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I suppose we can debate how many angels are dancing on the head of a pin and clutching active webOS devices. How many of us there are would certainly be a useful number to know for the campaigns & funding rounds that will no doubt continue to be required. This number must also be a factor in HP's decision on renewing the certificate.
I wonder if HP have the ability to contact every device - with an instruction on how to update if they are unable to do it automatically.
There maybe a potential advantage of an update going through Preware: Let's say every device owner is alerted to perform an update.
1. If the alert was a link to an instruction page on webosnation, every webOS user will find that there is a support community they can join.
2. Every webOS user will HAVE to install WOSQI/Preware and become aware of the significant and customisable upgrades available.
3. Er... Profit? Well, maybe not, but every active user will have to show up here at least once and install homebrew. That process can come with information about Preware, OWOS, ACL, CM9/10, the 'state of the nation' and so on. EVERYONE who would support webOS can be informed and choose to participate.
If anything of mine breaks, the first thing I do is... Google it of course! If a solution is supplied, an article here entitled, "How to fix your webOS device's link to the cloud" (or whatever the likely search term would be) might have a similar effect to an HP 'broadcast' - especially if we all googled/binged/etc the title to push it up the rankings.
The question over unactivated devices remains, but I suspect anyone buying (and maybe selling) these 2 year old devices will likely have an idea of what they're buying - I mean the average consumer will ask, "What's webOS?" before moving right along to the Android or iphone categories.
I currently use the back up procedure here: The Definitive Guide to Backing up and Restoring your webOS Device | webOS Nation to do a full back up and copy it to the PC with MS SyncToy (set to skip the 'don't copy' folders in the article). This however, still relies on backing up to HP for the profile data I think.
My question is:
If HP drop webOS at this point (I doubt it, but...), can a patch be created to point devices to another server? I'm thinking of the servers given by HP to webOS-ports / internals which I presume reside on their Secret Island Base somewhere in the Pacific. Of course, I hope those servers are running at full capacity for Open webOS right now and again, the number of current users (?) may exceed the capacity anyway (no idea how much data would be involved). Maybe PIC would decide that offering a backend service would be a logical step to providing a front end device. Maybe a small charge for one's own bit of space will be necessary. These are possibilities for the less tech savvy, but perhaps another option would be the ability to back up our profiles to our own computers or servers - manually or automatically.
I suppose the question of HP/Palm's certificate implementation arises, but I'd hope that HP at a bare minimum would share the details with those here who could do something useful with the information.
To end on an optimistic note, HP DID open source webOS - which gave it a chance to survive. They have offered support and equipment to the Internals teams and yes, have stated that they will support webOS. I suspect they may allow it to die as devices fail and inevitably get upgraded from as they become truly outmoded, but I'd be surprised if they actually kill it - it may be that LG may want (or may HAVE) to use HP for any backend services also.
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Originally Posted by gizmo21
(Happy A Lot, As A Good Carioca!)
. Would be really funny if they have to rely on a "non recommended channel" to fix their s***
