OffWorld
Senior Member
- Oct 5, 2010
- 460
- 67
Ok, so it's not Android news, but Android's success no doubt played a big factor in it (though perhaps not as big as Apple's iPad). But WebOS and the HP TouchPad are now casualties of the Tablet Wars:
Press release: HP Confirms Discussions with Autonomy Corporation plc Regarding Possible Business Combination; Makes Other Announcements | Business Wire
Summary:
HP is discontinuing ALL WebOS devices. They aren't killing WebOS (which they got when they acquired Palm, Inc., for $1.2 Billion), but exactly what they plan to do with the operating system now is unknown.
Recall that they had plans for lines of WebOS desktops too, which may or may not be dead. What is clear is HP has no desire to compete in the mobile/tablet sector.
One possibility is that HP will license WebOS out to other manufacturers. Samsung has expressed interest in licensing it. The problem is that if the future of the OS remains murky the developers will jump ship for another platform and HP still would have to maintain it and update it (harder to do without the dev community).
In my opinion the Achilles heel of WebOS 3 (the version on the TouchPad) was the crappy implementation of a webkit browser. It was buggy, it had rendering errors (compared to Chrome or Safari), and the worst part was it didn't work with touch-enabled web sites! Yep, a device called the "TouchPad" running an OS called "WebOS" couldn't use touch-enabled web apps. The problem was that all apps (including the browser itself) are made with web technologies, so the browser UI would intercept the touch events and they'd never reach the page the browser was displaying. Worse yet, HP was fully aware the browser had issues, but they released the TouchPad anyway before WebOS 3 was fully baked and thought they could compete with a second generation tablet like the iPad 2?! The HP shareholders should be asking themselves if the right people are calling the shots over there.
Press release: HP Confirms Discussions with Autonomy Corporation plc Regarding Possible Business Combination; Makes Other Announcements | Business Wire
Summary:
HP is discontinuing ALL WebOS devices. They aren't killing WebOS (which they got when they acquired Palm, Inc., for $1.2 Billion), but exactly what they plan to do with the operating system now is unknown.
Recall that they had plans for lines of WebOS desktops too, which may or may not be dead. What is clear is HP has no desire to compete in the mobile/tablet sector.
One possibility is that HP will license WebOS out to other manufacturers. Samsung has expressed interest in licensing it. The problem is that if the future of the OS remains murky the developers will jump ship for another platform and HP still would have to maintain it and update it (harder to do without the dev community).
In my opinion the Achilles heel of WebOS 3 (the version on the TouchPad) was the crappy implementation of a webkit browser. It was buggy, it had rendering errors (compared to Chrome or Safari), and the worst part was it didn't work with touch-enabled web sites! Yep, a device called the "TouchPad" running an OS called "WebOS" couldn't use touch-enabled web apps. The problem was that all apps (including the browser itself) are made with web technologies, so the browser UI would intercept the touch events and they'd never reach the page the browser was displaying. Worse yet, HP was fully aware the browser had issues, but they released the TouchPad anyway before WebOS 3 was fully baked and thought they could compete with a second generation tablet like the iPad 2?! The HP shareholders should be asking themselves if the right people are calling the shots over there.
