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LG Releases Open-Sourced Version of webOS in Hopes To Push It Beyond TVs and Smart Refrigerators (theverge.com)
LG has released an open-sourced version of webOS that's freely available to anyone that wants to download and poke around the code. From a report: The release of webOS Open Source Edition is meant to act as a catalyst to drive further adoption of webOS beyond LG televisions, smart refrigerators, and the occasional never-to-be-released smartwatch. So, devices like webOS tablets and set-top boxes as pictured in the LG-supplied image above. This is the second time an open-source version of webOS has been released, the first coming under the failed tenure of HP back in 2011. LG's cross-town rival Samsung develops and uses the open-sourced Tizen operating system on a variety of devices including smartwatches, televisions, Blu-ray players, and robotic vacuums.
I miss my palmOS phone
Since neither TFS nor even TFA bothered--the license is Apache 2.0.
It's yet another linux distro, not like we don't have enough of those already.
The only upside I see is if it allows me to spin my own firmware for my LG television. But companies and doing that... symbian "not open source, open for business", anyone? And anyway, I don't have an LG television. If they want to donate me one they can drop by, otherwise this release is exactly no use to me.
It did work for Netscape. While the company died, its technology lives on in our Firefox browsers.
However for the most part it is like putting your trash on a freighter and sending it over to a third would country to see if any of those people wants your trash.
Now there was a lot of love towards WebOS and many and was ahead of its time in a lot of features. However the question for today is it worth it, with the competitors over the past decade had improved their products, and what was ahead of its time, is now behind the times.
WebOS is akin to BeOS, Amiga, Apple Lisa, Osborn, Sega Dreamcast... Good ideas, just implemented at a time where was too ambitious and people didn't need such features on particular hardware.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
But FirefoxOS, Meego, Bada, Blackberry, Ubuntu, Tizen, Windows Phone, and now WebOS are all abandoned., having the source code won't help much as most major phones have locked boot loaders to keep Spydroid on it.
Stop giving me a half finished, half documented "open source" operating system that still puts me in your ecosystem.
I just want uboot, fastboot and mainline support.
My current 'HTPC' is a device that I SSH to and run mpv from. I don't want your GUI stack. Just let me write my own stack.
I bought an LG TV about 2 years ago, with the older version of WebOS (2.0), mostly because it was all I could afford. I've been pleasantly surprised that the TV still gets software updates every few months, as do the apps (err ... though the YouTube app is the only one I use).
The TV is still quick and responsive, and plays every video I have on the connected USB drives.
I thought I was going to be disappointed I couldn't afford an Android TV, but am not. So good luck LG.
Call me old-fashioned, but instead of a fridge with a display that I'll never be looking at I actually wouldn't mind a decent fridge with a Modbus RTU (or TCP) interface that lets me read a few coils (door closed? alarm buzzer on?) and registers (current temperature top shelve, bottom shelve, humidity) and maybe write a few registers (target temperature, buzzer activation threshold temperature). This way it could easily be hooked up to an existing home automation system - which then can be configured to present this information and to send a notification when necessary.
The problem back then is still the same today - economics. BeOS and co was great, it just was too expensive at the time especially considering the switch in the ecosystem.
It was cheaper to go to Linux if you wanted to switch ecosystems or stay on WinDOS 95 or 98 if you already have the applications than go with BeOS or OS/2 Merlin on PS/2 which not only did not have the ecosystem, the cost was twice or triple the price of a regular system even though the hardware was well beyond the x86 of the time. SGI had the same problem, sure it can render Toy Story but it also cost $10k when a similar render workstation (Dual Pentium) on x86 was $5k or so.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Why would you want your Vacuum Cleaner on the internet? All it really has to do is suck.
The Palm Pre is still my favourite phone.
Handier, more ergonomic, better than all the enormous phablets manufacturers force on the sheeple nowadays.
Then HP killed it.
This is already "open source" (the alternative spelling for Free Software, for freedom-challenged humans, right?).
Meh.
I'm on 4.9.something. Much better.
A lot of that is "between the ears".
MacOS doesn't have quite the "ecosystem" that windows has, and buying the hardware is more expensive to boot... but even IBM has figured out that the total cost over the economic life of the hardware, MacOS beats windows hands down. And what is it they do, really? Office work. You don't need a gazillion little "apps" to provide one button, or a handful of buttons, to make the thing "go" at every teeny little task. Yet that is what the windows "ecosystem" mostly comes down to.
In fact, I'd wager most office workers --properly trained-- would be more productive with a VT100, as it saves them from uglying-up their output using comic sans or what-have-you. Or fucking off watching youtube all day, or whatever it is they do. So providing them with a system that doesn't bluescreen as much and needs fewer calls to the helldesk to keep going is already a big win. Meaning that the cost of staying in the windows "ecosystem", while not normally very visible, is really quite high.
Which in turn is an indictment of linux-on-the-desktop: Its cost of ecosystem membership comes in the form of a high skill level that most people simply don't have. And don't want to have, for the windows marketeering told them they don't need to. But anyway.
Cost of ecosystem membership is pretty real, but at the same time its perceived cost is headology. redmond still wins, ha ha.
If only someone else had thought of this... like HP for example. Oh wait!
People don't waste time... http://forum.webosose.org/t/webos-raspberry-iso/192/3
I wonder how long it'll take for builds for the touchpad or pre3 to come up...
Is it locked down from the user? If so who cares.
http://www.al-awa2el.com/%D8%A...
This is too late as WebOS is almost a dead ecosystem : no updates, little applications ... #whatelse
WebOS is mainly used on highend LG's TV.
The hardware is fine, but the software is ... emmm... is somehow useless :
- Bad user experienced browser even if you own a keyboard ... why can't it keep my keyboard layout scheme ?!? No way to get plugin working (a browser plugin can be handy to fix some website issues on big screen). Look at youtube on it to get my point here.
- Stupid guide application : open it and try to simply change the chanel from it or go back to the chanel you were coming from ... you will get my comment ;-)
- Miracast not stable : anybody tested this at LG's ?
- Almost no application : I don't understand why they did not bring Android application compatibility to revive the WebOS world
- Bad support of some codec (think TruHD audio or some advanced MKV)
I own one of them, I don't regret the hardware (an OLED UHD), but I do regret the software. And WAF is low too on it.
People expect updates nohttps://news.slashdot.org/story/18/03/20/1437240/lg-releases-open-sourced-version-of-webos-in-hopes-to-push-it-beyond-tvs-and-smart-refrigerators#wadays (and more specifically when there are bugs).... but LG don't do it. I barelly had 2 or 3 updates in 3 years ... and major bugs are not fixed (such as putting always on the subtitle at anytime, and you can not remove it unless you reset the settings to factory level).
Next time, I have to buy a device, I will not buy a WebOS featured one.
...are stupid.
The "smarts" drive up cost, increase complexity, and reduce your flexibility.
Just give me a great screen with HDMI input and leave it at that. I will decide what smart thing will be hooked up to it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Unfortunately, technology success and failures and if it is ahead of its time or not... Can only be judged in pass tense.
BeOS and its price, just may had been a hit and considered a a great new product, if perhaps only a small number of elements were different. Lets say Adobe decided to ditch the dying company of Apple, and move over its flagship products to BeOS, or IBM still sour about OS/2 may had moved many of its properties (Lotus Suite) to BeOS as a way to snub Microsoft. Or DOSBox and/or DOSEmu got some of their polish done ahead of time and ported to BeOS. (as MSDos compatibility was a big thing then)
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Suck it Jin-Yang!
I'm pinching myself here. Didn't HP open source most of WebOS just before they sold the rights/IP to LG? I know LG closed sources some new stuff but I through the core was there open. Then again I'm getting old and miss the days when WebOS had a future :(
..and appliances that are just appliances, please.
..actually do anyone, other than the manufacturer, and whoever is collecting data from them to sell to someone else?
What actual good does a:
o IoT toaster
o IoT blender
o IoT coffeemaker
o IoT oven
o IoT refrigerator
o IoT dishwasher
o IoT clothes washer
o IoT dryer
o IoT {insert common household appliance here}
Rhetorical question, it does not benefit consumers, it's just "gildiing the lilly".
No thanks. I'll stick with plain old 'dumb' appliances, and save my hard-earned money for things that actually matter.
It's all there in the summary, jianhao u cow!
Suck it, Jin Yang.
All this means is that they're making it easier for hackers to find exploits.
Good thing I don't let my LG "smart" TV connect to anything.
Here are some posts from creimer's old accounts. I'll start with his love of child brides.
If all my assets were liquidated, I would still have enough cash to buy a new car and head off to Mexico to find a chica to marry.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
You're aware that are some states in the U.S. that allow underage marriage as young as 14 years old?
https://slashdot.org/comments....
As for my comment, I've heard stories of engineers retiring at 50, moving to Mexico and marrying underage girls. Since I work with ex-military, the Philippines is a popular retirement spot for marrying underage girls as well. It's all about getting the most bang for your retirement dollars.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
That only works if you retire to Mexico, build a mansion (by local standards), marry an underage sweet thing and bequeath all your possessions to the village.
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You need to be more specific. I wrote 3,000+ comments this year.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
Nah... I just do it to piss off my trolls and make coffee money off of them.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
We have different priorities. You want to climb the corporate ladder. I want to own the corporate ladder.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
Your bitch licks your balls. Most people don't brag about practicing bestiality. Is there a reason why you married a dog and not a goat?
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My employers don't care about what my Slashdot trolls think. Now go off and lick your balls somewhere else.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
iPhone 6s and reduce my monthly bill from $80 to $50. As a phone and a video camera, the iPhone 6s isn't obsolete. As a Sprint customer for 20+ years, Sprint will always offer me a new iPhone if I decide to stop using the 6s as a phone in the next several years.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
Miracle workers are never afraid to ask for a second opinion. Supervisor gave me his opinion ? and a mess to clean up. Lesson learned from this incident: if something isn't quite broken, break it.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
So you can turn around call me a liar again? People have been playing that game with me for years.
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Based on what I've read about Uber, he need to tell the boys to clean up their locker room behavior, zip up their pants, and attend sensitivity training until everyone agrees that women are not sexual objects.
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Which doesn't violate the Slashdot TOS. If you got a problem with that, take it up with management.
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This year I've posted ~4,000 comments.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
I don't bother with mod points. I'm doing something much more sinister. It took ten story submissions ? I'll have to double check the
CREIMER' SUBMISSIONS UPDATE: /. so make sure to go to:
Note also that creimer is trying to regain karma by getting his submissions published as articles on
https://slashdot.org/~_sharp'r...
https://slashdot.org/~crreimer
https://slashdot.org/~cdreimer
https://slashdot.org/~criss69
https://slashdot.org/~Anonymou...
https://slashdot.org/~FatCashe...
https://slashdot.org/~ILoveFat...
https://slashdot.org/~IHateFat...
https://slashdot.org/~IAteFatC...
https://slashdot.org/~ITapeFat...
https://slashdot.org/~IApeFatC...
https://slashdot.org/~IPrayFat...
https://slashdot.org/~FatCashe...
and mod down his submissions as well. The great thing is that you don't even need mod points to mod down a submission, just click on the "minus" icon!
Yes, believe it or not, creimer owns all the above sock puppet accounts. It is a mystery why Slashdot management tolerates it!
creimer wrote:
I don't bother with mod points. I'm doing something much more sinister. It took ten story submissions ? I'll have to double check the number ? to move cdreimer's karma from neutral to excellent without ever being exposed to the capricious mods. Mmmmmwwwwahahahahahahaha!
https://slashdot.org/comments....
Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! Creimy is posting more than 2 posts a day. Hurry! mod down otherwise /. will go to hell again!
Note: you can mod down even if already at -1 to lower karma and to prevent lost /. users to accidentally mod up.
creimer wrote:
All you need to do is find a website with a permissive TOS, say, Slashdot, create a Python script to scrape your own comments, sprinkle Amazon affiliate links in various posts, and then re-post past links whenever possible. Won't be long before you start making "coffee money" each month.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
C.D. Reimer is a renowned Slashdot collaborator, as he puts it himself; "Because of the quality of my posts and my article submissions, I'm a highly rated commentator and moderator."
But does anybody ever wondered what "C.D." stands for? Well, it stands for Creimy Dumpty of course!
Creimy Dumpty sat on the wall,
Creimy Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses
And all the king's men
Couldn't put Creimy Dumpty
Together again.
Creimy's siblings video and theme song, very realistic, especially the pants, just like Creimy's:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
With "Vice President Pence Vowing US Astronauts Will Return To the Moon", we are sure they will need miracle workers up there, here is what it would look like. Note that Creimy takes care of bringing a lot of food to the moon as depicted below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Creimy's real pictures:
Before the sex change:
https://ibb.co/cc7Ddw
After the sex change:
https://ibb.co/gVad65
Creimy's "enterprise-level" chair, he talks about it all the time on slashdot:
You misread the title and did a double take you fat fuck?
MOD THIS MEANINGLESS KARMA WHORING COMMENT DOWN!!!
Look at the list of unfair behavior sock puppet accounts given for free in GP! He uses his sock puppets more lately because he says slashdot barred AC posts from his IPs. We are close! Barring his IPs completely should be the next logical step!
https://slashdot.org/comments....
https://slashdot.org/comments....
Christopher Dale Reimer, aka cdreimer, aka creimer, aka cashews, is a well-known toxic bachelor and serial digital pest!
Do not allow this tiresome dullard to copy and paste his own Cryptofeces Reimerium back on here to collect karma points!
We just went through the whole process of getting him contained at -1 like medical waste in a BFI container.
Hey creimer!
creimer confuses his Slashdot signature and homepage link with advertisement animated gifs and he changes them several times a day with the help of his python script.
--
Balena!
Dear Team Creimer,
I just noticed that the Humpty-Dumpty video has ~375 millions views, that should make you salivate!
I have plenty of ideas to make the views on your own youtube channel skyrocket but you didn't contact me yet. Is it because I am a lady? Ethell says that you are sexist but I hope it isn't true.
Anyway, I will give you a free hint anyway: Dress-up as Humpty in your videos, you shouldn't need that much makeup making this a money saving situation in your own case.
My YouTube channel has 222K subscribers and many videos with hundreds of thousands of views:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Now, with some slight adjustments, I think that together, we could make the view count skyrocket on your very own Team Creimer youtube channel :)
Please feel confident to contact me if you want me to coach you, we aren't living so far away from each other so we could even easily meet.
Love XX,
--
-Granny
What the actual fuck is your problem? Are you in love with this Creimer person, whoever the fuck they are? Do you want to have sex with them or something? Have their baby? You're clearly obsessed. Are you stalking them? Do you want to kill them and wear their skin or somesuch shit? Seriously, there are no sane reasons someone goes to so much trouble as you're going to other than being completely obsessed to the point of neurosis. Are you off your meds? Escaped from your facility? Does your Keeper know you're playing on the Internets? Please go take your meds and go to bed and stay away from the Internet.
It did work for Netscape. While the company died, its technology lives on in our Firefox browsers.
I don't see that as a bad thing. Keep in mind all the niche iterations - Palemoon, Iceweasel, Seamonkey, and so on. None have critical mass, but all benefit from Netscape.
However for the most part it is like putting your trash on a freighter and sending it over to a third would country to see if any of those people wants your trash.
If the alternative is burning it or burying it, and we're dealing with industrial or consumer waste as opposed to food waste or other biohazards, then that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'd far rather some industrious third world people disassemble a curling iron to heat their water or whatever, rather than just assume it's all actual-junk and burn it. Getting back to the matter at hand, it's not like WebOS can do much worse with its code out in the open. Maybe no one will want to develop for it, but with iOS not being open source at all, and Android becoming progressively more and more closed, an OSS "third horse" is far from an undesirable thing to have.
Now there was a lot of love towards WebOS and many and was ahead of its time in a lot of features. However the question for today is it worth it, with the competitors over the past decade had improved their products, and what was ahead of its time, is now behind the times.
Well, yes, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, either. See, the past decade has showed us what has worked and what hasn't. Software features which weren't available then, can be readily added now. Those who wish to write those enhancements can do so with the awareness that these are standard features and know their code won't be ignored, and there is a template for the finalized product already. These are all good things.
WebOS is akin to BeOS, Amiga, Apple Lisa, Osborn, Sega Dreamcast... Good ideas, just implemented at a time where was too ambitious and people didn't need such features on particular hardware.
I'd argue that in WebOS's case, the issue was the hardware itself. A plastic phone with chiclet keys that was very prone to breaking in a number of different ways and was a Sprint exclusive...was far from a compelling offer. I always thought Apotheker seemed to have a good idea with using WebOS as a pre-boot environment to unify the company's phone/tablet/laptop offerings, but that never came to pass for some reason. In any case, the fact that it didn't take off 10 years ago is far from a compelling argument that it shouldn't find its way onto Github now.
Cryptofeces Lepidoptera Creimerus infestation is a serious problem. Not only are they capable of reproducing asexually like amoebas, they can also lay eggs hermaphroditically in unexpected places. They can disguise eggs as something useful to fool the unaware, sometimes pretending to be a haiku author, blogger, vlogger, or IT closet cleaner.
Very dangerous. They can seemingly reproduce out of the cosmic background radiation, even if you step on twelve of them, there's always one you miss.
Don't be fooled by the C. Lepidoptera Creimerus's innocuous, rolly-polly [youtube.com], and almost friendly appearance; despite its great size, stupid demeanor, and bedraggled toothless appearance, they have the hardiness of a tardigrade.
Only a concerted, targeted downmodding campaign has been shown effective in controlling this dangerous pest.
Experience shows that stopping such a campaign leads to C. Lepidoptera Creimerus returning within days.
Don't let it happen again!
There you are spamming amazon and youtube affiliate links with yet another fake account, you revenue stream hogging disgusting fat sexist tube of lard, Christopher Dale Reimer!
You can be sure I will be watching this fake account too. I know this is you because you told me you were working on your freepass 11 file server and you are so dumb that you can't even masquerade yourself properly.
Now, I told you I was out of meds last week and you didn't even care to contact me you lazy fucker.
How many times do I have to express the emergency of the situation??????
The python click script you wrote for my pheromone revenue stream web site suddenly stopped to work!!!!!!
You fucking incompetent python script writer!!!
When it works, I get 4000+ clicks a day on my pheromone revenue stream web site but only 5 or 6 without it!!!!
Now, it seems like you dont care and that you have abandoned me you heartless fucking pig!
Bonus:
Here is a story that creimer told me when convincing me what a hard life he had:
The tree was him and the tree knot was his butt hole!
So, his uncle packed his fat ass with lard and with his cock! Not that it makes much of a difference but anyway, there it is!
Signed:
Ethell, The girl that used to love you and now hates you, burn in hell where you belong you sexist pig!
Yes, I miss my old palm pre and the nokia n9 that replaced it; both were better than android or ios phone I've used since.
Chris, I miss your profuse postings on your blog. I especially like the way you're able to spin anything to be about you. So entertaining!
You're confusing "smart appliance" with "manufacturer's internet/cloud-connected appliance."
The problem isn't that the device is smart. Smart in this context just means it knows what it's doing, or what is going on around it, or what it's supposed to do.
The problem is that the devices as typically implemented today are taking your data outside your LAN to the manufacturer and any other entity the manufacturer shares it with, while at the same time exposing a considerably wider attack surface to the black hats.
Every device you listed there could benefit you via local integration with home control software.
Every device you listed there has zero good reason to go outside your LAN - you could be contacting a safe server on your LAN from the WAN to see what they're up to, should you want/need to do that, rather than channeling everything through the manufacturer's servers (which also brings a near-certainty of lost support at some random time based on their finances and product cycles.) Or you could keep all interaction with them within the LAN, which is the minimum attack surface choice, and, I would suggest, the sane choice.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
you won't be able to use it in current days. stop your nostalgia talking
wtf is jianhao u a**h*le? please explain. not everyone in this world can speak chinese
The build procedure is tailored to Ubuntu14.04 LTS 64-bit.
I'll be looking forward to a virtual machine image or a LiveDVD version.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
I'd like to try it out, but I'd rather take it for a test drive before I devote 100gb of my hard drive to it. Please make a continuous integration job to build and post nightly snapshots of a disk image that can be dumped onto an SD card for pi3s
He hurt my covfefe!
WebOS is akin to BeOS
The last fast system in a world of incredibly slow turds? Where can I buy one? But actually I'm going to argue against your premise:
However the question for today is it worth it, with the competitors over the past decade had improved their products, and what was ahead of its time, is now behind the times.
Improved in what way? Samsung is now advertising TVs with quad core processors in order to get their smart interface to run smoothly. That doesn't sound improved, it sounds like it is so incredibly bloated and poorly written than the most basic of functionality needs some serious hardware thrown at it. If WebOS can be more like BeOS it could potentially dominate in this market of frustrated users who are sick of their slow arse TVs unable to even animate a spinny loading wheel smoothly.
The problem with these OS'es is that they don't have any apps. If I run Android on my television I can run gazzilion apps and games for every possible scenario imaginable and I can expect that they will be supported for some time.There is a problem with support for all these third party systems. I can expect that for example Netflix will be supported for a very long time on Android given the user base. But the chances that Netflix will be supported in webOS for the version on your TV in the next 10 years is slim to none. For example I bought a Philips TV with SmartTV OS like 8 years ago and none of the apps work any longer and can't be updated since they connect to some web functions which have been discontinued.
Unless you were saying it in 1990, not your joke.
And that an evolution from the IBM Joke.
...and you forgot to mention something about your lawn..
And Dianne needing to get away from it.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
They're just jealous that the fat bastard is leaving Slashdot for a larger audience on YouTube.
Just pack your bags and your twelve sock pockets and fuck off already, Chris.
I'm sure you're right.
Though, quad core is what you find on low end, even things like $19 Android set top boxes maybe. Now, low end consumer products (that have or connect to a computer display) likely have a quad Cortex-A53 CPU built into the SoC, running at something like 1.0 GHz or more. You'd be better off with a faster (2+GHz), fatter dual core (more execution resources, OOOe) but that's more expensive!
Funnily, BeOS is known for being friendly to multiple processors (so I suppose everything reentrant, everything threadsafe, etc.), although like 99% people I never used it. So it should run fine on the world's lowest end quad core.
Sadly, even if you say, fuck it just make something fast like it's 1990 you won't get a TV running on a Z80 or a 68000 anymore. The TV uses some crazy resolution like 3840x2160 at 60Hz, decodes H264 and even more complex formats, and instead of a floppy drive or even SCSI disk they have to deal with.. USB (something we didn't even care about yet in BeOS days)
Thus you end up with a GPU and more crap. You can have a slow single core CPU along : that was the Raspberry Pi 1, in 2012. But that'd be a bit pointless now.
Because the display res is so high, I suppose you need some decent RAM bandwith. So, some width of LPPDR3 or LPDDR4. The bandwith requirement puts a restriction on how low the memory capacity might be!
So, if you want the TV to have 128MB so as to force the devs to write real code, that might not be possible as you won't find 128MB of RAM of that speed unless doing something custom. Perhaps you're stuck with as much as 1GB, by which point you could end up with a Windows 10 TV. As offensive or ridiculous that may sound, Windows 10 can be a trimmed down embedded or mobile version (and maybe running whatever GUI) and I bet it would not fail at doing smooth graphics (and getting updates). This horrible TV you used could probably use a full fat OS and run fine, if the people doing the full fat OS and GUI are competent (it may just be money, MS spent zillions doing vista/7/8/10, Apple must have spent quite some resources on iOS too). Or because we can only choose which kind of bloat to live with, going full retard and having a web browser do everything is an option (Panasonic TV? that's a bit uncommon and high end brand)