Man the webOS deal has me pretty sad.

[Winterfang]

I don't want that happening to WP7, MS better bring it.

PS: I love you guys.

 

[Dave Blake]

Relax brow we are in it for the long hall and all this news just play right in to our hands (rubs hands together while laughing a sinister laugh)..

 

[kismayaz]

Yeah, MS isn't known for putting money into something if they're not in it to win it.

Sent from my Samsung Focus using Board Express

 

[GekkoAce]

MS's has a strategy of bringing all these devices into an ecosystem people are familier with.
Soon it'll seem like Windows Phone, Xbox, Windows 8, your car's touch screen, etc etc... are all one big eco-system that communicates with the cloud. I can't wait.
So, it would be pretty silly for them to put the brakes on one of the major pieces of that view.

 

[Winterfang]

I hope, is visited Palm central to give my condolences and the place is just sad. The editors are just angry and speechless.

 

[DontHate707]

well they better get this update out and ****ing fix stuff after. no cheap phones either we want high end monsters!!!!

 

[Dave Blake]

Dont hate DontHate

Somebody had to say it... lol

Dave

 

[Rico]

Honestly, it's not surprising that webOS is essentially dead. What's surprising is that HP killed it now versus 12-18 months from now. I really liked the OS, but it's had a number of missteps from the beginning, a few of which wouldn't have sunk it, but altogether pretty much doomed it to niche status at best.

MS has exceptional developer support, a real ecosystem, and money. Palm had none of those things, and HP had the money, but nothing else.

Let's not forget that much of the competition is weakening. Would-be competitor Meego was basically aborted. Symbian will continue to sell in the same markets but will dwindle over time as Nokia is lending their expertise to Windows Phone. Android's fine, but the Motorola Mobility deal is spooking OEMs. That's a lot of reasons to look toward Windows Phone.

 

[HeyCori]

What's truly amazing is just how quickly and efficiently HP ran WebOS into the ground. A billion dollar acquisition that they did absolutely nothing with. I remember when HP said that WebOS would come installed on all their PCs. That alone would have made WebOS a dominate OS. Never happened. HP took forever to get a new phone to the market only to deliver the completely unimpressive HP Veer. HP has money but apparently didn't want to use any of it for marketing WebOS or putting forth a solid strategy.

 

[Dave Blake]

What's truly amazing is just how quickly and efficiently HP ran WebOS into the ground. A billion dollar acquisition that they did absolutely nothing with. I remember when HP said that WebOS would come installed on all their PCs. That alone would have made WebOS a dominate OS. Never happened. HP took forever to get a new phone to the market only to deliver the completely unimpressive HP Veer. HP has money but apparently didn't want to use any of it for marketing WebOS or putting forth a solid strategy.

Okay that made me laugh...

 

[smartpatrol]

What's truly amazing is just how quickly and efficiently HP ran WebOS into the ground. A billion dollar acquisition that they did absolutely nothing with. I remember when HP said that WebOS would come installed on all their PCs. That alone would have made WebOS a dominate OS. Never happened. HP took forever to get a new phone to the market only to deliver the completely unimpressive HP Veer. HP has money but apparently didn't want to use any of it for marketing WebOS or putting forth a solid strategy.

Yeah man, it's pretty pathetic.

WebOS was a great OS (and is still ahead of the competition in some ways). The Pre, however, was a crappy piece of hardware. The "oreo effect" made it feel super cheap, I think the screen could actually get scratched up by razor stubble, you needed little kid hands to use the keyboard, and overall it just did not stand out among the iPhone and Android superphones.

What they needed was some kick *** new hardware to breathe new life into webOS. So what did HP do? Announce the freaking Pre 3 and the Veer (an even tinier Pre, something NOBODY was asking for). It's like they actively tried to remind people how big of a failure Palm was.

Then there's the Touchpad, their half-assed answer to the iPad. Apparently nobody at HP thought to ask "Why would an average consumer buy this instead of an iPad?"

I agree completely with all the angry sentiments towards HP. They took an OS with tons of potential and rammed it into the ground as hard as they could. Oh well, at least it might end up being good news for WP7.

 

[Winterfang]

I like the Palm devices, I like how they didn't had any branding in front of it ( Like the Iphone ). I think that with the technology to make something as small as the veer, they could have made a super thin phones.

Also It seems like the phones had bad specs, even worse than Windows Phone devices with horrible cameras also.

I just don't see anyone making webOS devices, HTC is more than happy with Android, Nokia is in love with Microsoft, Motorola got married to Google etc... That leaves samsung but they had the best selling Windows Phone and Android.

 

[jmerrey]

it's a little frightnening when you consider the quality of webos, and it's absolute failure in the marketplace

 

[Winterfang]

Is webOS really that good? I mean, is really old.

 

[smartpatrol]

Is webOS really that good? I mean, is really old.

I think it absolutely destroys Android, and in some ways it's better than WP7 even.

- its multitasking is awesome. Every app is a full-screen "card". You can zoom out to see all the cards, tap one to bring it back to full screen, or slide one off the top of the screen to close the app. It's so great having complete, explicit control over which apps are running. Not like Android, where you don't really know if an app is still running in the background, wasting battery and slowing your phone down.

- no widgets. If there's something you need constant access to, just leave a card open.

- no rooting/jailbraking necessary.

- its notifications are still the best I've seen.

- threaded text messaging, with the ability to choose between SMS and several different chat protocols. Mango is adopting this ability, but it will only support Facebook and Windows Live Messenger. webOS could do AIM, Google Chat, and others.

- the touchstone charger was so cool. Pop your phone on the charger, and you have a desk clock that shows all your notifications on it as well. I believe webOS 2.0 opened up touchstone capabilities, so you could e.g. turn it into a digital photo frame or whatever.

I still think WP7 is a better OS, but webOS was really damn good.

 

[Pronk]

Is webOS really that good? I mean, is really old.

My wife's ancient, underpowered, second-hand, 2-year-old Palm Pixi plus is still a better entry-level smartphone than most mid-range Android handsets on sale today are. Throw in the touchstone charger, and it's arguably *more* technologically advanced. Throw in the fact it can multitask effortlessly and it's arguably more advanced (in some ways) than WP7. And that's ALL down to WebOS.

If someone bought the rights to the Pixi and WebOS and churned them out for peanuts and sold them at bargain basement prices as one step up from a dumbphone, I think they'd have a massive hit.

 

[starblade876]

I think it absolutely destroys Android, and in some ways it's better than WP7 even.

My wife's ancient, underpowered, second-hand, 2-year-old Palm Pixi plus is still a better entry-level smartphone than most mid-range Android handsets on sale today are.

Completely agree with both. It really all started with hardware. If they were just able to offer more form factors and better designs with better materials, they'd probably be on top.

 

[ikkf]

What's truly amazing is just how quickly and efficiently HP ran WebOS into the ground. A billion dollar acquisition that they did absolutely nothing with. I remember when HP said that WebOS would come installed on all their PCs. That alone would have made WebOS a dominate OS. Never happened. HP took forever to get a new phone to the market only to deliver the completely unimpressive HP Veer. HP has money but apparently didn't want to use any of it for marketing WebOS or putting forth a solid strategy.

HP's handling of WebOS was one of the most half-assed things in the history of business.

 

[nyquistjack]

I think it absolutely destroys Android, and in some ways it's better than WP7 even.

- its multitasking is awesome. Every app is a full-screen "card". You can zoom out to see all the cards, tap one to bring it back to full screen, or slide one off the top of the screen to close the app. It's so great having complete, explicit control over which apps are running. Not like Android, where you don't really know if an app is still running in the background, wasting battery and slowing your phone down.

- no widgets. If there's something you need constant access to, just leave a card open.

- no rooting/jailbraking necessary.

- its notifications are still the best I've seen.

- threaded text messaging, with the ability to choose between SMS and several different chat protocols. Mango is adopting this ability, but it will only support Facebook and Windows Live Messenger. webOS could do AIM, Google Chat, and others.

- the touchstone charger was so cool. Pop your phone on the charger, and you have a desk clock that shows all your notifications on it as well. I believe webOS 2.0 opened up touchstone capabilities, so you could e.g. turn it into a digital photo frame or whatever.

I still think WP7 is a better OS, but webOS was really damn good.

As a webOS Refugee I was all set to respond in full to that question...but sharksandwich did a great job, saving me a few minutes

webOS is definitely an incredible experience. One you can't trully appreciate until you've used it. It's also annoying laggy at times and has been in dire need of better hardware.

I am curious to see what shakes out from the touchpad firesale. webOS, for the first time in its over 2 years is on the news, being clamored after and is getting real mindshare. HP is still saying they plan on putting webOS on PCs and is supposedly looking towards licensing the OS.

Do I trust them? Not a chance. I have my touchpad for now and until HP proves themselves to be able to actually get hardware out there, WP7 is my new home for handsets.

 

[nyquistjack]

HP's handling of WebOS was one of the most half-assed things in the history of business.

For you scifi geeks out there..reminds be exactly of how Fox handled Firefly...