PreCentral: The webOS Wish List: Default Applications

[News Reporter]

Way back with

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we got a surprise: the ability to set apps as a default app, letting you use third party apps as your default launcher, mapper, email, and the like. Only problem was, Palm and HP never got around to actually making public, so any app developers that included the code to allow their app to be listed as a potential default was denied access to the App Catalog.

That's a shame, considering there are a lot of apps that could have stood to have been nominated the default app in place of what was built-in on webOS. In fact, we'd imagine that the lack of default app support probably held back some development - why bother making a browser for a small platform like webOS if users can't even set things such that links automatically open it your app instead of the default one? Granted, that didn't stop homebrewers, but they shouldn't have had that roadblock in the first place - especially with a feature whose groundwork was so publicly outed in the Launcher app menu way back in 2009. All we ever officially got? The (be it the original Google or the ) and a built-in carrier-driven navigation app if there were one.

There are several in the App Catalog. There have been . There could be replacement email apps. The could stand to intercept phone numbers and dial directly through the service. But that's not possible so long as the Default Applications option is locked down, but still peaking around the corner and taunting us with greyed-out options.

Have your own thoughts on this or any other entry? We'd be disappointed if you didn't. That's why we have the comments, it's your place to say how incredibly right (or horribly wrong) we are, plus there's a poll! And we have little doubt you have your own ideas as to what ought be on the webOS wish list, and so where awesome webOS dreaming is the order of the day.