LG acquires webOS from HP

[eblade]

Originally Posted by lak611

I'm disappointed. I don't own any webOS products. However, I do feel that webOS is a good platform. It would make more sense to me for a company to revive webOS and continue development than to try something new like Firefox mobile or Ubuntu for smartphones / tablets. I believe that Firefox and Ubuntu will be failures; however, I believe webOS could have been successful if the right company actually gave it decent support.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Foroplex

Being that webOS is open source, someone could!

Originally Posted by bluenote

I could see having multiple windows open on a tv as people multitask anyway with their mobile devices while watching. The losers are the advertisers.
The tv makers are probably afraid of the rumored Apple TV and this is a way to stay competitive or ahead. The tv model is also broken now because the apps are slow and not good selection, I have 3 boxes hooked up now to my tv and constantly switch remotes, the only thing I never use is the Internet on my horribly slow Blu ray player

[Ventus221]

Well...now what? We have something to strive for now.

[rnld]

Originally Posted by Ventus221

Well...now what? We have something to strive for now.

What is that?

[DataJog]

Originally Posted by Ventus221

Well...now what? We have something to strive for now.

Since our collective is so intimate with webOS, we can start by helping LG make the most of webOS - mocking up some designs for them?

Gestures on devices will not scale the same as on larger surfaces - how to overcome that in a unique manner?

[bluenote]

The LG webOS washing machine (see below). You use the gestures on your android phone to control the webOS tv and washing machine, you can change the cycle from permanent press to delicate or control the time when you start the load; the only thing you can't do is get someone to automatically take the clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer.

LG touts TV lineup, 'smart' devices at CES 2013 | CES 2013 - CNET Blogs

"LG spent much of its presentation touting its smartening up of various gadgets, though mainly home appliances. The company said it is working hard to let appliance owners interact with their devices using their cell phone for things like turning on a load of laundry, or starting an automated vacuum from their smartphone."

[andersondiaz]

I never had high hopes for this group, but who knows.


PIC welcomes LG to the webOS world | Phx Devices

PIC welcomes LG to the webOS world

We are excited to see that LG has seen the value and potential of webOS, and we remain committed to developing webOS technology and devices.

We have already started dialogue with LG, and although they have only committed to TV's at this point, we are encouraged by their enthusiasm for webOS.

As always our main priority is to speed the return of mobile webOS devices to the market, and are looking forward to seeing where we can work together with them and other partners to make that happen.

[geekpeter]

Originally Posted by deCorvett

We can't read more than what have been said, but I can't see the reasoning behind buying Gram just for Televisions.

But I can imagine a strategy here: reintroducing it using TV to get service provider's apps, and get traction again and get people used to webOS. But this use webosland, we should expect the worst possible scenario

i suppose the "market" for apps on tablets/phones i huge as well as watered down profits wise, but tv's? who makes popular apps for use on a big screen tv?

im guessing no-one, if you wanted a huge headstart for an app eco-system, you may as well pick something that is not flooded already and a bit of a mess.

if it takes LG making a kickass TV then so be it. (btw i already love their monitors)

[geekpeter]

Originally Posted by etphoto

HP is the winner? Bull, WebOS users are the winners. We no longer have to rely on HP.



Sent from my HTC6990LVW using Board Express

hp retain the patents etc, tbh that sucks, i almost wished LG took the lot so they can 100% do as they please.

[geekpeter]

Originally Posted by illli

who the hell wants to use webOs on a tv? 99% of all tvs dont even have touch functionality. 99% of tv watchers do it from the couch or a chair, several feet away from a tv.

a remote control or something like a playstation move/wii controller can easily simulate such a thing.

[Garrett92C]

Originally Posted by etphoto

HP is the winner? Bull, WebOS users are the winners. We no longer have to rely on HP.

Originally Posted by geekpeter

hp retain the patents etc, tbh that sucks, i almost wished LG took the lot so they can 100% do as they please.

HP also kept all the cloud services like the App Catalog and our profiles. Current webOS users are still completely reliant on HP.

[geekpeter]

Originally Posted by bluenote

I could see having multiple windows open on a tv as people multitask anyway with their mobile devices while watching. The losers are the advertisers.
The tv makers are probably afraid of the rumored Apple TV and this is a way to stay competitive or ahead. The tv model is also broken now because the apps are slow and not good selection, I have 3 boxes hooked up now to my tv and constantly switch remotes, the only thing I never use is the Internet on my horribly slow Blu ray player

would be pretty pimp if say your blu-ray and any other device could plug into their new/next gen webOS tv's and you could use the card system to flip to the input for your other devices, basically see all on their tv.

id be game for a tv like that tbh, card current view, flick to xbox/ps3, ok thats doing ok, card again, flick to blu-ray/dvd player, etc, sounds pretty interesting if it happened.

[mattmers]

What about webOS in 4k? Can webOS display in 4k, is there a resolution limit?

lgwebos.jpg

Kinda like the old palm logo lol

[millertime]

I am very excited about this move from HP to LG. LG was one of those suitors for Palm that all of us talked about at the time as one that made sense - a longtime phone maker stuck in Android land without product differentiation over other asian phone makers.
I liked HP the best because they made so many "touchsmart" PC's, and I thought that webos was a natural fit for those computers and because HP so desperately needs to get in the mobile space. Leo disagreed though and the rest is history. Had Leo and Lane never appeared on the scene, history of webos would be different.

Here is the thing though: LG's Mobility head was on the calls today with reporters. That could be meaningless, but I think that is probably a good sign. LG sees what is happening: Google owns Motorola, Samsung's dominance (and owner of two OS's), Windows is flailing, let's get something else as a backup plan. If it makes sense to many of us that LG might want another option to Android, then maybe it did at LG as well. Maybe WebOS professional edition looks good and LG was impressed enough with it. Obviously, LG saw something that they believed was worth making this investment. Though I bet the investment was very little - they had to get it for almost nothing.
Getting out of HP's control in the best thing that could happen to webos fans IMHO.

[happyferretE]

What will this mean for the App Catalog though?
Will it stay online or be replaced by an LG centric solution?

[daexpression]

It would be good to have clear distinction on what goes with LG and what stays with HP. From the various articles and the corporate posts this is what i gather.

What stays with HP.
- all patents from palm stays with HP.
- the cloud solutions from palm including the catalog, user profile, servers stay with HP. This means existing WebOS users will still connect to HP Catalog and User profile. Implication : This might not have any current impact but IF LG should use WebOS for mobile -- will they hook this to their own cloud solution OR dual Hook to HP profile / catalog - maybe there is some internal agreement between these 2 on this aspect.
- existing WEBOS users on profile and on HP hardware are supported by HP (a cost to them, as they're not deriving any revenue off this...maybe this was bartered back by LG to HP as part of the deal)

What LG Gets
- ALL source code to on WEBOS is owned by LG. Does that mean any IP that is a derivative of the WEBOS is owned by LG ? like the case of the wave tech interface, card interface etc. Are these OWNED by LG or is still HP patents?Secondly in this scenario , is it the case HP now is 'licensing' webos from LG (some monies go that way) for the continual use of webos for existing devices - touchpads for the purpose of continual support by HP. I do not see LG wanting to support these legacy devices and they'd probably told HP 'You support them by licensing from us webos licenses'. So moving forward it's possible that HP becomes a licensee of webos ; without the cumbersome development but using the webos sourcecode from the webos team in LG.
- Webos resources/ people move to LG- -if they sign on to the new contracts.
- LG will support have to support open Webos and also enyo. (Is Enyo source code also part of the WeboS deal? or does Enyo stay with HP?).
- LG license palm patents from HP. DOES LG get any patents as part of the webos buy out (i.e not licensed but part of the package?)

My thought - I think this was a barter deal. HP clearly didn't know what to do with WebOS and they were concerned with the lowering margins in PCs, issues with the buyover of the EU software company-- continual litigation, uncertainty in their own business and internal fighting that WEBOS team was a black hole which they could not afford to pay for --BUT they still wanted the IPs from Palm.

Moving forward - Can LG license webos out to another party? - I'm still not sure about the webos and the link back to open webos. There is going to be some divergence because it's clear that webos has some patented stuff inside while open webos does not, so all would not be equal in the sense of capabilities moving forward. We might never even see synergy type solution in open webos - given the current scenario now.

[sgamao]

This is what we know now:

What LG Will Do With webOS - Arik Hesseldahl - News - AllThingsD

..and we know LG is going to produce Firefox OS hardware. It doesn't seem possible they are going to support both FFOS and webOS aside Android. But, as we can see on Sailfish (from Jolla) webpage:

https://sailfishos.org/about-technology.html

there is interest in the high-tech world to meet compatibility with Mozilla's main goal: the web APIs which are going to power the open ecosystem which is going to power Firefox OS as well as Tizen, Ubuntu, Jolla and any other will join the party. Everyone of them is based on the Linux kernel (just like webOS) and everyone comes with his own design principles and language, QT, QML, EFL, javascript, etc.
Because of that i don't see reason why we couldn't see a webOS device from LG.

It is also possible that LG's gonna build smartphones on Firefox that are going to talk with its home appliance powered from webOS.
So possibilities are many.

[Buddy1969]

WebOS Smart-TVs are announced and probably WebOS whiteware have been mentioned.
That's all we know.

The rest is speculation.

[sgamao]

Originally Posted by Buddy1969

WebOS Smart-TVs are announced and probably WebOS whiteware have been mentioned.
That's all we know.

The rest is speculation.

Aren't we here to make speculation?

[deCorvett]

Originally Posted by geekpeter

i suppose the "market" for apps on tablets/phones i huge as well as watered down profits wise, but tv's? who makes popular apps for use on a big screen tv?

im guessing no-one, if you wanted a huge headstart for an app eco-system, you may as well pick something that is not flooded already and a bit of a mess.

if it takes LG making a kickass TV then so be it. (btw i already love their monitors)

The fact that you're not using it right now doesn't mean you will not use it never, that's what innovation and progress is about. Cloud storage, media content related services and social networks, hotel reservation services, IPTV (call it netflix, or whatever your preferred provider), car rental services, flight companies, e-commerce, and so on... you know, all those things that webOS lacked: big name apps.

In fact, almost every connected service available on mobile has the same space on TV (approximately). TVs are at homes, but also hostelry.

There's a lot of space there.

[geekpeter]

i would like to see a tv from them that represents different video inputs as just visible webOS cards to pick/flick between, would beat guessing what device is connected to what scart/hdmi/rgb port etc, esp as most tv's now have rather a lot of those ports in total. I always forget which hdmi port certain devices are connected too and end up just mashing the remote till it shows what im after.

This way you just plug stuff in and dont have to know or care what port it is.