Tag Archives: webOS

Chicago WebOS Meetup September 28th, 2014

Main image: From left: Sara, Chad, Keith and Marc. (Not pictured – George)

Here is a report from George Mari:

“Just for some background, we have been having our Chicago WebOS Meetup at the same local restaurant, Moretti’s in Schaumburg, IL, every 6 to 8 weeks, since August of 2011. Well, OK, some of the Meetups have been at other restaurants, but the vast majority have been here. I don’t remember what our record attendance was in the past, but I’ve been at several meetups where we’ve had at least 12 people. More recently the numbers have been down to about 4 or 6.

We usually order some food and drinks, and just talk about what’s been going on in the world of webOS, which sometimes in the past, was way too much to fit into one night of discussion!
Continue reading Chicago WebOS Meetup September 28th, 2014

Chicago webOS meetup this Sunday

Now I should demote this announcement to the news crumbs section, but I’m going to give the organisers one more chance to send us some pictures, videos, write-ups…whatever!

It’s the latest webOS meetup and it’s happening this Sunday (28th September), 7pm at Moretti’s Ristorante and Pizzeria, Schamburg.

You can at least expect a demo of LuneOS! Maybe someone will load a webOS TV into the back of their car and bring it? As ever, you can bring along your phone & tablet collection and talk about all three types of webOS that now exist while eating pizza. Could there be a better night out?

Find the details and Sign up here or comment on the webOS Nation thread.

The team at pivotCE remind you that if you are planning a meet up, let us know! We are interested in promoting your events (it might even increase attendance!). We are also interested in reports and pictures from webOS events.

The Pre 3 and HP TouchPad in 2014

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.

Continue reading The Pre 3 and HP TouchPad in 2014

iOS 8 and You

Now that iOS 8 and Mac OS XX are out of the bag, I bet you’re wondering, “Wow isn’t call and SMS sharing incredibly similar to webOS’ Text and Call sharing feature?” Well, you’re right! After the release of iOS 7 and it’s “Card” Multitasking, which was almost instantly associated with webOS, and is one of the more impressive changes to iOS, and most of us were probably thinking when we first saw it was, “Wow whats next? Ditching the app interface?”, but of course Apple surprised us, although some of us were not as pleased, that now you can now share SMS and calls from your iPhone straight to your Mac or iPad. Sadly, the media have forgotten the fact that webOS had this back in 2011, and lets not forget that webOS was going to flatten out, only the interface be more paper-like, first as well.

Now along with Continuity, the other webOS-Esque feature included in iOS 8 is Spotlight. Now with the updated version of spotlight, it becomes more than something that can look for apps on your overcrowded iPhone, as it can automatically show you things in maps, the App Store, Contacts, etc. Although unlike webOS, you do not have the ability to write and send Texts and Emails, but I believe Apple is off to a decent start when it comes to webOS features that we know and love. Finally, iOS 8’s unobtrusive messages are starting to get to a point where webOS was, only rather than just resizing the screen, they disappear, but they do give you the added benefit of pulling down on them to respond, which is mighty handy if your in the middle of something and don’t want to keep switching back and forth, and I’m not going to lie, but I have caught myself swiping up on a notification on my Pre3 to reply after installing iOS 8. If only they would do something about those  horrifying icons, introduced in iOS 7. Although, the story with iOS 7 is basically that it only has the “cards” feature which was taken from webOS’ core, although, I do admit that I would have greatly preferred if Apple had implemented other features from webOS right from the get go.

Overall, even though most webOS users seem to have a hatred for Apple, I think that if webOS doesn’t make it in the long run, iOS will become a decent replacement for it, as long as they revert UI, or give it more depth, but lets keep our eyes on the real goal, LG webOS smartphones, and more importantly, the webOS toaster.