Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

HP's Core WebOS Enyo Team Going To Google

Posted by Soulskill on from the i'm-sure-a-beta-is-launching-soon dept.

benfrog writes "The core of HP's Enyo team (responsible for webOS's HTML5-based app framework) is heading to Google. What they will be doing at Google is unclear right now, but everyone is speculating that they might be active in developing something webOS-based for Android."

11 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Hopefully with UI improvements to come by xrayspx · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'd love to see the UX design team go start working on Android. WebOS is still hands-down the best mobile OS I've used day-to-day. The functional UI + ease of rooting were huge advantages for WebOS. Too bad it got saddled by Palm's historically bad record of actually like, selling phones, to people... Android feels so hacky, and IOS, while pleasant enough, is too much of a limiting walled garden for me. I like being able to use VNC over an SSH tunnel, for instance, or get a terminal on my phone.

    --
    I like music
    1. Re:Hopefully with UI improvements to come by Windows+Breaker+G4 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      As someone who got a touchpad figuring it would be kinda gimicky on the firesale, 1000 times this. Work gave me an iPad2, what did I continue to use instead of the iPad every time? The touchpad. And it wasn't because of the apps on it, it's the UI. WebOS is fantastic, I hope the cards model is something Google picks up on

      --
      brickspeed.net for your old Volvo performance addiction
    2. Re:Hopefully with UI improvements to come by EXrider · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, $10 is totally reasonable and worth it for me, since it's a tool I use almost daily as a sysadmin. The developer actually provides support too. I've personally exchanged email with him when I was trying to get a proprietary VT100-based warehouse inventory app working on it and he helped me sort it out in a later update. It is one of the few apps I've actually paid for though. I don't mind paying for an app if it's reasonably priced, of good quality and well supported. Something that was NOT the case when I had a BlackBerry, where apps were rarely priced below $30 and totally blew anyways.

      If you want SSH for free, you could try that SSH Mobile app I guess. Or, if you don't like the walled garden you can jailbreak and hope you don't come across any rouge free apps. But for me, the handful of admin apps I've purchased have totally paid for themselves by not having to drive back home or into the office to solve issues that required some minor intervention.

      --
      grep -iw skynet /etc/services
    3. Re:Hopefully with UI improvements to come by amRadioHed · · Score: 4, Informative

      Uh... Matias Duarte, the guy behind the Web OS UI, already switched over to Android about 2 years ago. Gingerbread was the first release his changes started to make it into, and the major UI overhaul in Honeycomb and ICS were largely influence by him.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    4. Re:Hopefully with UI improvements to come by d3ac0n · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yep. Mathias Duarte is the single reason I went Android over iOS when coming from webOS. He is slowly but surely "webOS-ifying" Android. Taking the very best UI elements from webOS and merging them slowly into Anrdroid. Expect to see the software button lessen and lessen and more Gesture based UI elements to come in. Eventually even the card metaphor may make a comeback. Full and Proper multitasking FTW!

      --
      Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
  2. Further Erosion fo HP by gpronger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think the bigger picture here is the further erosion of HP. From one of the stellar tech companies only a few years back, to right now in an impressive tail-spin. If you have talent, and you want the opportunity to see it to fruition, are you going to choose HP or Google?

  3. Plea to Google by jejones · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For heaven's sake, PLEASE adopt the WebOS UI. It is easy to use and intuitive. Let the Android UI die the death it overwhelmingly deserves.

    I recently went to the local Sprint store to ask whether the batteries on my wife's and my HTC Evo 4G need replacement. In passing asked the tech what things I could do to extend battery life, in particular how I could avoid leaving apps running. Here's what I was told: "If you leave an app by hitting the 'home' button, it will keep running. If you leave it with the back arrow button, it will shut down." I've been training myself to do that, and what a proctalgia it is, especially with the web browser and apps that invoke it! (Do I really have to back all the way out of the sequence of pages I've viewed, potentially reloading graphics or Flash animations?) With WebOS, it's easy--if an app has a window, it has a process. Flick the window up and off the screen, and you're telling it to shut down.

  4. Android inside webOS by WillyWanker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There's been talk of adding an Android emulation layer to webOS that would allow devices like the Touchpad to run Android apps. My guess is this meeting might have something to do with this. Hopefully. WebOS is an amazing platform but the lack of apps has all but killed it. Being able to run Android apps side-by-side with webOS apps would literally breath life back into the OS and allow it to move forward as a serious mobile contender.

  5. Re:dear god, the ADS, the ADS! by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Blocking Ads is a result of too many sites trying too hard to "monetize" a site. It is what I call the "rule of assholes". The Rule of Assholes goes like this: Any thing that is legitimate and good can be ruined by assholes. In fact, that is my definition of what an Asshole is; they ruin it (for normal values of "it") for everyone else.

    Ads done right, are unobtrusive and might even ad value to a site. However Assholes come along and splatter and plaster the most annoying adverts all over negligible sites. Worse is the fact that often times they don't even vet the advertisers so that they become a vector of malware payloads, and ruin it for everyone else. The result is that you HAVE to run your browser with AdBlock enabled just to have a reasonable surfing experience.

    You want to run ads on your site? Sell banner/ad space yourself, serve it yourself and most adblock software won't bother blocking your adverts. It costs more in time and energy, but that is the cost of all the assholes in the world ruining things for everyone else.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  6. The curse of WebOS by Junta · · Score: 3, Insightful

    WebOS has a beautiful UI strategy, for alerts and multitasking. It however had crappy apps....

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  7. Re:dear god, the ADS, the ADS! by Artifex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    often times they don't even vet the advertisers so that they become a vector of malware payloads, and ruin it for everyone else.

    This and the fact that third party ad server response can significantly delay page loading is why I pretty much only whitelist sites that handle ads in house. Once a site sells space to a network that partners with other networks (which most do), it becomes anyone's guess what will come out.

    --
    Get off my launchpad!