5 ms·

Open webOS 1.0 is here

95 points by freshrap6 14y ago

co_pl_te 14y ago
The GitHub repository is at https://github.com/openwebos/ https://github.com/openwebos/ for anyone who is interested. I'm tentatively excited by this. webOS was my 'first love' in modern mobile operating systems. Though it lacked the polish of iOS and was limited by the hardware both Palm and HP chose to pair with it, it was ahead of its time in many respects. Just think, before the original Droid launched on Verizon, webOS had more marketshare and mindshare than Android. Imagine what could have been.
- cleverjake 14y ago
  Do you have any reference to the webOs marketshare statement? I don't remember this being true.
  - co_pl_te 14y ago
    You're correct, sir. My fond memories of webOS must have clouded my judgment. :-) I'll be back with figures in a sec.
    - MatthewPhillips 14y ago
      If those are U.S. numbers it's pretty comparable. Android had been out almost a year by August '09 while WebOS only a few months. Verizon was originally planning to launch the Pre as its premiere smartphone but then got in bed with Google, launched the Droid, and the rest is history. I don't think WebOS would be in Android's position if things had gone differently; the ability to customize Android was always its biggest selling factor... but maybe, just maybe, Verizon customers would have loved their WebOS phones enough to give it a longer life than it had. It was a much better OS than Android at the time. As someone who owned Android 1.0, 1.5, and 1.6 devices I can definitely say that.
- hermanhermitage 14y ago
  I like the approaches of both webOS and Firefox Mobile OS. For sure Javascript might not be the language one would choose to start with if one was re envisioning the web today with all the last decades learnings. And perhaps a fresh start could see lots of the incidental and accidental complexity dropped from CSS and HTML. But they are what we have today, and perhaps in time Javascript can align itself more closely to Scheme and a WebCPU element can come along to allow near native code where needed. I have difficulty seeing a strategy underlying Google's effort with Java/Android - I dont see where it fits for a web company. The App / App Store centric distribution model is a step away from open exchange of information, and the whole App updating model seems very pre- web. Building up yet another Java ecosystem for UI seems another miss step like the original MIDP/J2ME disaster - what is it with Java encouraging non domain experts to implement libraries and frameworks?. Particularly as the web seems to move farther each day from Java in the browser. Also iOS is quite uninteresting to me from an application development perspective. It has a very 80's feel to it with hard coded apps encouraging fragile pixel precise layouts. It seems primarily about building a money pump around a closed eco system. Some elements of the system are beautiful executed - the whole CoreAnimation / CALayer giving fluid graphics composition for example. But for the vast majority of throwaway apps the level of effort needed to implement native Apps - which for the most part are a gluing together of OS APIs seems like overkill.
  - tristan_juricek 14y ago
    Yes. It seems like you could reuse a lot of work from your web application with something like WebOS. ("It seems" == totally unfounded guesswork). iOS development seems like more of a temporary stopgap to the eventual rise a great standardized mobile web platform. Well, temporary meaning "probably 4-5 years or so".
    - untog 14y ago
      Agreed. While I totally understand the reasons for going native, it depresses me to see so many people so enthusiastic about it. We only just got out of an era where you had to recode significant parts of a web site to satisfy all the browers. We can at last write once and use (almost) anywhere... so now we go straight back to boxed off proprietary solutions.
- co_pl_te 14y ago
  As cleverjake points out, I was wrong about webOS having more marketshare than Android prior to the Droid's launch on Verizon. In my defense, it did have respectably competitive OS share going into the fall of 2009. ;-) Looking at AdMob's figures on worldwide mobile OS share for August 2009 (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2009/09/30/admob-the-iphones-share-of-the-smartphone-market-hits-a-record-40/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2009/09/30/admob-the-iphones-sha...), Android reportedly had 7% global share to 4% for webOS. US figures from AdMob for the same time frame (http://www.prethinking.com/home/2009/9/30/webos-web-market-share-on-the-rise.html http://www.prethinking.com/home/2009/9/30/webos-web-market-s...) also revealed Android had a healthy 13% share to webOS' 9%. I still think that's mighty impressive (though certainly not more) since the Sprint Pre was the only webOS phone until it hit Bell in Canada late that August. The GSM Pre didn't hit until mid-October right around the debut of the 'Droid Does' campaign on October 17, 2009. The rest is history.
randallu 14y ago
Might have some pretty major security flaws... https://github.com/openwebos/core-apps/tree/master/com.palm.app.email#html-sanitizer-function-used-in-the-email-display-message-view-is-limited-to-remove-only-certain-tags-such-as-script-iframe-object-embed-more-generic-solution-is-planned-for-post-beta-release https://github.com/openwebos/core-apps/tree/master/com.palm....
josteink 14y ago
If (usable) builds come for the Galaxy Nexus, I will be forced to try this out :)
- j_col 14y ago
  Here you go: http://blog.openwebosproject.org/post/32477144913/news-flash http://blog.openwebosproject.org/post/32477144913/news-flash
  - veeti 14y ago
    Well, about that "usable" part...
    - j_col 14y ago
      Need to be patient, porting is a laborious task. This is nothing more than an early alpha.
hugh4life 14y ago
These mobile platforms that use web tech(boot to gecko, webOS, etc) really aught to wait till ES.Next becomes implemented before they go 1.0. If they have C++ code extensions, they aught to wait till C++11 is full implemented in their compiler of choice.
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago
  Why?
uxp100 14y ago
I loved WebOS, but part of the key to the gestures, on my Pixi at least, was the touch sensitive area beneath the screen. I didn't expect that to translate well to the tablet form factor, though I never tried a touchpad running WebOS.
eupharis 14y ago
Hold the phone. It's Linux based, open source, and apps are written in Javascript, not Java? Down with Android. Long live webOS!
- emehrkay 14y ago
  After the "death" of webos, I watched the developers videos and wondered why the whole web community wasnt building apps. The dev tools seemed to be everything that the common web dev wanted.
  - ineedtosleep 14y ago
    I was digging into webOS development back when the Pre came out and was hoping for a pretty upbeat development community _because_ of the use of web languages. Looking back, however, it felt like webOS (as a mobile OS) seemed too early for its time. The push for more web stuff didn't surface until way after Palm/webOS was deemed toxic to the touch. It was a pity, but I hope the open source efforts end up redeeming itself. I'm definitely rooting it on and supporting it.
  - dj2stein9 14y ago
    The dev tools seemed to be everything that the common web dev wanted. The dev tools are useless if the platform is a failure. Had HP not prematurely aborted the platform, and a Phonegap port been maintained, then I can hardly see what would have stopped WebOS from being at least modestly successful.
  - smacktoward 14y ago
    The problem was timing. Palm didn't make a webOS SDK generally available until something like two months after the first webOS phone (the Pre) was launched. This meant that they couldn't tap into developer interest during the big pre-launch hype cycle, which in the case of the Pre was massive, thanks to a hugely successful introduction of the device at CES earlier that year (see http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338482,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338482,00.asp, http://www.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10139851-100.html http://www.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10139851-100.html for a sample of the reception it got there). Then by the time the SDK was available, the Pre had already proven less successful in the marketplace than Palm had hoped it would be, so developer interest had cooled. Nobody wants to write apps for a phone that's a flop.
nilsbunger 14y ago
Curious, is this helpful to people building web apps or ios/android mobile apps ?
jsz0 14y ago
I wonder if a better approach would be to rebuild WebOS on top of an Android base instead? It seems like they are choosing to fight a war they cannot possibly win. If they want to run on other people's hardware why not build on top of a very well supported platform? Any rooted phone would have 100% driver support. Could be easier than installing a custom ROM. At least they would be able to get a foothold in the market. If my Galaxy Nexus could run the WebOS UI and continue to run legacy Android apps I would switch over right now. I know this isn't really the original goal of this project and maybe there are good technical reasons this would not be possible. It just seems like it would achieve the same thing in a more practical way. Perhaps they could maintain both a standalone WebOS and a WebOS/Android version?
- ziadbc 14y ago
  Someone can probably build an app player for android apps, but architecture wise, what you just described sounds kind of like a custom UI for android. The rationale for not doing something like this philosophically is that the underlying point of webos is that it shouldn't feel like a 'whole new platform' to a web developer, but rather the platform they are already most familiar with, even more than android, i.e the web.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  Would it be that hard? It looks like people already have webOS running on Android device(s?). I thought that the Android kernel and main linux kernel have merged. Thus, the changes they've made should increase the ability to use it on Android devices.
samholmes 14y ago
WebOS could do something different and allow for apps to be loaded on the fly via a URL. Oh wait, that's what a web browser does..Why isn't WebOS aiming to be a web browser with the ability to cache apps using standardized (or maybe non-standard if needed) technologies? Then, you wouldn't need a marketplace or app store necessarily, because users have access to the apps directly off the web. Not to mention, this will save storage and move towards cloud computing more nicely. Oh, and think about how easy it would be to transfer an application from device to another device. WebOS should focus on being just that, a web OS. This means URLs; DNS is the backbone of the web after all.

95 points by freshrap6 14y ago

The GitHub repository is at https://github.com/openwebos/ https://github.com/openwebos/ for anyone who is interested. I'm tentatively excited by this. webOS was my 'first love' in modern mobile operating systems. Though it lacked the polish of iOS and was limited by the hardware both Palm and HP chose to pair with it, it was ahead of its time in many respects. Just think, before the original Droid launched on Verizon, webOS had more marketshare and mindshare than Android. Imagine what could have been.

cleverjake 14y ago
Do you have any reference to the webOs marketshare statement? I don't remember this being true.
- co_pl_te 14y ago
  You're correct, sir. My fond memories of webOS must have clouded my judgment. :-) I'll be back with figures in a sec.
  - MatthewPhillips 14y ago
    If those are U.S. numbers it's pretty comparable. Android had been out almost a year by August '09 while WebOS only a few months. Verizon was originally planning to launch the Pre as its premiere smartphone but then got in bed with Google, launched the Droid, and the rest is history. I don't think WebOS would be in Android's position if things had gone differently; the ability to customize Android was always its biggest selling factor... but maybe, just maybe, Verizon customers would have loved their WebOS phones enough to give it a longer life than it had. It was a much better OS than Android at the time. As someone who owned Android 1.0, 1.5, and 1.6 devices I can definitely say that.
hermanhermitage 14y ago
I like the approaches of both webOS and Firefox Mobile OS. For sure Javascript might not be the language one would choose to start with if one was re envisioning the web today with all the last decades learnings. And perhaps a fresh start could see lots of the incidental and accidental complexity dropped from CSS and HTML. But they are what we have today, and perhaps in time Javascript can align itself more closely to Scheme and a WebCPU element can come along to allow near native code where needed. I have difficulty seeing a strategy underlying Google's effort with Java/Android - I dont see where it fits for a web company. The App / App Store centric distribution model is a step away from open exchange of information, and the whole App updating model seems very pre- web. Building up yet another Java ecosystem for UI seems another miss step like the original MIDP/J2ME disaster - what is it with Java encouraging non domain experts to implement libraries and frameworks?. Particularly as the web seems to move farther each day from Java in the browser. Also iOS is quite uninteresting to me from an application development perspective. It has a very 80's feel to it with hard coded apps encouraging fragile pixel precise layouts. It seems primarily about building a money pump around a closed eco system. Some elements of the system are beautiful executed - the whole CoreAnimation / CALayer giving fluid graphics composition for example. But for the vast majority of throwaway apps the level of effort needed to implement native Apps - which for the most part are a gluing together of OS APIs seems like overkill.
- tristan_juricek 14y ago
  Yes. It seems like you could reuse a lot of work from your web application with something like WebOS. ("It seems" == totally unfounded guesswork). iOS development seems like more of a temporary stopgap to the eventual rise a great standardized mobile web platform. Well, temporary meaning "probably 4-5 years or so".
  - untog 14y ago
    Agreed. While I totally understand the reasons for going native, it depresses me to see so many people so enthusiastic about it. We only just got out of an era where you had to recode significant parts of a web site to satisfy all the browers. We can at last write once and use (almost) anywhere... so now we go straight back to boxed off proprietary solutions.
co_pl_te 14y ago
As cleverjake points out, I was wrong about webOS having more marketshare than Android prior to the Droid's launch on Verizon. In my defense, it did have respectably competitive OS share going into the fall of 2009. ;-) Looking at AdMob's figures on worldwide mobile OS share for August 2009 (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2009/09/30/admob-the-iphones-share-of-the-smartphone-market-hits-a-record-40/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2009/09/30/admob-the-iphones-sha...), Android reportedly had 7% global share to 4% for webOS. US figures from AdMob for the same time frame (http://www.prethinking.com/home/2009/9/30/webos-web-market-share-on-the-rise.html http://www.prethinking.com/home/2009/9/30/webos-web-market-s...) also revealed Android had a healthy 13% share to webOS' 9%. I still think that's mighty impressive (though certainly not more) since the Sprint Pre was the only webOS phone until it hit Bell in Canada late that August. The GSM Pre didn't hit until mid-October right around the debut of the 'Droid Does' campaign on October 17, 2009. The rest is history.

randallu 14y ago

Might have some pretty major security flaws... https://github.com/openwebos/core-apps/tree/master/com.palm.app.email#html-sanitizer-function-used-in-the-email-display-message-view-is-limited-to-remove-only-certain-tags-such-as-script-iframe-object-embed-more-generic-solution-is-planned-for-post-beta-release https://github.com/openwebos/core-apps/tree/master/com.palm....

josteink 14y ago

If (usable) builds come for the Galaxy Nexus, I will be forced to try this out :)

j_col 14y ago
Here you go: http://blog.openwebosproject.org/post/32477144913/news-flash http://blog.openwebosproject.org/post/32477144913/news-flash
- veeti 14y ago
  Well, about that "usable" part...
  - j_col 14y ago
    Need to be patient, porting is a laborious task. This is nothing more than an early alpha.

hugh4life 14y ago

These mobile platforms that use web tech(boot to gecko, webOS, etc) really aught to wait till ES.Next becomes implemented before they go 1.0. If they have C++ code extensions, they aught to wait till C++11 is full implemented in their compiler of choice.

MatthewPhillips 14y ago
Why?

uxp100 14y ago

I loved WebOS, but part of the key to the gestures, on my Pixi at least, was the touch sensitive area beneath the screen. I didn't expect that to translate well to the tablet form factor, though I never tried a touchpad running WebOS.

eupharis 14y ago

Hold the phone. It's Linux based, open source, and apps are written in Javascript, not Java? Down with Android. Long live webOS!

emehrkay 14y ago
After the "death" of webos, I watched the developers videos and wondered why the whole web community wasnt building apps. The dev tools seemed to be everything that the common web dev wanted.
- ineedtosleep 14y ago
  I was digging into webOS development back when the Pre came out and was hoping for a pretty upbeat development community _because_ of the use of web languages. Looking back, however, it felt like webOS (as a mobile OS) seemed too early for its time. The push for more web stuff didn't surface until way after Palm/webOS was deemed toxic to the touch. It was a pity, but I hope the open source efforts end up redeeming itself. I'm definitely rooting it on and supporting it.
- dj2stein9 14y ago
  The dev tools seemed to be everything that the common web dev wanted. The dev tools are useless if the platform is a failure. Had HP not prematurely aborted the platform, and a Phonegap port been maintained, then I can hardly see what would have stopped WebOS from being at least modestly successful.
- smacktoward 14y ago
  The problem was timing. Palm didn't make a webOS SDK generally available until something like two months after the first webOS phone (the Pre) was launched. This meant that they couldn't tap into developer interest during the big pre-launch hype cycle, which in the case of the Pre was massive, thanks to a hugely successful introduction of the device at CES earlier that year (see http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338482,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338482,00.asp, http://www.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10139851-100.html http://www.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10139851-100.html for a sample of the reception it got there). Then by the time the SDK was available, the Pre had already proven less successful in the marketplace than Palm had hoped it would be, so developer interest had cooled. Nobody wants to write apps for a phone that's a flop.

nilsbunger 14y ago

Curious, is this helpful to people building web apps or ios/android mobile apps ?

jsz0 14y ago

I wonder if a better approach would be to rebuild WebOS on top of an Android base instead? It seems like they are choosing to fight a war they cannot possibly win. If they want to run on other people's hardware why not build on top of a very well supported platform? Any rooted phone would have 100% driver support. Could be easier than installing a custom ROM. At least they would be able to get a foothold in the market. If my Galaxy Nexus could run the WebOS UI and continue to run legacy Android apps I would switch over right now. I know this isn't really the original goal of this project and maybe there are good technical reasons this would not be possible. It just seems like it would achieve the same thing in a more practical way. Perhaps they could maintain both a standalone WebOS and a WebOS/Android version?

ziadbc 14y ago
Someone can probably build an app player for android apps, but architecture wise, what you just described sounds kind of like a custom UI for android. The rationale for not doing something like this philosophically is that the underlying point of webos is that it shouldn't feel like a 'whole new platform' to a web developer, but rather the platform they are already most familiar with, even more than android, i.e the web.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
Would it be that hard? It looks like people already have webOS running on Android device(s?). I thought that the Android kernel and main linux kernel have merged. Thus, the changes they've made should increase the ability to use it on Android devices.

samholmes 14y ago

WebOS could do something different and allow for apps to be loaded on the fly via a URL. Oh wait, that's what a web browser does..Why isn't WebOS aiming to be a web browser with the ability to cache apps using standardized (or maybe non-standard if needed) technologies? Then, you wouldn't need a marketplace or app store necessarily, because users have access to the apps directly off the web. Not to mention, this will save storage and move towards cloud computing more nicely. Oh, and think about how easy it would be to transfer an application from device to another device. WebOS should focus on being just that, a web OS. This means URLs; DNS is the backbone of the web after all.