Jon Rubinstein, Palm Sale To HP Was A Waste

If given the chance to do things over again, former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein would not have sold the company to HP. When asked by FierceWireless about whether he would have done anything differently, Rubinstein said that he wouldn't "have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste."

We're still rather bitter about the abrupt cancellation of webOS, so it's no surprise that the man who dedicated years of his career and his reputation to webOS would also be unhappy with how things turned out. But as we've seen time and time again, Palm was often a victim of circumstance and political carrier games.

The first step down the road to perdition for Palm was their launch partner: third place US carrier Sprint. Said Rubinstein: "We almost had deals with Verizon and with Vodafone, and in the last minute both of those guys decided not to go through with the deal, so we had a deal with Sprint," saying that it was "the best deal we could get at the time."

But all of that is in the past. What's Rubinstein up to these days? As we've previously reported, he's joined the boards of both Amazon and Qualcomm, which Rubinstein says are "uniquely positioned for the future of where things are going." He also spends some of his time helping out some 'small companies'. And, of course, taking time off and relaxing at his Mexican villa from where Ed Colligan lured him away years ago.

And as we've all noticed, a lot of what we love about and was pioneered by webOS has found its way into its former competitors, including yesterday's reveal of iOS 7. Rubinstein listed a number of features, including notifications on Mac OS X, multitasking cards (on, well… everything), Synergy contacts and messaging melding, over-the-air updates, and so much more.

ASUS Transformer Prime Gets Open WebOS Port

WebOS seems to be a mobile operating system on life support, it’s no surprise there is still some interest. It is a very good operating system, and had Palm and HP not dropped the ball on the Pre series and the TouchPad respectively it could have seriously challenged the market as a premier operating system.

Despite all that, developers are still making it accessible through Open WebOS, a development effort that will keep the operating system ticking on modern devices. The only problem with WebOS in general is still its lack of developer support, and with a very limited userbase to target that problem won’t be eradicated anytime soon.

A new device is being supported as the ASUS Transformer Prime has gotten its very own port of Open WebOS. As exciting a development as it is we have to let that excitement die down for just a bit.

The port is not yet ready for consumption by the general public, and to avoid being blamed for WW3 Steven Troughton, the main developer responsible for the port, will not release it at this time. It’s coming, though, and you should do yourself a favor by following this Twitter account for news on its arrival.

 via WebOS Nation

Open webOS Will Not Support Existing webOS Devices

In addition to today's release of the core apps  and LunaSysMgr for Open webOS, we got some news that's both surprising and heartbreaking: Open webOS will not support existing webOS devices. According to today's blog post on the Open webOS Project Blog, the development team is "aiming for support on future hardware platforms where SoC's [system-on-chips] support Linux 3.3+ lernel and where open source replacements for proprietary components are integrated. Existing devices cannot be support because of those many proprietary components, including graphics, networking and lack of drivers for a modern kernel".

Feel like you just got punched in the gut? Yeah, us to. Despite being a modification and enhancement of the existing webOS, Open webOS will not be able to support any existing webOS devices, including the most-recently-released TouchPad and Pre3. Reasoning? Their processors don't support the Linux Standard Kernel nor are there complete open source replacements for hardware component drivers. If you were hoping to run Open webOS on your TouchPad, you're going to have to rely on the community to get it done, not HP.

We're not at all thrilled with this decision. HP already has access to the proprietary drivers for the TouchPad, Pre3, and a whole slew of webOS devices and could put together a release of Open webOS for those devices. But yet again, HP's made the decision to neglect off a small but loyal customer base in favor of pursuing bigger dreams. We understand that the resources available to the Open webOS team are limited - certainly much more limited than they were eighteen months ago when HP decided not to bother finishing a webOS 2.0 update for older Pre and Pixi devices and buried it under the news of the TouchPad, Veer, and Pre3 announcements - but this pattern of dumping on those who have stuck with the platform isn't the makings for continuing loyalty. People love webOS, but they can only put up with being slighted for so long.

As pointed out in the blog post, there is at least the webOS Community Edition release for us to tinker with for existing devices (i.e. the TouchPad), which included the older version of the LunaSysMgr as released in webOS 3.0.5. Today's announcement crystallizes the Community Edition's reason for existence: it was a pre-appeasment meant to be there, ready for this news, so HP can say, "But we already gave you that! Isn't that enough?"

There are two things to keep in mind moving forward. One: there's a large and growing number of Android devices out there that offer support for the Linux Standard Kernel 3.3, and given the number of devices supported by the open source CyanogenMod Android project there are plenty of drivers available for those components. Two: The webOS homebrew community cannot and will not be held back. They've already started working on the webOS Community Edition release of LunaSysMgr to see how well they can get it to work on the Pre3, and it'll only be a matter of time before they figure out how to get the goodness of Open webOS to work on our current webOS devices.

Open webOS LunaSysMgr Released To open Source

In typical Open webOS team fashion, the releases for this month have come right at the very end of the month. While the System Manager Bus saw an early release back in April, this month's releases didn't come before their time. Up for July is the LunaSysMgr and the core webOS apps. For the uninitiated, LunaSysMgr is the system manager for webOS, responsible for the launcher, card view, menus, running WebKit, and rendering Enyo applications. In other words, it's kind of a big deal for webOS. The core apps include Accounts, Calculator, Calendar, Clock, Contacts, Email, and Memos, and are all the Enyo 1.0 versions of those apps (minus some features) as they debuted on the TouchPad.

On the LunaSysMgr front, the big news is both the open sourcing and the inclusion of the QtWebKit engine for "state-of-the-art support for HTML rendering and I/O". Using QtWebKit is said to provide for improved stability and performance in Open webOS. Apart from that, it's not radically different from the existing LunaSysMgr in webOS 3.0.5.

As for the core apps, they're a little handicapped at this point (not that there's much you could do with them). Even though the Accounts app was included in today's release, the services needed to enable Synergy haven't yet been open sourced, meaning you're severely limited in how the apps that rely on outside services can be used. For example, Contacts and Calendar can manage on-device contacts and events, and Email can hook up to POP and IMAP accounts, but none of them can sign into services like Google, Yahoo, or Exchange. Synergy support is expected with the beta release of Open webOS 1.0 later this month.

Things are starting to pick up steam with Open webOS as we approach the full release of the open source successor to webOS. As we move into August we can expect the build release model and the beta and final releases for Open webOS. From there, well, that's another story.

Source: The Open webOS Project Blog; Open webOS (GitHub)

Google Snags The webOS Enyo Team

At one time the Enyo app framework was supposed to help webOS run faster and on a wider variety of devices, but as HP continues to struggle, reports have surfaced from The Verge and AllThingsD that much of the team behind it, including leader Matthew McNulty, has been hired away by Google. Numbering a half dozen or so, the immediate danger is the effect this might have on HP's efforts to open source webOS, but in a statement the company indicated it remains on track and will stick to the roadmap it announced in January. Less clear is what these employees might end up working on for Google, although Enyo's focus on web apps and HTML5 suggests the possibility they'll end up working on ChromeOS projects.

HP Looking To Hire More webOS Team Members

HP is looking for several new faces for webOS, ranging from software engineers to visual designers to user experience experts according to job listings on HP's Taleo job site. While we are hesitant to take this as signs of things drastically changing for the better on the inside we can't help but feel good knowing that HP is looking to hire some people into the organization after all of the drastic staff cuts in recent months. The job openings come after a hiring freeze was put in place in August immediately following the decision to stop the manufacturing of webOS hardware.

HP has exactly twelve job postings live at this time. Four of them are internships, one for the Enyo team, one product management internship, and two user experience design internships. There are also eight other job openings that include two senior interaction designers, two senior visual designers, one network engineer, one senior product manager, one in quality assurance, and one senior cloud services architecture role. A couple of these openings appear to be for the Enyo team, specifically the interaction designers, as they are based out of the San Francisco office where the fine Enyo folks work.

We hope the listings continue to expand, especially given the vast number of employees who were laid off. The more employees they have on the team the faster they should be able to get Open webOS out, and the better it should be when it becomes available in September. We do know one of those listings will be coming down fairly soon given that the Enyo team has already hired one of the smartest minds in webOS homebrew, Jason Robitaille, as an intern, unless the Enyo team is actually hiring multiple interns which could certainly help the framework grow to be even bigger and better.

webOS Developer Relations Lead Fred Patton Leaves HP

He hadn't held the job for very long, but today HP has told us that veteran Palm employee and webOS Developer Relations head Fred Patton is departing the company for the ever vague "opportunity outside" of HP. Here's the official statement on the matter:

"Fred Patton is leaving HP to pursue another opportunity outside the company. Enda McGrath will lead the developer relations team on an interim basis as we continue our work with the community on Open webOS."

Now, you might be thinking, "Hey, didn't Patton just get that job a few weeks ago?" You're right, it was unofficially unveiled six weeks and one day ago that Patton had taken the head position of webOS Developer Relations. Patton had stepped in after the departure of veritable rock star developer relations VP Richard Kerris in October. And if you'll flashback with us to that tumultuous time in late October, you'll find similar wording of "to pursue an opportunity outside of the company." Kerris, of course, ended up landing at Nokia where he's been working to build up the Windows Phone catalog of apps, along with a handful of former HP webOS developer relations staff.

For his part, Enda McGrath is an eleven year Palm veteran, having worked in technical and developer support functions over the past decade. Yeah, he's been with Palm for a while - all the way back to the days of Palm OS 5.0 and the Tungsten line of PDAs. We'll admit we're not super familiar with McGrath, though we hope that we and the community will get to know him a bit better until such time that HP decides on a permanent lead for developer relations.

We're hearing that HP's wanting to work on expanding their developer relations beyond app developers contributing to the App Catalog; they're hoping to bring in a wider community of open source developers to help contribute to Open webOS. The help facilitate this goal, HP's looking at its own employees and possible external hires to fill the vacancy on a more permanent basis. All we can hope is that they manage to pick somebody good who can stay on for a while... just when we feel like we're getting to know somebody they're whisked away to corners unknown.

HP Updates Enyo 2 And Opens Up Ares 2

With the runway from April showers into May flowers growing short, HP is closing out the week by making good on their April code commitments for webOS. What can you expect to find in HP's various GitHubs today? How about the beginnings of Ares 2, an update to Enyo 2, and the Node.js JavaScript platform? Yeah, that'll do (and it matches up with what the roadmap said to expect).

First things first, let's tackle Ares 2. While just a bullet point on the roadmap, Ares 2 is the next generation of Palm's in-browser app builder, and it's now fully paired with Enyo 2 (whereas the original Ares was built for Mojo and Ares of the original variety). Ares 2, unlike its predecessor, is built off of Node.js (more on that later), which will enable developers to use it locally on their own machines or up in the cloud - all with a "pluggable, decentralized approach to file storage" to give developers even more flexibility. Ares 2 isn't yet complete - it's described as being "still in the early stages" - though that isn't stopping HP from turning public the GitHub for the project. But hey, you'll be able to easily build Enyo 2 apps that work across all web-compatible platforms, so that'll eventually be cool.

A number of other webOS components are seeing their release into open source today. There's an updated build of Enyo 2, bringing significantly-improved mobile scrolling performance and a "highly-optimized cross-platform virtual list control" widget. the Node.jsevent-driven Javascript services platform is also going open source, and in an April surprise, the System Manager Bus (otherwise known as Luna-service2) is going open source three months earlier than planned. The Node.js-reliant System Manager Bus manages the inter-process communications mechanism for Open webOS and includes monitoring and debugging utilities. You know, for when we have enough components to build a functioning operating system; we're getting there, we swear.

So there you have it, April's Open webOS code commitments are here. Coming up in May… well, actually, there's nothing on the roadmap for May or June. Could be a quiet few months, or HP could surprise us and release some other components to open source early. We wouldn't mind that one byte.

Open webOS Build Scripts Sneak Out Onto GitHub

Build scripts for the desktop version of Open webOS have managed to sneak out onto the Github code repository belonging to webOS Engineering team member Anupam Kaul. Before you get too excited, these scripts don't actually do anything yet, primarily because the majority of the source code for Open webOS hasn't yet been released. The actual code to run the webOS UI and many other underlying components are't expected to be released until July. Still, it is interesting to see these build scripts come out at this time, given that Open webOS is not yet released in full and is very much a work in progress.

On the GitHub repository there are build scripts for db8, a component that manages certain types of application databases used throughout webOS and that was released in March, as well as build scripts for cjson, luna-service2, and pmloglib. Some of the components, namely luna-service2 which powers Node.js-based services, and pmloglib (which is responsible for on-device debugging logs), are webOS-specific components and are part of the Open webOS release plan. The remaining component, cjson, is a popular open source JSON library for C code required for many components of webOS.

We chatted briefly with Kaul about the project and he confirmed that this is a personal project of his, and that though these scripts along with the Linux Standard Kernel would help it booting webOS onto a desktop, there's still a lot of work that will have to be done with as-of-yet unreleased components to make webOS cursor-friendly. Until then, the code on GitHub is simply waiting for the day to come where it might be pushed out to the larger Open webOS project.

It's interesting to think back a year ago to Think Beyond, when HP first unveiled their plans to put webOS onto all of their computers by the end of this yar. My how times change. Although the practicality of using webOS on a computer is still debatable, we do look forward to the day when we can do just that. Until then, we have got no option but to sit and wait patiently.

webOS 2.2.5 And 3.0.6 Caught In Testing Logs

After HP announced that webOS would be going open source way back in December we honestly thought we would never see another webOS update until the planned September release of Open webOS 1.0. Then, to our surprise, webOS 2.2.4 and 3.0.5 said hello to the world. It wasn't much of an update for Pre3 owners, but Pre 2 users finally received Bluetooth messaging support and Skype voice calling to add to their device's capabilities. Meanwhile the TouchPad gained faster view switching in calendar, IM presence indicators in Email, support for HTTP video streaming, an easy on/off toggle for auto-correct, the ability to insert a period when double-tapping the space bar, and a fistful of bug fixes. Sadly the Veer was still left in the cold and disappointed many owners longing for some Touch-to-Share action.

So we revised our expectations, 2.2.4 and 3.0.5 to be the last updates before Open webOS hits and we maybe see something new pushed over-the-air from HP. Leave it to some Metrix logs to prove us wrong. Our very own Arthur Thornton, of Sparrow and Voice Memos fame, decided to check his logs since he had neglected to do so for a while. And what did he find while checking those logs? Why, four devices using webOS 2.2.5 accessed Voice Memos, two of which turned out to be Pre3s (the other two are unknown at this point). Curiosity piqued, Arthur checked his Metrix logs for Sparrow, discovering that at least one device running webOS 3.0.6 has used the app. Interesting, no?

We've heard nothing from HP to indicate that webOS 2.2.5 or 3.0.6 would ever be coming, but that they're showing up in app logs - even relatively new apps like Sparrow, has us hopeful that they might see a release soon. webOS smartphones and TouchPad are decent with their current OS versions, but we wouldn't say no to the usual bug fixes and speed and battery improvements that are par for the course for a x.x.1 update. And we're sure Veer owners wouldn't mind having Touch-to-Share enabled nearly a year after the phone was released. So keep your fingers crossed webOS faithful, there might be at least one more update to be had from our beloved devices before Open webOS is upon us!

Novacom USB Communication Toolset Released To Open Source

Today saw yet another release along the Open webOS roadmap, with Novacom and Novacomd finding their way onto GitHub. The two pieces comprise a generic communication toolset used to communicate between a host (your computer) and embedded device (your webOS device) over USB. It's what allows the webOS SDK and programs like WebOS Quick Install to access the device over a USB connection without having to put the device into USB Mode. Plus there's the fact that USB mode doesn't allow access to the file system.

Novacom has been distributed as part of the webOS SDK and webOS Doctors since what seems like the beginning of time, and was released as a separate downloadable executable a while back as well. The separate release, while not open source, enabled WebOS Quick Install to get by without downloading the entire webOS Doctor just to be able to extract Novacom to install a single app or patch.

There are two parts to the release, Novacom and Novacomd. The latter is the service that runs on both the host and the target device, while Novacom is the command line user interface that provides a human-accessible way to access that service. With both now out in open source, the webOS developer community (and the developer community at large) is free to enhance, fix, and repurpose the two as they see fit.

The release of Novacom nearly closes out the Open webOS release commitments for March, with just LevelDB and MojoDB/DB8 left for the month. Major releases for March have included the Nyx hardware abstraction layer and the Linux Standard Kernel 3.3, both of which will go a long way towards opening up Open webOS to installation on a wide range of devices. There's still a lot to go on the roadmap, but despite what feels like near constant drama, Open webOS is still making progress.

Sam Greenblatt Out As webOS CTO

Today we've learned that webOS CTO Sam Greenblatt is transitioning away from his leadership position within webOS. We contacted HP and they confirmed that Greenblatt will no longer be in charge of webOS, though they offered no hints as to who might be taking the lead:

"Sam Greenblatt is moving from webOS to a new role at HP and will continue to assist the team during the transition. The Open webOS project is on schedule and HP remains committed to the roadmap announced in January."

Sources indicate to us that developers within HP were frustrated by the pace of the roadmap, and that there has been considerable head-butting since Greenblatt took the lead of webOS just a few short months ago. For what it's worth, HP has delivered on Enyo 2.0, QtWebKit, the Linux Standard Kernel, and the Nyx hardware abstraction layer.

Before coming to webOS, Greenblatt had been "VP of Strategic Program, Strategy & Corporate Development", a job title that tells us pretty much nothing, but still sounds like something that would mesh well with leading a group like webOS. Additionally, at least according to his LinkedIn profile, Greenblatt also currently holds the CTO of Enterprise Global Distribution position at HP, so he'll still have something to do once the transition to whoever is new is complete. Of course, the last webOS leader that transitioned to another position within HP eventually transitioned to a hammock in Mexico.

HP Chief Strategy Office Bill Veghte is still in place, guiding the webOS effort from above, as are the remnants of the Open webOS staff after the most recent round of dismissals. Drama like this is never good for any group, and it's especially not good right now after all of the hits webOS has taken in the past five months.

Enyo 2.0 Beta 3 Release Now Live With Improvements

Less than a month after the release of the Enyo 2.0 beta 2, beta numero 3 is now out, bringing bug fixes, core improvements, and some new user interface elements.

The Onyx user interface style (heavily-influenced visually by but not code-based-on the Enyo 1.0 UI) has gain a new set of sliders and progress bars. There's the basic slider, which can come with or without a "this much" blue fill from zero. There are also two sets of progress meters - the standard progress bar, and a progress button. Both have the option of including stationary or moving diagonal stripes (the moving one making it seem like it's loading faster, or at least working when you've got a larger action to complete), or just a plain gradient. The progress buttons are taller vertically and include an X button to kill the action. As with the Enyo 2.0 beta 2, these UI widgets (and the framework as a whole) are fully open source and support all browsers, not just WebKit.

HP To Open Source webOS 3.0.5 As "Community Edition"

 

In a new posting to the HP webOS Developer Blog, webOS CTO Sam Greenblatt announced that HP intends to publish additional components from the already-released webOS 3.0.5 to open source, branding the components as "the Community Edition." The work will be hosted at opensource.palm.com and is expect to take through June, and is not directly related to the Open webOS project. The idea behind open sourcing parts of the legacy code is to allow the homebrew community to do even more with devices currently running webOS 3.0.5 - that is, the HP TouchPad. Greenblatt wrote that the hope is "that this additional release will help [the homebrew community] better understand the platform and create a constructive environment for moving forward as Open webOS itself is released."

What exactly we can expect to see from this release is still up in the air, and being a side-project like this is, we wouldn't expect to see a roadmap like we did for Open webOS. The name "Community Edition" doesn't refer to the entirety of webOS 3.0.5 (since it contains plenty of proprietary third-party bits that HP can't open source), but do the portions that HP will be open sourcing. It's a thank you to the homebrew community that helped webOS keep on keeping on.

Greenblatt also laid out some housekeeping notes for March's Open webOS release commitments. Delays in the final release of the Linux Standard Kernel 3.3 have pushed that back to the end of the month, while we can expect to see the Nyx abstraction layer and components released in the next few days ahead of the kernel.