The original thread was started because I wanted an overview of what was happening in the world of webOS. It is little more than a list of known webOS related projects & resources. The feedback from the knowledgeable people at webOS Nation lengthened & clarified the list considerably. While the list is hopefully informative, it’s not really a ‘good read’. I thought I would try something a little more ambitious here by attempting to expand items from the list into short articles.
So where to begin? I think I will start with the nearest subject: This magazine, pivotCE. Read on!
A little history…
(A status report should be current, but bear with me)
The Touchpad was the first and last officially released webOS tablet. It was on the shelves at full price for just 49 days before HP CEO, Leo Apotheker, cancelled all webOS hardware development. Would you believe that it has had FOUR magazines launched on it? Admittedly, they were all versions of the same magazine. Yes, OK, you would believe it because this is webOS – it’s had three corporate owners in it’s four (and a bit) year life. If you count the homebrew port (I do), that’s four owners! So four magazines is not so surprising.
On the 13th of June 2011, webOS Nation reported that HP had filed a trademark for “webOS Pivot”. There was some speculation as to what this might be, including the possibility of a new app catalogue. It was soon revealed to be a magazine within the app catalogue – a shop window, if you like, to promote selected apps to users.
In the life of a monthly magazine, 49 days between it’s release and the effective cancellation of it’s subject is… one and a half issues. But having cancelled the hardware, HP did have a notion to keep the OS going, so webOS Pivot made it to October before stumbling. The notorious sport issue did not appear until the 2nd of November. By December, it was over. Pivot content was replaced by a basic featured apps section. The final issue of Pivot gathered digital dust. It’s four issues were, “Discovery (July), Play (August), Always Learning (September) & Sport (October, delivered November). You can see archived versions here.
April 2012: webOS Nation member, GMMan delivered a patch to Preware that enabled delivery of fresh content to the Pivot app from a new source: The webOS community itself. The original Pivot had been available to nine world regions. Under the working title of “webOS Nation’s Pivot”, GMMan sought to make a demo edition available to everyone who had the Pivot app. A naming poll was held and “webOS onTap” was chosen. As is often the case with voluntary projects, other commitments intervened and the August deadline for the first issue started to slip. September saw some articles on the web site and an excellent looking preview. This showed the ambition of the project and it was perhaps the level of ambition that led to the project drifting to a halt. However, “webOS onTap” had opened a door into the magazine app.
In November 2012 Pattyland posted on the onTap forum. He joined the voices asking when the first issue would appear, but also offered an alternative: by again switching the source link, Pivot would connect to an amalgamated feed of webOS Nation stories and a twitter search for #webOS. Pivot had content again! Of course, this was mostly the items published and viewable on webOS Nation. Although tweaks and improvements to the presentation were made over the following months of 2013, not many people were watching. In mid June, the last article to date was posted at webOSnation, leaving Pattyland’s Pivot rather empty. Certainly, there has been a dearth of news around webOS, but the community continues to tick over – even gaining some new members.
Recently there has been some more excitement with the app catalogue certificate issue, the imminent arrival of the ACL from PIC, the progress of the Ports team and… well, an undercurrent of speculation about what LG are up to – even if it’s a TV and not a mobile device. Though news may be infrequent, the community wants to hear about it.
Returning to webOS as a user, Alan Morford teamed up with Pattyland to once again leverage the Pivot technology. Pattyland’s Pivot became what you are now reading: pivotCE (Community Edition). So what can we expect from this latest iteration?
Firstly, a Touchpad is no longer the only way to view pivotCE. Though that channel remains open, all users of webOS devices can now see the material on a WordPress style blog page and even stay updated via your preferred RSS reader.
On the question of content, there are several options. The original Pivot was essentially a shop window for the app catalogue in the form of a lifestyle magazine. While there are actually still apps being developed for webOS, they are of course few in number. If you look around here, you will see Pattyland’s first look review at a major app development: The ACL. With the decline of reporting from webOS Nation, pivotCE aims to fill the gap for all the webOS community. As community members, you too can get involved. If you have news, views, an app you’d like to review (or even a haiku!), you can request a login to the pivotCE web site and post here (Just send a PM to Pattyland). We need enough writers to have regular articles.
Thanks for reading. DISCLAIMER: Remember, I’m not a professional journalist and I’m happy to correct any errors you find here. You can leave a comment below or on this thread. The next article in this series will look at the system most of us are still using: webOS itself.
