2009 was the gambit year for Palm. Failing with Palm OS, a legacy mobile OS that had become absolutely ancient, the company needed fresh blood. So early 2009 introduced us to the Palm Pre and webOS: a brand-spanking new mobile phone and a completely new mobile OS. They were absolutely fantastic. The Pre was stylish and powerful, sporting features like inductive charging way before the competition even thought of it. webOS was (and is) a multitasking monster with Synergy, an extremely expansive cloud syncing system. It seemed like Palm had risen like a phoenix, out of the ashes of Palm OS to become a company that could even take on Apple out of the gate. At least, that was the thought back when the phone and OS were announced. Palm sat on their asses until June for launch, around the time the equally powerful iPhone 3GS debuted. By that time the fervor had cooled off, plus the phone launched on Sprint and had the worst advertising this side of Sony’s 2006 PS3 ads.
Palm died in 2010. I earnestly believed they could make a comeback but that never came to pass. Instead, HP bought Palm and vowed to keep WebOS alive in their new mobile devices division. I was glad to see webOS get another chance. It was a mobile OS that I felt deserved to exist. So with HP at the helm, I figured things would be on the up for webOS. But for all of 2010: nothing, at least for us US customers. In Europe, consumers had access to the Pre 2 with a faster 1Ghz processor and webOS 2, which brought better multitasking, stronger universal search and Flash support. Still, we never got it and HP never made a big deal of it. Until now. Today HP unveiled 3 new devices that will change the way we think of webOS forever. Today, webOS gets a new lease of life and I’m extremely excited. webOS is now a viable player in the mobile space, and if HP woos developers to the platform, webOS could be an enduring monolith able to challenge iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7 in short time. Continue Reading
Digital Gravitas 