Apple Steals Notifications Pro from PalmApple Steals Notifications Pro from Palm

Dellinger is the second major webOS designer to leave Palm in recent weeks. Dellinger returned to his former employer, Apple, where he will serve as a Senior User Interface Designer. At Palm, Dellinger acted as a visual designer, an interaction designer, and an engineer on Palm webOS, among other things.

It's an interesting move for one major reason: Apple is prepared to release version 4 of the iPhone operating system -- now iOS4 -- which still lacks one significant upgrade: notifications. Many were expecting iOS4 to address the notifications system of the iPhone.

The way the iPhone behaves even with iOS4, notifications such as text messages, push notifications and other alerts completely and utterly interrupt any task that the user may be undertaking. It is frustrating, especially if you're trying to compose an email and get bombarded with text messages.

The lock screen could also use a major overhaul. There's no way, for example, to check to see the number of unread messages, emails or missed calls one might have without fully unlocking the iPhone.

The way notifications are handled on Palm's webOS are much more elegant, and don't bother the user until the user wants to check them. Since Dellinger took a user interface level job, we might hope that iOS5 will make improvements in this area. Too bad we'll have to wait a year to find out.

Dellinger isn't the only high-level Palm employee to leave since the HP acquisition was announced. On May 27, Matias Duarte, the man behind Palm's webOS user interface, left the company for a new post at Google. Duarte is the new user experience director for Android.

Despite all the talent leaving Palm, I'd say webOS fans don't have to worry too much. The company still has plenty of talent left, and with the help of HP's resource should be able to soldier on with no trouble.