Posts tagged WebOS

HP makes WebOS open source

| 12 December 2011 | 9:30 AM | One Comment |

Hewlett-Packard’s new CEO Meg Whitman has been contemplating the fate of webOS since taking over Léo Apotheker in September 2011. And the verdict is finally out.

HP will make WebOS open source.

According to an interview with The Verge, HP will continue to invest in WebOS and keep the core team. HP intend to make most of WebOS open source, including the Enyo framework. But some components in the WebOS are not open sourceable. For these, HP will replace them with open source alternatives.

Which means its going to take a while before the open source community get their hands dirty with WebOS.

HP will most likely not be doing smartphone. They will most likely be using WebOS for Tablets. And it’s not sure if the Tablets will be released in 2012 or 2013.

There’s no mentions of printers, but I would guess it makes perfect sense to put WebOS into the HP printers. Who knows, with WebOS open sourced, maybe more companies will put WebOS on their printers.

So I guess this is somewhat good news to all the Palm/WebOS fans and all those who bought the HP TouchPad during the fire sale. Not exactly what I was hoping for. I’m not sure if it will be successful by turning open source. This might not be the best move. But at least it is much better than sending WebOS straight to the graveyard. And now that WebOS is open sourced, it will be impossible to kill it.

Long Live WebOS!!!

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HP TouchPad WebOS 3.0.477 System Update

| 24 October 2011 | 9:30 AM | No Comment |

The HP TouchPad is perhaps the best discontinued product in the market. HP recently roll out WebOS 3.0.477 for the TouchPad. To get the update, simply go to Settings/System Updates. The update is 53mb and can be updated over the air.

This is just a minor update. The biggest noticeable difference is the left and right scrolling in the Launcher. The update made the scrolling much smoother and easier. There is supposed to be some changes to the App Catalog but I didn’t notice much difference.

Oh, and HP finally include a Camera App on the TouchPad. Haha.

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Bad news! Singapore will not be getting Palm Pre or WebOS device anytime soon

| 25 October 2009 | 6:32 PM | 6 Comments |

I just saw this bad news on a PreCentral. It was an email from a Palm spokesperson regarding the availability (or rather unavailability) of Palm Pre or any WebOS devices in Australia. Although the reply is to Jason from Auto Lingography in Australia, it also reveal that Palm Pre or any WebOS device will not be available in Singapore (or rather, the entire Asia Pacific region) anytime soon.

At this moment in time, we do not yet have any plans to launch the Palm Pre or any of our new WebOS products in Asia Pacific. Our focus right now is to establish a strong presence in North America and Europe. However, we do not discount the possibility of offering this new range of products at a later date.

It is therefore not a rumor that Palm has significantly reduced its presence in the region to one of operational support to our existing customers requiring our in-warranty services and technical support for our sold products.

This is a pretty sad news to all the Palm Fans out there. We thought that the recent launch of the 3G version Palm Pre in Germany means that Palm Pre might be coming to Singapore soonish? But I guess we are wrong. Palm is going to focus on North America and Europe for the time being. It might be a good strategy for the Palm in the short term but they will definitely need to make their product available in more countries in order to get a bigger market share. iPhone is doing very well and Android is slowly picking up pace. Palm need to get more users and developers onboard the WebOS platform. They already lost PalmOS. I hope they don’t make any big mistakes and lose WebOS too.

I wonder if anyone in Singapore is going to buy a Palm Pre from Germany.

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