Since 2002, Smart Phone Resource has been the company behind so many great forum communities for smartphone owners. Many of you might now us from the early Palm Treo days over at Everything Treo. Since then, we’ve launched a number of mobile focused communities, including the world’s first iPhone forum at everythingiCafe. Our communities are known for being well moderated, easy to use, ad-free and most importantly, filled with friendly, knowledgable people. With HP no longer making webOS devices, that leaves folks switching platforms, leaving for Windows Phone, Android or iOS. For this growing segment of our community, we are incredibly proud to introduce Forum One Pass – the all access forum pass. Using One, you can login to any of our communities using one username and password. So if you were a member of everythingpre, then you can turn on access to any of our communities by using your existing username and password when you first started your account with us. With Forum One Pass, you can easily jump from one forum to another, without the hassle of having to create new accounts.
Forum One Pass, Providing Fast Single Sign On Access To Our Family of Smartphone Forums
HP Announces Plans for webOS Open Source, Sets Completion Date For September
Last month, HP announced that webOS would be open sourced. Today comes news on the transition to open source webOS, which the company hopes to complete for fall of 2012. First up, will be the open source release of Enyo version 2.0. The tool enables developers to write a single application that works across mobile devices and browsers including webOS, iOS and Android. This move provides developers with “immediate access to the acclaimed framework for webOS”.
HP has also outlined the roadmap for webOS
| Timing | Milestone/Code published | |
| January | Enyo 2.0 and Enyo source code Apache License, Version 2.0 |
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| February | Intended project governance model QT WebKit extensions JavaScript core UI Enyo widgets |
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| March | Linux standard kernel Graphics extensions EGL LevelDB USB extensions |
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| April | Ares 2.0 Enyo 2.1 Node services |
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| July | System manager (“Luna”) System manager bus Core applications Enyo 2.2 |
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| August | Build release model Open webOS Beta |
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| September | Open webOS 1.0 |
“HP is bringing the innovation of the webOS platform to the open source community,” said Bill Veghte, executive vice president and chief strategy officer, HP. “This is a decisive step toward meeting our goal of accelerating the platform’s development and ensuring that its benefits will be delivered to the entire ecosystem of web applications.”
Source: BusinessWire
Amazon Considering Purchase of Palm, webOS
Fresh off the announcement of the Amazon Kindle Fire, there comes word from Venture Beat that HP is looking to sell-off Palm. Sources within HP say that Amazon is close to finalizing the deal. Amazon’s Kindle Fire uses a heavily customized version of Android. By purchasing Palm, perhaps they would migrate to webOS and possibly remove themselves from the legal tangles being experienced by other Android manufacturers.
Amazon’s Kindle Fire is largely a media consumption device, so there is no reason why webOS wouldn’t work nicely as the default OS. It would represent a major shift, considering the Android based Kindle Fire lands in mid-November. Will Amazon dump Android and move to webOS for the second generation Kindle Fire? That would render purchased apps rendered useless and make for a tough transition for early adopters.
Perhaps Amazon is willing to endure some short term pain, with the hopes that owning their own OS would be the best move for their future in the mobile space.
Never count out Palm. The company has a thousand lives.
Source: Venture Beat
iOS To Get webOS Style Multitasking Thanks To Cydia Developer
Let’s face it, webOS multitasking completely rocks. It’s one of those features that separates webOS from the other mobile operating systems. Companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google cannot simply pilfer ideas, although it didn’t bother RIM when designing the OS for the PlayBook. Anyway, there are less restrictions when you have independent developers. One such developer has found a way to implement the familiar webOS card view within iOS devices. It’s unclear if those apps are not paused in the background, but this certainly does bring some of the card switching goodness to iOS. This does require jailbreaking the iPhone in order to work, but these sort of features might help lessen the blow for those considering a switch to a non-webOS device. If that day should occur, we certainly invite you to check out our iPhone/iPad sibling site everythingiCafe.
Source: everythingiCafe / @mikecane
Samsung Would Never Purchase webOS
HP’s sudden decision to cease manufacturing of webOS hardware, outside of a small run of TouchPads, has left them with little to no room to negotiate with interested parties. That assumes there are interested parties, outside of those looking for Palm’s patent portfolio. HP’s decision to drop webOS devices doesn’t exactly stir up demand for webOS. While the firesale resurgence has given some a glimmer of hope for the struggling operating system, it’s doesn’t seem likely that a manufacturer will be willing to make the necessary investment to breathe life into webOS. Further evidence of this today, when Samsung’s CEO said his company would “never” pursue the purchase of webOS.
“It’s not right that acquiring an operating system is becoming a fashion,” Choi said. Samsung, which has its own mobile operating system called Bada, is working to boost its software capability “harder than people outside think.”
As we mentioned when news first broke of HP’s decision, don’t get your hopes up that webOS will be saved by licensing. If HP does sell off webOS, it will likely be part of a Palm patents deal or it will be sold to a company like Huwaei, who could use the OS for phones in China.
Source: Bloomberg
Everything webOS Podcast Episode: 0.5 “We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Podcast “
Despite covering Palm for the better part of the last 10 years (here at everythingpre and prior to that at everythingtreo), we’ve never had a podcast. Given all the madness happening with webOS over the past week, we took time out of our weekly everythingiCafe iPhone podcast to talk about what’s been happening with Palm|HP. Think of it as the everythingpre webOS Podcast Episode #0.5. No punches were pulled during the taping of this podcast. As long as you are not expecting sunshines and rainbows, we’d welcome you to give a listen. The fun starts at the 32 minute mark. Listen below, download direct or pick us up in your favorite store of choice.
RSS Feed | Download Direct | iTunes | Zune
Show Notes:
Hosts:
Christopher Meinck @meinck
Marianne Schultz @emschultz
This Week’s Topics
webOS Is Officially Dead
In a press release today from HP, the company issued the following statement regarding webOS and more importantly webOS devices:
In addition, HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.
While it might find it’s way into other products, this marks the end to webOS on mobile devices.
Engadget Interviews Stephen DeWitt
HP recently announced some major reshuffling with Jon Rubinstein now in charge of PSG global and HP’s Steven DeWitt assuming the lead role of HP’s webOS global business unit. Engadget managed to score an in-depth interview with DeWitt to get his thoughts on the current state of webOS and plans for the future.
HP in talks to license webOS
We had heard speculation in the past that HP might consider licensing webOS, but nothing concrete until now. HP CEO Leo Apotheker said in an interview yesterday that the company is in talks to license webOS.
We are talking to a number of companies,” Apotheker said in Beijing, declining to elaborate on details. “I can share with you that a number of companies have expressed interest. We are continuing our conversations.”
When asked when this might happen, Apotheker said “there is no time pressure to do this“.
The suitor is likely Samsung as Bloomberg cites three people with knowledge of the discussions.
Anyone in the market for a Super AMOLED packed Galaxy running webOS?
via Bloomberg
HP Would Entertain Idea of Licensing webOS
Today at D9, HP’s CEO Leo Apotheker dropped a bombshell, saying the company would consider licensing webOS. Apotheker was asked if the company would consider licensing webOS to companies like HTC. His response:
“It is certainly something we would entertain.”
We suspect there will be some clarification of these comments in the coming days. Of course, if they are serious, that changes things their business model drastically.