Mattias Duarte, who was the lead UX designer on WebOS, is now head of UX development for Android. ICS has lifted a lot of ideas from WebOS as a result.
That said, WebOS multitasking is still much better than even ICS. The thumbnail menu in ICS is an improvement over the old Android task switcher, but it doesn't even come close to the fluidity of swiping up to bring up the card view and then flicking between running apps (which aren't thumbnails; they update in realtime as you're looking at them).
These are definitely areas where Android is still ahead. The account integration in WebOS is okay, but works far better in Android. And intent are the killer feature of Android, IMO.
The live update is good enough & the viewing quality sufficient that with the homebrew patch for larger active cards (and the patching is another feature I miss on ICS) I'll flick up, drag over slightly to read a number or address off another card, and drop back rather than bothering with copy & paste. I do the same for an irc notification out of wIRC or a repository address for wTerm.. webOS is the only tablet UI I've used that made working on something in one app while referring to 2-3 web pages & emails fluid and comfortable. The cognitive load is lower, the act of switching faster, and the gestures more natural (you don't have to aim for finger-sized targets, most things take advantage of Fitt's Law). It's not visually stunning, but you miss it on anything else.
For anyone else who's looking it's actually "Bigger Active Screen when minimized" and also moves the cards closer together. It's marked as 3.0.2-3.0.4, but installs and works fine for me on 3.0.5:
http://patches.webos-internals.org/?do=browse&webosver=3...
That said, WebOS multitasking is still much better than even ICS. The thumbnail menu in ICS is an improvement over the old Android task switcher, but it doesn't even come close to the fluidity of swiping up to bring up the card view and then flicking between running apps (which aren't thumbnails; they update in realtime as you're looking at them).
>App intercommunication (intents). Shared account info.
These are definitely areas where Android is still ahead. The account integration in WebOS is okay, but works far better in Android. And intent are the killer feature of Android, IMO.