approach. On the other hand, in those days you wouldn't really have more than a few apps open at once, unlike iPads which could have dozens of apps or browser tabs. So who knows if WebOS's style would translate well to today's usage patterns.