We need to face facts: WebOS is dead. Barring the unwavering support of the enthusiast community, the former mobile OS will never become a commercial product and, LG investment or no, the possibility of WebOS surviving a sale is nil. → Read More
Troubled operating system webOS isn’t defunct yet. According to CNET, LG just acquired software, licenses and the team working on webOS from HP. LG plans to implement it in its smart TVs — not in its phones. In yet another surprising event, Palm’s OS will experience a third (or fourth) life. → Read More
HP is hiring 50 developers for the WebOS platform, marking a new turn for the company’s troubled mobile market play.
The news comes as HP continues its effort to make WebOS a secure, open platform. → Read More
Gone are the days of HP’s TouchPad and Palm ambitions, but HP is moving ahead with its plans to make webOS, it beleaguered mobile operating system, live on as open-source supported platform. Today it’s launching the beta release.
The news is getting announced in a blog post: “It has taken a lot of hard work, long hours and weekend sacrifices by our engineering team to deliver on our promise and… → Read More
Ever since HP killed off webOS hardware, the fate of the webOS GBU (general business unit) was as yet unknown. But according to a flyer that has floated out of the HP office, it would seem that the webOS group, along with Enyo and Cloud services, has branched away from the mother ship to start a brand new company: Gram.
According to a flyer sent out to announce the new brand, Gram is “Potent. → Read More
It looks like the webOS contingent at HP isn’t done losing people. HP laid off 275 webOS employees back in February shortly after they announced their plans for the Open webOS project, and now their Enyo team is being picked apart.
The Verge reported late last night that key members of the Enyo team have left their posts at HP, and will migrate over to Google.
Enyo, in case you’re not… → Read More
It seems like ages ago that HP announced that webOS would continue to live on as an open source project, probably because they’ve been awfully quiet on the subject since the big reveal in December.
Well, consider that silence officially broken. HP took to their webOS developer relations blog to tell what faithful users still remain all about how their open-source rollout is going to work, and… → Read More
Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20 and Brian X Chen has a great tick-tock detailing the initial fall – and continuing fall – of WebOS. The interviews are quite telling, including a quote from Paul Mercer:
“Palm was ahead of its time in trying to build a phone software platform using Web technology, and we just weren’t able to execute such an ambitious and breakthrough design,” said Paul… → Read More
HP just took to the wire and announced to the tech world that webOS will live on as an open source project. Shortly thereafter, Meg Whitman informed HP employees about the decision. The internal email I obtained, which is included in its entirely after the jump, gives a bit more insight than HP’s public press release including Meg’s feeling that webOS will continue to grow and this is a postive… → Read More
Well, there we have it. After weeks of deliberation, HP CEO Meg Whitman has just announced to all of the company’s employees that HP will make webOS’s underlying code available under an open-source license.
Before I go any further, I’d like to take this chance to applaud HP on making the right decision: they managed to make some lemonade after all. → Read More
We knew that HP’s gamble on webOS was an expensive one, but thanks to the company’s Q4 and full-year financials, we’re finally getting a feel for just how dearly the webOS experiment cost them. This past year, the company lost a staggering $3.3 billion thanks to their most recent foray into the mobile space.
I know I’m not the first to say this, nor will I be the last, but one word comes to… → Read More
The Kindle Fire announcement set the interwebs ablaze as Amazon burst into the tablet scene. But the retailer-turned-CE player might be looking to go a different way in the future. Amazon has been named as Palm’s current top suitor among “a handful of contenders” as HP looks to rid itself from the TouchPad/webOS disaster.
It’s unclear from VentureBeat’s leaks why Amazon is interested in Palm. → Read More
Regardless of your thoughts on what OS should be used on HP’s TouchPad, work on getting a fully-featured version of Android up and running continues unabated.
There’s been a lot of progress in the past few weeks, but a group of devs revealed today that one crucial piece of the puzzle has just been popped into place: the touch screen finally works! → Read More
You’re excused if you didn’t notice a pair of memos leaked to PreCentral this weekend. It was a holiday and, more important, neither of them particularly matter.
They involved HP’s WebOS initiative and they state, in short, that the hardware part of the team is hitting the bricks while the software group will remain ensconced close to HP’s putrescent heart. Why? Because HP wanted some leverage… → Read More
The future of webOS is a little less uncertain now that Samsung’s CEO, Choi Gee Sung, grabbed rumors of buying HP’s webOS business by the cuff, laughed in its face and then coldly stabbed the rumor in the heart.
Choi, in response to a report’s question about the recent analyst report, stated, “It’s not right that acquiring an operating system is becoming a fashion,” and that Samsung would… → Read More
When HP decided to kill off webOS, most people were more concerned with who would snatch up the PC business that went tumbling down the trash chute alongside it. A few options were thrown out, but most bets were placed on Samsung, who’s reportedly been looking to outsource some notebook orders.
Little did we know, Samsung may be interested in grabbing webOS, too. → Read More
On the heels of the HP’s first and likely last webOS fire sale, word has come from across the pond thatthey’re also deeply discounting the cost of the newly-launched Pre 3 smartphone in most European markets.
While it was originally available for the princely sum of £299 in the U.K. and €349 in France (both around $500), HP’s price evisceration brings the cost down to a remarkably… → Read More
In the aftermath of HP’s decision to axe all WebOS products, the question for many a developer is “what’s next?” While I’m sure a few WebOS diehards will continue to work on the platform (and hopefully create some great new apps for all of the bargain bin TouchPads out there), Microsoft has opened their arms to these disenfranchised developers.
Brandon Watson, Microsoft’s Senior Director of… → Read More
As I write this, I’m sitting in a cafe. Around me, there are five people on laptops — four of them are MacBooks. Four other people are using tablets — all four are iPads. Welcome to the Post-PC world.
That phrase was one of the first things that jumped to my mind today when I heard the news that HP was not only killing off their TouchPad and Pre webOS-based products, but also trying to… → Read More
This morning, HP admitted failure.
After spending $1.2 billion to acquire Palm, they announced that they were killing off the development of all smartphones and tablets running Palm’s webOS platform — including the just launched TouchPad. Having survived for just 49 days before its death, it’s tragic that TouchPad lived just one day longer than the oft-mocked Microsoft Kin.
webOS itself… → Read More
HP stated from the start that it planned on putting webOS in more than just smartphones and tablets. It foresaw a time when webOS would run printers, netbooks, and the world! Well, the time has come. HP is looking to grow the webOS base and expand into the world of major appliances and automotive.
HP invested $1.2 billion into Palm last year and from an outsider’s standpoint, it’s hard to view… → Read More
I’d been hoping I wouldn’t have to say this a second time, but here we go again: WebOS is reaching a critical failure point and I doubt the technology will make it through the next two years. Why? Because WebOS just can’t grab the mindshare it needs to flourish.
According to Woot, the deal site sold 612 TouchPads during its impressive $100-off sale. During a similar sale in July, the Motorola … → Read More
Remember when I said I thought HP was telegraphing its sales with the TouchPad pricing? And how I said the device is $100 off this weekend? Well either HP is not selling any TouchPads at all ever or they’re on some Quixotic race to the bottom in relation to every other tablet out there. You see, the TouchPad is $379 on Woot this morning. → Read More
We didn’t exactly heart the TouchPad. We didn’t hate it, either. We even said that “WebOS and the Palm TouchPad are nearly perfect, an excellent amalgamation of everything that was ever right about Palm.” Granted, perfection in this industry lasts about as long as a battery cycle, and we had plenty to gripe about, but as far as the TouchPad goes, we have hope.
But day-one reviews… → Read More
In John’s review of the new HP TouchPad, he claimed that “WebOS is the real star of this show. The OS offers true multi-tasking and uses a system of “cards” and “stacks” to display active applications.” I think it’s worthwhile to remind everyone that WebOS is built atop the Linux kernel, and that has several interesting ramifications. HP has continued Palm’s dedication to user experience… → Read More
The world has been waiting for an official Facebook tablet app, and waiting, and waiting. But that app may not appear on the iPad first (although Facebook is working on an iPad app for sure). Instead, Facebook’s first tablet app will appear on the HP TouchPad, which comes out this Friday and runs the WebOS it bought with Palm. Unless the iPad app also launches this week, the TouchPad will… → Read More
I see it right there, staring me in the face. It’s like a laser beam burning a hole in my retinas. I can’t help but click. That damn iOS notification red dot gets me every time.
And things are about to get much worse.
I’ve been addicted to Push Notifications since their inception with iOS 3 — and that’s in spite of the fact that they’ve more or less sucked for all but a handful of… → Read More
Speaking at All Things D’s D9 conference today, HP CEO Leo Apotheker answered some audience questions and cleared up some concerns over whether webOS would simply be HP’s exclusive in-house OS, or whether they would be spreading it around.
When asked about the licensing situation, Apotheker responded that “It’s a great OS — why wouldn’t we want to offer it to other companies?” → Read More
This is an early build, but PreCentral got their hands on a WebOS 3.0 beta emulator and they’re reporting that this build, while strong, is still lacking some features. → Read More
HP’s TouchPad was announced about a month ago, but no solid shipping date has been set. I’m not sure what it is about companies announcing products with no real information on availability, but tablets seem to be especially prone to this phenomenon. We heard June, then we heard April, and now HP’s Leo Apotheker, in a Q&A, has said that yes, June is the month it will ship… → Read More
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