During HP’s “Think Beyond” event, in addition to revealing the HP Veer, the company unveiled the latest and greatest from the new webOS Global Business Unit, which was in charge of both hardware and software engineering under their management. The devices they showed off would be the refined Pre 3 and the bulky yet powerful HP TouchPad.
The Pre 3 was for all intents and purposes, the best display of what HP’s resources could do for Palm and the G.B.U. It had a chance to both sway public opinion and make webOS competitive again from a hardware perspective, something that really hadn’t been seen since the launch of the original Pre. Sadly though, the device only saw release in the UK for the span of an entire day before HP announced the end of webOS hardware development. This made the Pre 3 both the most powerful, but also among the rarest of webOS smartphones (outside of the unreleased Windsornot & Mako concept phones). the Pre 3 was never officially released in the U.S., yet was sold through the HP store in California before being put on sites like Amazon and eBay to be sold off. The device was made for ATT and for Verizon, yet the latter device is a far less common variant.
Here is something very interesting. If you are not sure what you are looking at, It’s the code repository of Open-webOS. That’s the code originally released by Hewlett Packard and developed by LG electronics. What it shows is webOS being tested on a Nexus 5.
We’ve already had some excitement with the recent Ports to the Touchpad & Nexus 4 by the webOS-Ports team, but this was submitted by an engineer at LG.
So is this a gift for the team to help with future ports or is it LG’s own project? If LG puts webOS on a Nexus 5 and makes that code available, isn’t that an LG webOS phone? Could this test merely be a prelude to a future project?
We’ll keep you updated on any developments and in the meantime will speculate wildly with the rest of the webOS community.
When reports started to be posted about Skype not working on webOS, they were greeted with an air of inevitability. Another bit was falling off the zombie!
Project Macaw updated to version 1.5.4. Find it in Preware, but remember if you want to try this Twitter client for the first time, you need to add the special feed…
LG’s connect SDK has also had a version update. No, it doesn’t quite work on Legacy webOS, but if you want to make apps that interact with webOS TV’s it’s a must. The new technology in LuneOS means future support is a possibility…
Finally, the conclusion to an odd part of webOS history: The Chubby Checker court case. The comments section of the article contains all the jokes you are likely to need on this matter.
2010 was a special year for webOS. It would mark the release of the Pre and Pixi Plus, alongside something special. That something special, would be the Pre successor and the very last smartphone to ever be released, under the “Palm” branding.
The Pre 2, code named “Roadrunner” first appeared in August of 2010, as a rumor but launched in November as a unlocked developer device in the U.S. and finally an actual carrier launch on Verizon in February of 2011. Continue reading The Pre 2 & HP Veer in 2014→
