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As we noted earlier today, one of our eagle-eyed forum members spotted that HP had opened up the build scripts and other open source components for the first Open webOS beta, and that said build of Open webOS was installable on Ubuntu. Well, turns out HP wasn't done open sourcing everything yet, and a short time later the OpenEmbedded build system was also announced. If you're not familiar with OpenEmbedded, it's a build framework for embedded Linux (the base of webOS) to support installs on embedded devices. In the case of Open webOS, the use of OpenEmbedded will make it easier to bring webOS onto new hardware, though it doesn't outright make it work on anything - there's still work you'd have to do. We've looked at the build instructions for the embedded version of Open webOS, and we'll be honest, it's waaaaaay over our heads here. OpenEmbedded will work with the ongoing ARM codebase of webOS, with the Beta release also including an ARM emulator for testing it. The emulator includes core services like db8, node.js, and the other services that make Open webOS tick. The desktop build, meanwhile, supports running System Manager (LunaSysMgr) as a standalone app on your Ubuntu machine, letting you run the core applications (Calendar, Email, et al) inside it. Oh, and 'many' third part Enyo apps are supported as well, but as we expect Open webOS to be missing some components that couldn't be replaced with open source, some of the stuff your app depends on might not be there. It's taken several months to get here, and there's still some stuff to do. But this beta milestone marks the release of 54 separate webOS components to open source, totalling 450,000 lines of code. At the very least we're excited to see that something like OpenEmbedded has been implemented with Open webOS. It's one step closer to being able to install the operating system on… something. What exactly, remains to be seen. But at least we know from the screenshot above that it's not going to look much different at all - it's still webOS. View the full article

Revealed today on the Open webOS GitHub was the next step forward for Open webOS: build instructions to install the operating system on an Ubuntu Linux desktop computer. The instructions, found by webOS Nation Forum member zacky59, go over the steps you'l need to take to download, build, install, and run the open source version of webOS, and the first prerequisite you're going to have to overcome is having an Ubuntu Linux machine. If we had to guess, that's not something the vast majority of you have or have access to. But if you do have Ubuntu installed on your computer, then all you need is a good internet connection for 500MB worth of downloads and 4GB of free space on your hard drive to get started, plus the patience to follow along in command prompt and wait for the build process to do its thing. And we know the next question you're ready to ask: no, there are not instructions to install this build of Open webOS on a TouchPad, Pre, or any other mobile device. Or your Mac or PC. We're not apologizing for HP here, but this is the beta release right now. Ubuntu Linux is better than nothing, we suppose, but for an operating system that was built around and for touch interfaces, we're not sure how well that's going to work. We're getting set up to install Open webOS ourselves (Derek doesn't have Ubuntu installed either, so don't feel bad), and will update you once we've got things rolling. View the full article

The Labor Day Long Weekend is here, and in honor of all of the hard working people of America, Canada and the rest of the world we're celebrating with savings at Store.webOSnation.com! You can save 15% on ALL Pre, Veer, Pixi, and TouchPad accessories through Midnight PST on Monday using the coupon code LDAY12 at checkout. And don't forget, if you're outside of North America we're now offering low cost shipping globally. Enjoy the weekend, and enjoy the savings! Take me to Store.webOSnation.com! View the full article

SynergGV 2, by Eric Blade, allows you to send and receive Google Voice messages directly in the stock Messaging app on your TouchPad (or webOS phone, if you are homebrew savvy), but has a pretty big limitation in that you can only initiate a conversation to someone in your Google Voice contacts list or by manually typing in the entire phone number. If you keep all your contacts in Google, this is a nonissue, but if you use your Palm Profile or Facebook to keep track of phone numbers, you are out of luck. That is, unless you know a little trick to initiate a conversation to anyone in your contact list, regardless of which synergy account they reside in. Unfortunately, you can not use Just Type to search for your contact, nor can you open an existing conversation with that contact. In addition, this new Google Voice messaging conversation that you are about to create will not be integrated into that existing conversation like all other Synergy messaging/IMing accounts do, but will rather remain as a separate thread unless and until you add that contact and their associated phone number to your Google contacts. Regardless, to send the Google Voice message to any contact, just follow the directions below Open up the Messaging app Tap the icon to create a new message Do a search for the contact and then tap on the number you want to send a Google Voice message to. You will see that the contact's name, and not their number, should be listed in the "To" field. Tap on that name to display the number. On the TouchPad, the number should be highlighted. Tap at the end of the number to place the cursor at the end of the number and then press the space bar On phones, the cursor should already be at the beginning of the number. Just press the space bar once Once you do that, the number will no longer be associated with your contact, but instead webOS will just think that it’s a number you manually entered. All you need to do is tap the icon in the "IM WITH "(XXX) XXX-XXXX" USING" to address your Google Voice message with that contact As stated above, if you don't want to go through this hassle you just need to add that contact to your Google account and you should be able message with them directly in the future. Note, though, that this will not be available immediately as you need to wait for webOS to sync back between your Google and Google Voice accounts before it will show in your SynerGV account on your device. SynerGV 2 is available in the webOS App Catalog for $4.99 and is compatible with all webOS devices running webOS 3.0 or higher. If you know how to use App Tuckerbox, you can install SynerGV on devices running 2.1 or higher after it was purchased on a TouchPad. View the full article

This time last year saw one of the greatest moments in homebrew history we've ever witnessed: the webOS community came together and raised a whopping $16,699.26 to support WebOS Internals. It was a huge sum, and it went a long way towards helping ensure the homebrew organization could continue to operate without its members needing to shell out for testing devices, server space and bandwidth, and other costs. Sure, it's open source, and while the code may be free, all the work that goes into making it happen and making it available comes at a cost. There are a handful of groups that can lay a claim to helping sustain webOS to this point. HP's standing in that group is debatable (though they're trying to redeem themselves), but no one can argue that WebOS Internals has performed miracles time and time again for the webOS community. There's a reason the community banded together to raise that sixteen thousand dollars last year. While Internals does have cash to continue operations for a while (sixteen grand will do that), they're always looking to ensure their future viability. With complex projects like WebOS Ports' LunaCE and whatever's about to go down with Open webOS on the horizon, sustaining WebOS Internals into the future isn't something even the novice webOS user should think twice about. This organization needs and deserves our continued support. Right now the 2012 web-a-thon has raised just over $4,000, and really that's just not enough. Sure, last year was one hell of a year, with the wound of HP's axe falling onto webOS still incredibly raw, but are we really going to let things stand at so paltry of a sum? One quarter of last year's total really isn't acceptable to us, and it shouldn't be acceptable to you either. To make a donation, head over to the WebOS Internals site support page to deposit your funds, and then go ahead and post in the web-a-thon forum thread with your donation amount. Even if it’s just a dollar or two, every little bit helps! View the full article

We've been watching what's going down over in Berlin at IFA 2012 mostly out of interest in seeing what devices we might maybe someday possibly be able to install Open webOS on, but then HP decided to bring some news back to America with some Windows 8 announcements of its own. There are two updated-with-touchscreens laptops that HP's releasing, a 15-inch Spectre XT TouchSmart in December for $1400 and the Envy 4 Ultrabook at 14-inches (no date or price just yet), but those are just laptops with touchscreens, no swivel, no detaching, just an awkward transition between the traditional laptop and full tablets. Then there's the brand-new Envy x2, which we've actually seen glimpsed before. Remember the Slate 8 we've been seeing in HP advertising? Well, here it is. HP's jump back into the tablet game is an Intel Atom 'Clover Trail'-powered Windows 8 tablet, supporting NFC, stylus operation, and coming with 32GB or 64GB of storage. At 1.5 pounds it packs an 11.6-inch IPS display (with a resolution of 1366x768), front-facing Beats Audio speakers (naturally), and a rear-facing 8 megapixel camera. The Envy x2 also has a keyboard/trackpad dock that attaches with magnets and a mechanical latch, converting the tablet into a laptop, complete with two USB ports, HDMI out, a full-size SD card slot, and an extra battery of undisclosed capacity. The Envy x2 shares the same sloped sides profile as the tablet teased in HP's ads, and it turns out the pill-shaped things spotted on the back are the tablet's power and volume buttons. One would be good to have close to where you're going to reach often (volume), the other might not be great placement (power). The black strip seen in the commercials is missing here - if the Envy x2 is anything like the iPad (there's more than a passing resemblance here), then the full-metal back is fine for standard Wi-fi and Bluetooth duties, but a bigger EM-transparent window of black plastic is needed if you're going to support cellular connectivity. So expect a second 4G-capable Envy x2 to be announced when we get closer to the release date. Oh, the release date? We don't have that yet. Or pricing, for that matter. HP's said to expect the Envy x2 to be released before the 2012 holiday season. At least that's a shorter timeframe than "first half of 2012". View the full article

November 2009. The original Pre and Pixi were the only webOS devices on the market, with Sprint still the exclusive carrier in the US. webOS 1.3.1 was just released and there were under 500 apps in the App Catalog. And Palm's backup servers were suffering some major backup failures causing people's Palm Profile backup data to be totally or partially erased when trying to restore their data. Unlike subsequent times when the Palm servers went down over the next few years when no data was lost, this failure was widespread and caused significant losses of data. So much so, that a class action lawsuit was filed against both Palm and Sprint a few weeks later. The case of Standiford v. Palm, Inc., and Sprint Spectrum, L.P et al., Case No. 5:09-cv-05719-LHK, United States District Court Northern District of California San Jose Division was settled back in November 2011, almost two years after the backup failures occurred. The settlement called for Palm (now HP, having been purchased over a year earlier) and Sprint to pay a total of $640,000 to be distributed as an online HP store redemption code or a Sprint bill credit. If you had a permanent or temporary data loss and had filed out the claim form before the May 29, 2012 deadline, you were entitled to either a $30 or $20 settlement, respectively, in the manner of your choosing. Now, a few months shy of 3 years after the backup failures, it appears as if those settlements were finally being paid out. This blogger - who had suffered a permanent data loss - received an email yesterday from settlement administration company GCG with the subject "Redemption Code for Standiford v. Palm, Inc. and Sprint Spectrum, L.P. Settlement" that contained an HP Official (online) Store redemption code worth $30 (you can read the full email after the break below). If you filed a claim but haven't received the email, be sure to check your spam folder. You can also contact the Settlement Administrator at the number listed in the email or refer to the official lawsuit website for additional questions. So, does $20 or $30 on your Sprint bill or as an HP redemption code make up for your loss of data three years earlier? Probably not, but the lesson learned from the original backup failures to always have multiple backups of your data and not rely on just a single source was truly priceless. read more View the full article

Just two weeks ago LunaCE was released by WebOS Ports in alpha status. The homebrewed improvement to the LunaSysMgr that was released as part of HP's webOS Community Edition project brought a number of enhancements to willing testers, including tabbed card stacks and app switching gestures. After a bunch of testing, bug fixes, and a few improvements, LunaCE is graduating up to the beta feeds in Preware. The set-up process for getting into the beta feeds is almost identical to that for the alpha feeds, so if you're interested in trying out the LunaCE beta, you can head over to testing.preware.org for instructions. It's important to note that LunaCE alpha testers will have to delete the Alpha from their TouchPad before attempting to install the beta. That said, our caveat from before - how you should tread carefully with alpha software - can be lightened a bit in this newfound beta status. Showstopping bugs should be squashed, and while everything's not necessarily perfect, LunaCE is by-and-large in the ironing out wrinkles phase and ready for wider-spread deployment. As before, if you've got something you think should be added to LunaCE, there's a place for that, and there's also a place for you to log and track any bug reports with the software. Speaking of wrinkles, there's a new little feature that's been added to the LunaCE beta: you can now turn off the not-that-iconic-but-it's-always-been-part-of-webOS ripple tap indicator. You know, that little ripple overlay that briefly appears on the screen when you tap on anything? Yeah, that thing. If that's the sort of thing that bothers you (after three years of webOS usage we've stopped noticing it), then the LunaCE beta now adds an option in Tweaks for you to turn the ripple off, no Luna restart needed. View the full article

Touchpad owners who use Google Voice received a treat last month when SynerGV 2 was released into the App Catalog with synergy integration of Google Voice messaging and voicemail transcription within the stock webOS Messaging app. But webOS phone owners were still left using the original SynerGV app without the synergy integration service due to differences between webOS 2.0 and 3.0. With its latest update to version 2.0.8, Eric Blade, the developer of SynerGV 2, has now begun to add support for those messaging plug-ins for phones running webOS 2.1 or higher. Unfortunately, you won't find SynerGV 2 in the App Catalog just yet because the app itself isn't yet ready for webOS smartphones. The messaging plugins may work, but the app isn't formatted correctly and you can't access critical areas of the functionality. Just because you can't load up SynerGV 2 in the App Catalog on your phone doesn't necessarily mean that you can't partake in its goodies. If you have a TouchPad to purchase the app and know how to homebrew, you can use Preware and App Tuckerbox to install it on your phone. Once installed, just open up the Accounts app and you should have an option to add a "SynerGV Google Voice" account using your Google email address and password. Be sure to allow the account to use both Contacts and Messaging when prompted. Once synced up, you will be able to use send and receive messages through Google Voice and get your voice transcriptions without the need of any third party app. Just as with the synergy service on the TouchPad, there are still a few limitations. While sending messages are instantaneous, there is no push service for receiving messages. Instead, it pulls down the messages based off a time period you set in the preferences section of the SynerGV 2 app (that part of the app still works). To combat this, you may still want to use Google's official SMS notifications of new messages and then just respond using the SynerGV plugin service. In addition, while you can send a new message through Google Voice to any number that you manually type in, you will only be able to search for your Google Voice contacts by name, including via Just Type. If you have all your contacts already in Google, this is a non issue. But if you rely on your webOS profile or Facebook for your friend's numbers, then you are out of luck unless you manually type in their number or they initiate the conversation first so you just need to respond within that conversation. If you decide to load up SynerGV 2 on your phone, remember that you are installing an app and service that is not officially released for your device. You are essentially a beta tester of the service until the time that the developer decides to release it into the App Catalog. However, if you are a Google Voice user and have either already purchased SynerGV 2 for your TouchPad or have $4.99 to spend, you may want to give it a shot. Even with it's shortcomings, having Google Voice messaging and voicemails integrated directly into the stock webOS messageing app is worth it. View the full article

Music Player (Remix), by Hedami Software, is a significant upgrade over the stock music play for either webOS phones or the TouchPad. While the TouchPad player has some additional features, such as the ability to create playlists, Music Player (Remix) has a lot more. One such feature is the ability to create favorites that show up on the app's homepage for quick access. These favorites can point to a single song, an entire album, an artist, a genre or even a playlist. Whenever you see an icon, that means you can pin that selection to your homescreen. All you need to do is tap that icon to access a pop-up menu and choose "Fave it!". A banner notification will appear confirming the selection, and then all you need to do is tap on that favorite on the homescreen the next time you want to play the song or songs. If you want to add only a portion of an album or artist or genre, the best way to do that is to select "Add to a flylist" instead of "Fave it!" to create a playlist with all the songs you want. Then back on the homepage, select "Flylists" from the choices on the right and then select the playlist. You can swipe-to-delete specific songs or reorder the playlist to get just the way you want it. Then, you can choose to favorite that Flylist from the Flylist listing.. Want to delete or reorder your favorites on your homescreen? It works the same as updating a flylist. Just swipe-to-delete the items you don’t want, or press-and-hold and then drag an item to rearrange. Music Player (remix) is available in the webOS App Catalog for $3.99 and is compatible with all webOS devices running webOS 2.0 or higher View the full article

A few days back Google made a change somewhere along the line that kicked webOS users back into the horrid days of WAP browsers. It was a change that shook us to our core as we were reduced to a wholly unacceptable three search results at a time and Google's sad attempts to give us mobile-formatted pages that required another tap to get to the content we wanted (as we type this we realize how spoiled we must sound). Never fear, for while it took Google a few days to come around to their senses and fix whatever coding travesty that brought forth this reign of terror, they have fixed it. So your TouchPads and Pres and Veers and Pixis can all safely waltz about the Googles, getting their ten results and tabbed headers and everything else Google to which we've grown accustomed. It works both in the browser's search bar and Just Type/Universal Search, with no workarounds needed on your end. Additionally, Google's actually improved things a bit. It seems this episode prompted them to actually pick up a webOS device and see how things worked on it. While the TouchPad has by-and-large received the full Google desktop experience (sans page previews) across all of the various avenues of search (everything, images, news, YouTube, etc), the version of Google served up to smartphones has been tweaked. If there was one saving grace about getting kicked back to the old-style search, it was that Google Image Search worked. With the last update to Google mobile search the image search function received a mobile-optimized formatting with an even grid and full-screen previews before sending you to the actual page or image. Problem is, it never worked fully right on webOS, and then at one point it stopped working all together, not allowing webOS smartphone users to view anything more than the grid of thumbnails. The old-style image search reverted to a less-organized set of thumbnails, displaying images at their original aspect ratio instead of perfect squares, but at least you could tap on them to view the image or the site. The updated back-to-the-new Google search on webOS smartphones melds in the old Google Image search with the rest of the new Google search, letting you finally get back to viewing the images you want. And if you're on a TouchPad you've got the full Google Image search experience, down to specifying image sizes, content, and coloration. It's good to be back. View the full article

August 15, 2012 was the last day the webOS App Catalog successfully received new or updated apps. That's nearly two weeks ago at the point that we published this post. The newest apps were Mobile1UP's Caveman apps, on both the TouchPad and webOS smartphones, themselves having received updates of an unspecified nature. After the app push of August 15th, the App Catalog went silent, with no new apps appearing for a few days, and then a week. The App Catalog going quiet isn't anything new, it's happened before, but with the current state of webOS we can't help but get a little twitchy any time things slow down on the App Catalog. Then a few days ago a massive app dump appeared, throwing thirty new and updated apps into the App Catalog. Excited, we tapped on one and after a tantalizing glimpse at the app page loading we were instead presented with a warning that "This is not a valid HP webOS application." We stammered back, "But, but it is. I have it. I installed it from this very App Catalog. I don't understand…" Assuming it was a temporary glitch, we moved on and hoped that things would get better. At least apps that have only had metadata updates, like the price changes for 10tons' app sale, seem unaffected. That was four days ago. Those thirty apps still display a warning of not being a valid app, despite the fact that many of them are heavy-hitters in the App Catalog, like MyQ for Netflix and Splashtop Remote Desktop. There are even some new apps we'd like to check out, such as Astraware Word Games and 2012 Football Score Predictions, but we can't. We can't even view their online App Catalog listings, as all the apps updated in the failed batch are displaying as broken online too. Yes, webOS is going through a transition right now. With the move to open source and the spinning off of the webOS GBU as kind-of-independent Gram, there's a lot going on. But for Gram to supposedly be focusing on the cloud and user experience yet having the App Catalog fail so miserably here isn't filling us with warm feelings. Come on, HP, let's get this together. Update: Literally as we published this post, HP's @webOSdev Twitter account woke up to reply to a selected backlog of complaints on this very issue, stating that "We are aware of the issue and are working on a resolution. I will update everyone when the issue is resolved." Which hopefully won't be too much longer now that we've made a big (and hopefully unneccessary) fuss about it. Update 2 [8am, Thursday]: Everything seems to be back up and running now. Let's hope it's a good long while before we have to do this again. Actually, how about never? View the full article

If you've been wandering about the App Catalog looking for a way to entertain yourself, you might have noticed that webOS games tend to be a bit on the pricey side, at least as far as tablet-based gaming is concerned. Much of that is due to economies of scale - there aren't as many webOS users to offset the cost of development as there are for the iOS (Android tablets might be another story). Looking to offer a refuge from the higher prices, webOS game developer 10tons Ltd. is for the next week offering their entire selection of webOS games at half price, brining the most expensive game down to a palatable $2.49 (really, the $4.99 full price isn't that bad). If you want to see the full list of what 10tons has to offer, we recommend just opening up your webOS device's App Catalog and searching for 10tons. There you'll find apps like Sparkle HD for $2.49 or Puzkend down to $0.99. In all there are sixteen excellent games in the 10tons webOS catalog, so you've got plenty to pick from for some savings. If you're the type that owns multiple webOS devices, say a Pre and a TouchPad, then there's some additional good news for you: some of 10tons' games work on both large- and small-screened webOS devices. Azkend 2 at $2.49, Joining Hands at $1.49, and Puzkend at $0.99 work on all manner of webOS devices all the way back to webOS 1.4.5, with full-size graphics for your TouchPad. So buy once and play everywhere, which is a perfect recipe for killing all of the available free time we have (which happens to be not a whole lot). The 10tons sale on webOS games is expected to run for about a week, so if you want some half-price but full-value webOS games, head on over to the App Catalog and buy now. View the full article

On this third birthday of WebOS Internals' homebrew app Preware, we found it fitting that we give you a Preware-related tip today. Preware is a amazing app that will allow you to search for and install patches, apps, themes and more, and when combined with App Tuckerbox you can access the official webOS App Catalog to expand it even further. Even though the app catalog may only be a fraction the size of its competitors, there is still a lot of junk in there that will diminish your browsing experience. Luckily, Preware has a "blacklist" functionality that will prevent those packages from showing up that can be set based on the title, maintainer (developer), package id, app description or category of the package. To add or edit your blacklist: Open up Preware Swipe down from the top-left to view the Application dropdown menu and select "Preferences" Scroll to the bottom of the preferences screen to the BLACKLIST section and tap the "+ Add" row to add a new entry On the Add Blacklist screen, there are 2 fields that you need to fill out: "FIELD" determines how what to "search in" to indentify the blacklisted packages "SEARCH FOR" determines the value that you want to search for. For example, to remove any app by "Applible LLC", you can choose Field = Maintainer and Search For = "Appible", or you choose to search "Package Id" for "com.appible" When done, tap the green "Save" button. Back on the preferences screen, swipe-back on a webOS phones or scroll back to the top of the screen on the TouchPad and tap the back arrow on the top-left of the screen Go back to the main Preware homepage and you should get a pop-up asking you to reload the package list. Choose "Do It Now" to reload the feeds From here on out, any package that meets the blacklist criteria above will no longer show anywhere in Preware. If you ever need to edit or delete the blacklist, go back to the preferences screen and either tap on the entry to edit it, or swipe-to-delete it from the screen and confirm the deletion. Be sure to always refresh the feeds any time you make a change to the blacklist View the full article

Mobile Nations Podcast Feed Mobile Nations on iTunes Mobile Nations YouTube Introducing ZEN and TECH Parenting Samsung Galaxy S3 Jelly Bean update to bring new TouchWiz features Google goes after Apple via Motorola patents Black Galaxy S3 coming in October with 64GB of storage, says retailer Who should Research In Motion get on their Board of Directors? 10 questions with the beautiful and BlackBerry-addicted Sons of Anarchy star, Winter Ave Zoli RIM standardizing screen resolutions for BlackBerry 10 webOS GBU to become quasi-independent cloud and UX company: meet GRAM HP unfazed by Microsoft's Surface tablet, have their own Windows 8 plans The "Open webOS on my TouchPad" Contest winner! iPad mini won't be much smaller, but will be a lot narrower, thinner, and lighter Siri OS: Could natural language be Apple's next big leap forward? What's the best iPhone app you ever bought? Nokia and Microsoft holding joint press event in NYC on September 5th Nokia Windows Phone 8 - Images of another new screen bezel leak out Location, Windows Phone 8 and Nokia’s plan to be the ultimate “where” platform View the full article

August 17, 2011 was a weird day. The day prior the HP Pre3 became available in the UK with nary an announcement to herald its arrival. The 17th saw the surprise release of the white 64GB TouchPad in France, again with no announcement, not even a press release. If was a confusing day, but a pretty good one once HP figured out what was going on in Europe. The next day was devastating for the webOS community: HP CEO Leo Apotheker announced plans to explore splitting HP into two companies, one focused on enterprise services and the other on less-profitable consumer hardware, and that just 49 days after the HP TouchPad had launched the entire webOS product line was being cancelled. Unsurprisingly, the webOS community took the news poorly. Our favorite mobile operating system, one that had been purchased by HP as part of Palm by just over a year prior, was in effect snuffed out with a press release by the company that was supposed to save webOS from oblivion, the company that was supposed to enhance webOS and spread it across a multitude of platforms. We raged, we vented, and a year later that day is still referred to as the Leopocalypse. The move was a punch in the gut to not just the webOS community, but the mobile community at large. While Android and iOS kept chugging along, the fact that a deep-pocketed technology behemoth like HP was unable or unwilling to put up with the costs of developing and maintaining its own mobile operating system and hardware sent chills through the community. If HP couldn't do it, what chance did any other upstart operating system have? We knew at the time that HP's decision to kill webOS hardware was incredibly shortsighted and driven by risk-averse corporate leadership. It was, to put it bluntly, one of the greatest blunders in the short history of mobile technology. HP squandered an opportunity to secure the future of their business, and now, even under the leadership of new CEO Meg Whitman, HP continues to pay the price on both the stock market and in retail for the disastrous leadership of Apotheker. As for webOS, it took another four months for a plan to be announced. After exploring the possibility of selling the assets of webOS for upwards of a billion dollars, HP found nobody willing to buy at their desired price, and opted instead to open source the operating system. It's taken several months to get to this point, with the first beta of the refreshed Open webOS due out later this month. A year after webOS took a bullet to the head at the hands of Apotheker, the operating system is still facing a murky future. Open webOS will be fully open source and available to all to install, but at this point it's unknown what devices will be able to run the OS and its advanced Linux kernel. It's unknown what HP intends to do with the spin-off of the webOS Global Business Unit as a new cloud- and user experience-focused company named Gram. And it's unknown if HP, or anybody else, will ever take a gamble at making new webOS devices. A year later, the webOS community is likewise still damaged and confused. We've all seen it on the webOS Nation forums and across the web and social networks - people are leaving webOS and talking about it less and less every day. Only a dedicated corps of users are the type willing to buy a device with the sole intent of installing an unsupported operating system on it, and that's not a big enough group to sustain webOS as a legitimate contender in the mobile space. Developers likewise have moved away from webOS, with fewer new apps joining the App Catalog and existing apps being left to languish on the vine. It's been one hell of a year for webOS and we're leaving this year with more questions than we entered. We don't know what's coming up, and with the way things have been so far we're hesitant to even hazard a guess. The one thing we can be sure of is that the webOS community will still endure. We hear it all the time from those that have moved on to other devices - they still miss webOS and wish they could install it on their iPhone or Galaxy or Lumia device. webOS continues to be a unique gem in the mobile operating space. It's still forward-thinking in many ways and still has, in our not that humble opinion, the best multitasking and notifications interfaces on the market, 1317 days after it was first revealed with the Palm Pre and 365 days after the entire webOS world was turned upside down. View the full article

Almost exactly a year after HP announced the cancellation of all webOS hardware development, kicking off a fire sale of the remaining devices and an exodus of high- and low-level talent within the webOS Global Business Unit, the Palo Alto technology giant is giving things in the mobile space another go. According to an internal memo obtained by The Verge, the Printing and Personal Systems Group (PPS - the result of the merger of the Personal Systems Group and the Imaging and Printing Group) head Todd Bradley has created a new Mobility Global Business Unit to "reinvest in mobility via dedicated leadership, focused research and development, amazing new products, and a growing suite of applications and services." The new Mobility GBU will be headed by seven-year Nokia veteran executive Alberto Torres, who is joining HP as a Senior Vice President. The upcoming Slate 8 tablet, however, will stay under the Computing GBU with the notebook team that helped to build it. What exactly HP intends to do with the Mobility GBU isn't entirely clear, though we have little doubt their focus will be on tablets and not smartphones, and it's all but certain Windows 8 will play a major role going forward. What sort of role webOS will play is a big unknown at this point, though with HP spinning off the webOS GBU as a separate company, we can't be certain of anything at this point. The wording of the memo, specifically the word 'reinvest', doesn't exactly have overtones that we find encouraging for webOS with the Mobility GBU. read more View the full article

Ensuring that your phone or TouchPad's data is backed up to the webOS servers is important to ensure that you will be able to recover in case you lose your device, it gets damaged, or you just need to swap devices. Backing up your profile data is a pretty easy task, although be aware that it does not back up all your application data and many system settings, but you can use the Save/Restore homebrew app to fill the majority of that gap. You should always be aware of the last time that your device performed its automated backup because sometimes things can go wrong and the backup does not occur. This can happen because of backup server issues or because something on your device became corrupt. Either way, the sooner you identify the problem, the better the chance that you will be able to recover with only minimal--if any--data loss. To check when your last backup occurred, open up the Backup App () and the "Last backup" date should appear on the top-left. Note that it may take a few seconds before it appears. If the date is not within the last 24 hours, the first thing you should do is tap the "Back up now" button on the bottom of the screen to initiate a manual backup. If you run into additional errors or notice that your backup is not occurring on a regular basis, check out our Backing up your Palm Profile data tip with some additional steps and support options to fixing this issue. View the full article

HP released the webOS 3.0.5 LunaSysMgr component to open source back in late June and worked with webOS homebrew pioneers WebOS Internals to put together the WebOS Ports group to guide development of the Community Edition project. We've seen plenty of what webOS developers have been able to hack into the open source component, but something that normal people like you and me could install wasn't yet available. Technically speaking, what we have now is something that normal people could install, but it's not something that normal people should install. At least not yet. After two months of work the first alpha releases for the WebOS Ports version of the Community Edition LunaSysMgr have been released as the new LunaCE package that incorporates some of what we've seen unveiled and some new things too. There's something very important to note: it's an alpha release, so it's guaranteed neither stability nor functionality. We installed it on one of our TouchPads to give it a test drive and it's generally pretty smooth, though it has some quirks (like odd spacing in the dock and issues with PIN locks). If you depend on your TouchPad, it's not something we'd recommend installing just yet, just to be safe. Plus it's good to be able to contribute to the process if you're going to install the LunaCE alpha - it's known to have some bugs, but there are likely others, and the WebOS Ports team needs some first-level testing to make it happen. Don't feel bad if you think you should wait for the beta version, or the release version; there's no shame in that. So what all does LunaCE offer at this point? Infinite card cycling (reach the end of your spread of multitasking cards, swipe again to jump to the far end), tabbed card stacks (swipe from the edge in a stacked card to see a column of mini cards in that same stack to quickly switch), edge bezel card switching (swipe, slide, or drag in from the bezel to move to the next card - pictured above), and a universal search icon in the title bar, among other things. All of these features are controlled through the latest version of Tweaks, which adds a new section for Luna options. LunaCE is installable through Preware, but you'll need both access to the alpha feeds and the newest alpha version of Preware. Getting yourself set up in the alpha feeds requires terminal access on your TouchPad (either by hooking up through WebOS Quick Install or using Xecutah) and following the instructions at testing.preware.org. Once you're set up with the alpha feeds, installing LunaCE is a simple matter: bring it up in Preware, tap install, and then performa a Luna Restart. Hope into Tweaks to turn things on or off and you're ready to rock on the bleeding edge of homebrew. There is, of course, the unaltered Palm LunaSysMgr available to install in LunaCE's place should things not be to your liking. We'll be keeping an eye on LunaCE as it progresses, it's am exciting homebrew project and we're glad that we've got WebOS Ports and WebOS Internals on the job with the support from HP. View the full article

A good web address is a hard thing to come across. That's a lesson we learned when we were figuring out the identity for this site when we realized that PreCentral just wasn't going to cut it anymore; webOS.com is owned by HyperOffice (the true cloud and mobile operating system), webOScentral.com is owned by HP (who weren't willing to consider transferring the domain to us), and others. Thankfully, we were able to secure webOSnation.com and that's where we are now (and not planning a Gram-related rebrand anytime soon). So with the recent revelation that HP would be spinning off the webOS Global Business Unit as a new company named Gram, we pondered about and tried to figure out what website they'd go with. Gram.com is being squatted upon (money grams, instagrams, and weighting, it seems), as is gram.org (buy gold now!), gram.net is somebody's website filled with baby pictures, and so forth. So HP thought outside the box for their domain registration for Gram and turned to Armenia's top-level domain and got their website: gr.am There's nothing at gr.am right now, nor would we expect there to be, considering that HP hadn't planned to unveil the new name and company just yet. So sit tight, keep your eyes on webOSnation.com and gr.am for whatever they announce whenever they announce it. View the full article

Well folks, it's all come down to this. After taking hundreds of haiku entries and having the wider webOS Nation community to vote on the finalists, the time has come to reveal the winner. And it is… Define irony: HP's tablet runs Android, But not webOS This poignant haiku was penned by mgbmusic, who you might also know as @DeadTechnology from the Twitters. Asked what non-webOS device he'd like, he took some time to weigh his options and in the end landed on the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy S III for AT&T. While this was all good venting fun, our hope is that HP got the message and will reconsider their decision to not support the existing webOS userbase with an update to the upcoming Open webOS. This community is passionate about and dedicated to and borderline crazed about webOS. They've for years put up with buggy devices and unending turmoil all to live and hope for the vision of webOS. They deserve better consideration than this. In the meantime, we'll write woeful poetry about the situation. View the full article

HP's charging ahead with their Windows 8 tablet plans, and they're not going to let anyone, least of which OS-supplier and OEM competitor Microsoft hold them back. HP's also not letting the debacle that befell the TouchPad a year ago slow them down. HP's teased the Slate 8 tablet a few times in their new advertising campaign, and they've already said that they're going to go with Intel for their first Windows 8 tablet (and thus doing a Windows 8 tablet). We'd speculated that Microsoft OEMs like HP would be perturbed by Microsoft's entry into the manufacturer space, and while Acer's CEO might be unhappy, it seems HP isn't too upset by the Surface. Said John Solomon, HP SVP for America sales in the Printing and Personal Systems Group, to CRN: "I believe Microsoft was basically making a leadership statement and showing what's possible in the tablet space. Our relationship has not changed at all due to Microsoft's announcement. In fact, I applaud it -- I think it's great that they are getting out in front and [showing] what's possible." This stands in stark contrast to Acer CEO JT Wang, who said Microsoft should "think twice" about their intentions for Surface and how it could affect relations with OEMs like his company. HP for their part is putting on a smiling face, at least for the public. HP has massive reach and scale in the retail space, and so long as Microsoft's pricing for Surface isn't insane, HP shouldn't have many issues selling copies of their Slate 8 tablet, assuming that people want them. Of course, what we really want is a new webOS tablet, and we have no idea if that's anything HP's interested in doing at this point. And they wouldn't have to worry about competing with Microsoft for the same customers… View the full article