Former webOS, Pebble Design Lead, Who Just Left Andy Rubin's Essential, Heads To Google (variety.com)

Janko Roettgers, writing for Variety: Google has hired a former lead Pebble and webOS designer Liron Damir as the new head of user experience of its Google Home group, which works on products such as Google Home, Chromecast and Google Wifi. Damir announced that he joined Google on LinkedIn this week, writing that he was "super excited and proud to be joining Google... to lead the design of Google Home products." A Google spokesperson confirmed the hire Thursday, but declined to comment further. Most recently, Damir worked as head of UX for Essential, the new startup from Android founder Andy Rubin. Before that, he was VP of design at Pebble, the pioneering smart watch maker that got acquired by Fitbit in late 2016. Before joining Pebble, Damir led the webOS design efforts at HP, and then at LG. webOS was initially developed as a mobile operating system to take on Android and iOS, but HP scrapped these efforts when it realized that it couldn't compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung. The company sold webOS to LG in early 2013, which ended up using the operating system for its smart TVs.

Comments

webOS is a really good interface

[asliarun]

I have to say that webOS is an absolute delight to use. Simple, snappy, very easy to use on a TV along with a remote. The optional cursor with the remote working as an "air mouse" is a fairly unconventional notion but actually works quite well too. In fact, i would say that the webOS interfaces found on LG TVs is one of the best user interfaces I have used in a long time. And a very fresh approach to user design. If Liron was the one who conceptualized and designed and implemented this user interface, then more power to him!