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The time has come; HP has finally shut off the App Catalog payment service. This means that as of November 1, you can no longer purchase new paid apps from the App Catalog. However, you can still download apps that you have previously purchased and can acquire new free apps until January 15th. After that point, the App Catalog will be gone for good (at least the official one will…) and you’ll have no way to restore your apps. So, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve backed them up. This guide will walk you through the primary app backup method: saving IPKs when you download and update apps. There are several ways to backup in webOS. Since this is just one of them, expect subsequent howto articles on other methods. What is an IPK? Named for their file extension (.ipk), an IPK is a package that contains all of the bits that make up an app, as well as all of the information necessary to successfully install the app on a webOS device. Its name includes the company’s name, the app name, the version of the app and the device architecture (ie. the IPK file for the latest version of the phone Facebook app is named com.palm.app.facebook_1.5.62_all.ipk). “com.palm.app” represents the company (Palm/HP), facebook represents the app name, 1.5.62 is the version of the app, and all of it means that this is a package that will run on all architectures that webOS will support. When you download an app (either paid or free) from the App Catalog, your device will download the IPK from HP’s servers, install the app, and then remove the IPK so that it doesn’t take up extra space. Why this method of backup? This method is the preferred method because it allows you to take a backup of the “cleanest” version of the app – the package issued directly from the manufacturer. Other methods will attempt to rebuild the IPKs using data from an already installed app, so you run the risk of it not working quite right, especially if the app does something quirky as part of its setup process. So, they should only be relied upon if the IPK is not available from the App Catalog, or if you will lose critical data and do not have another device that you can download the IPK to. Let’s Get Started This guide assumes that you have followed the instructions in the welcome back guide, and that your device is ready for patching. Please note that we will be using webOS Quick Install for this process as Preware does not support installing patches that don’t come from an official feed. Here’s what you have to do: Download and install the nodeleteipk patch. Check App Availability. Delete Apps. Re-download Apps. Save downloaded IPKs. Step 1: Get the nodeleteipk patch Typically, after installing an app, the App Catalog will delete the IPK that it came from. However, early last year, forum user GMMan learned that there was a configuration file option that would tell your device not to delete the IPK, allowing you to keep it for backup. He put together some detailed instructions, and also built a patch to make things nice and easy. To install this patch: Download the patch from the first post of this webOS Nation Forum thread and save it to a place that you can access. Plug your device into your computer and when asked if you want “USB Mode” or “Just Charge”, pick “Just Charge”. Launch webOS Quick Install. Make sure that your device shows up in the upper right hand corner. If this is your first time running the tool you may be asked to install novacom drivers. These are what the tool uses to communicate with your phone. In that case, just follow the prompts. Click on the green plus icon on the right hand side of the window, navigate to the file that you downloaded, and hit select. Click the “Install” button and wait for the tool to install the package. When it is done, the list of files to install will be empty, and you’ll be good to go. Step 2: Check App Availability In the meantime since you originally purchased the app, it may have been pulled from the App Catalog. Open the App Catalog app on your device and run a search for each app that you plan to back up. If the search comes up empty, the app has been pulled for some reason and is no longer available. DO NOT DELETE IT FROM YOUR DEVICE. There are other methods of backing up these apps, which will be covered in a later guide. If you do find it, you are good to proceed. Step 3: Delete Apps NOTE: Deleting an app will remove all of it’s data from your device. This means that you will lose data such as game progress, logins, settings and other data when you remove it. Make sure that the application’s data is backed up before you delete it. If you do not have a way to back up the application data, there are other methods of backing up these apps, which will be covered in a later guide. As a start check out Save/Restore. For each app that you plan to re-download, delete it. This can be done by: Opening the “Software Manager” application Scrolling to the application that you wish to delete Swiping right to delete Confirming that you would actually like to delete the app from the dialog. On a phone you can also hold down the Opt key and touch the app you want to delete. A confirmation pop-up will appear. TouchPad users can also delete applications by holding their finger down on the application icon until a little “x” appears. They can then tap the “x” and confirm that they want to delete the app. Step 4: Re-download apps Open up the App Catalog app, search for any apps that you would like to re-download, and tap the download button beside them (on TouchPad) or open up the app’s details page and tap download (other devices). This will trigger the app to start downloading and installing, while saving the IPK. Step 5: Save Downloaded IPKs At this point, you should have a collection of IPKs stored on your device representing all of the apps that you wanted to save. Plug your device into your computer, and when asked if you want “USB Mode” or “Just Charge”, pick “USB Mode”. The USB Mode icon will appear on your device’s screen, and a new drive with your device’s model name will appear where your USB drives normally do. (Desktop for Mac users, My Computer for Windows users). Open up this drive and navigate to the “downloads” directory. This is where everything that your device downloads, including IPKs, gets stored. Copy any file that ends in IPK to your computer as a backup, and I also recommend copying them to an additional place, such as a CD/DVD, flash drive, or cloud storage drive, as a further backup. At this point, you’re done. You’ve successfully backed up your apps, and can delete the IPKs from your device to clear up some storage space. Just make sure that they’re kept in a safe place in case you ever need them. What’s Next? Preware and webOS Quick Install allow you to take IPKs that you backed up from the App Catalog or downloaded from other sources (such as homebrew) and install them on your device, meaning that you will be able to reinstall your apps after the App Catalog shuts down. In the meantime, you have two and a half months to get anything that is both free and interesting from the App Catalog. Download and back up whatever you can. While some apps will continue to be available through the webOS Nation App Gallery, for most of these apps, when January 15th rolls around, they will be gone for good. Save them while you can. Join the Conversation! View the full article from pivotCE

I finally put a touchstone in my car. For those counting at home (minus my almost two year departure from webOS to Android), it took me 3 years to work up the chutzpah to try the install. But I did it. What took me so long? I’m glad you asked. Why now? You’ve seen it done a lot I’m sure. And so have I. But something always bothered me about the installs I’d seen. There were too many wires, the Touchstone was glued or stuck onto the dash using adhesive, and I always thought using the cigarette lighter (12V socket), or worse, a 3-prong power inverter was ugly (and kinda lazy). What kept me from installing one in my car was that I told myself if I was ever going to do it, it had to follow 3 rules: 1. No wires! It had to be clean. 2. It had to be modular. I might want to sell the car but keep the Touchstone set-up. 3. It must be powered from the car’s battery or fuse box. The problem was, I didn’t know where to begin. The research I knew adding power to the car was possible from stuff I’d read online. But everyone made it look so simple and I’m a car-wiring n00b. So I did what every online-savvy I-want-to-learn-something-new person does, YouTube. This video will teach you the fundamentals of installing an Add-A-Fuse or Expandable Circuit as it’s called in the video. The other important thing to know in all of this is how to splice cables. With my time as a musician and tech hobbyist, splicing cables is pretty standard stuff. I did have to read up on splicing the USB cable that I wanted to use to ensure I could hide the cable. Google was my friend. What I used to do it The parts I ordered: Bussmann BP/HHH ATM Add-A-Fuse Hardwire Barewire Power Micro USB Cable StarTech.com 0.5m 1m M/M Micro USB Cable Cord 5 Pack 5 Amp Automotive Mini Blade Fuse (I actually got these from AutoZone, link for example only) SCOSCHE IUH3R Mobile Grip-IT Swivel Mount Kit (the item here now looks a little different than it did when I bought it) The tools I used: Solder/Soldering Iron Wire cutter/stripper Ratchet set Heat shrink Trouble spots I ordered the Add-A-Fuse twice. I also ordered the Hardwire Barewire twice. Why? Because I never truly had it all grounded properly to begin with and I thought my parts were broken. I ordered new parts. And unsurprisingly, those didn’t work either. Until I tried a different spot for the ground that followed the instructions for bare metal in the video. Tada! Power. I originally used electrical tape, the crimp joint that comes on the Add-A-Fuse, and left the ground wire bare. These are all areas that are recipes for disaster in a vibrating car. To overcome those areas, I opted to solder each splice and add heat shrink over it. I even coated the bare ground wire in solder to get a better connection behind the bare metal bolt. Getting the USB cable through the holder was a pain. I tried carving with a knife, using a small dremel cutting wheel, and then finally opted to melt my way in there with the soldering iron. Don’t judge me. It worked. Super quick summary on how I got power Cut USB ends off Barewire and USB angled cable, soldered and heat shrinked together Stripped loose wire end of Barewire back, snipped off crimp connector and stripped Add-A-Fuse wire back, soldered and heat shrinked positive leads (red wires) together Added solder to ground wire from Barewire and secured it to the bare metal bolt Found a switchable fuse port in the fuse box of my car and bare metal bolt for ground Popped out the fuse, installed that fuse into the Add-A-Fuse, installed a 5 amp fuse into the second port of the Add-A-Fuse and plugged it into the port in my fuse box Plugged the USB cable into my touchstone and started my car. IT’S ALIVE! Photo Gallery Each photo has my notes as well. Enjoy. Talk about it! #webosforever View the full article from pivotCE

So much has been happening lately, it’s hard to tell what’s a crumb, crisis or great news! Here is a selection: 72ka updates his Google maps app to 0.3.4. Check the webOS Nation App Gallery. A Preware feed update is hopefully due soon. In his day job as a colour grader, Project Macaw developer, David Cole has won a Hollywood Post Alliance award for his work on television pilot, “Reign“. Here is a picture of him on stage. Congratulations David! In other movie news, last week saw the 100th anniversary of the birth of film star Hedy Lamarr. Here’s why she is relevant to this site. Another legend! Jason Robitaille, author of Homebrew gateway program, webOS Quick Install, will be updating it and including the novacom drivers. Jason plans LuneOS support as he awaits delivery of a Nexus 4. Congratulations are also due to Jason for his recent graduation. There are problems with Photos posted to Facebook from the webOS app. The problem seems to be at the Facebook end and there’s no solution yet. Here’s the thread to watch. Forum user, Mazzinia has been scouring the corners of the internet for webOS projects. Here’s some interesting and potentially useful stuff: Business software, Music, Go agent proxy service, Python for webOS, Jumpcore C++ game framework, Bluespice media wiki. With this many crumbs, it’s clear that webOS is very far from being brown bread. View the full article from pivotCE

It’s the latest Chicago webOS meetup and it’s happening on Sunday, 23rd November, 7pm at Moretti’s Ristorante and Pizzeria, Schamburg. There’s the latest ‘Black Eye‘ release of LuneOS to discuss and all the implications off the HP shutdown. Will there even be time for eating? Find the details and Sign up here or comment on the webOS Nation thread. Hey, coupons! The team at pivotCE remind you that if you are planning a meet up, let us know! We are interested in promoting your events (it might even increase attendance!). We are also interested in reports and pictures from webOS events. All this free publicity for Moretti’s, but no sign of a donation… A Meetup from one of the 313 HP webOS communities worldwide. Sunday, Nov 23, 2014, 7:00 PM No location yet. 2 Attending Check out this Meetup → View the full article from pivotCE

Knocking back Antoccinos is best with a few pastries so there are some crumbs to sweep out: Another nod to the simplicity of LG’s TV interface with a recognition from the Red Dot Design Award at IFA. RSS Reader app, Feedspider seeks translation help. Can you translate 112 strings of text into Bengali, Breton, Italian, Portuguese or Tamil? It seems forum user, 1whocs has got the Android on Veer project working. Instructions are here. Grabber5.0 has identified another minor issue with gmail. Check your settings. Hedami has released an update for location-based reminder app, Geostrings. Retro-styled puzzle adventure game, Aquaventure has an update. Both the apps above were released on the forums as app catalogue approval appears to have become extremely slow… Finally, October 20th sees an HTML5 developer conference featuring an appearance from Enyo’s Roy Sutton discussing JavaScript on TV. That’s it until the next toaster notification! View the full article from pivotCE

Main image: From left: Sara, Chad, Keith and Marc. (Not pictured – George) Here is a report from George Mari: “Just for some background, we have been having our Chicago WebOS Meetup at the same local restaurant, Moretti’s in Schaumburg, IL, every 6 to 8 weeks, since August of 2011. Well, OK, some of the Meetups have been at other restaurants, but the vast majority have been here. I don’t remember what our record attendance was in the past, but I’ve been at several meetups where we’ve had at least 12 people. More recently the numbers have been down to about 4 or 6. We usually order some food and drinks, and just talk about what’s been going on in the world of webOS, which sometimes in the past, was way too much to fit into one night of discussion! We’ve had employees from Palm/HP attend in the past, and so we’ve had quite a few device and accessory giveaways over the year. Pretty much everyone who has ever attended has gotten one thing or another over the years. This past meetup, these were some of the things we talked about: 1. Marc showed off a recent nightly build of LuneOS to everyone at the meetup. Everyone got a chance to see the progress being made on this open source hope for the future of webOS and we liked what we saw so far. 2. Sara talked about how she is still looking for a calculator that works the same as on her old Treo – the conversions to different units can be done by just tapping the button. For example, if you enter 12 on the calculator display, and tapped the button for feet, the display would immediately show 1. The webOS calculators and converters all seem to make this a 2-or-more step process. 3. Sara asked if there was a way to run the “Classic” ROM on her Pre3. Marc replied that the Pre3 was the only device that people were unable to get Classic to run on. 4. Keith asked if anyone had played with one of the new webOS TVs. I mentioned that I had done so at a local electronics store, and I liked what I saw – very easy to use. However, it bore little to no resemblance to the webOS we have all come to know love on phones and tablets. Image: George MariA tradition of ours – we try to take a picture of all of the webOS devices everyone brought to the Meetup, and this time was no exception. A few other minor discussions that started with, “How do I…” and “Does anyone know…” were had, as well. Everyone pitched in and tried to answer as best as we could. Well, that’s about it. If you’re ever traveling to the Chicago area, check out @chiwebosmeetup on Twitter to find out the date for our next meetup – we’d love to have new people!” Note for your diary: The next Chicago Meet up is proposed for the 16th of November. View the full article from pivotCE

Without further delay, you can find the newest LuneOS stable builds here. This release is code-named Antoccino and is the second stable release following our initial release named Affogato. Yes, there are other devices in the build folder which are available, however, the Nexus 4 and HP TouchPad are still the only two devices officially supported at this time. Test the other builds AT YOUR OWN RISK. Please note that the installation instructions for the TouchPad have changed. You must recreate the partition LuneOS requires for installation. We recommend using the webOS app, Tailor, because it is the easiest method. This is in preparation for a forthcoming semi-automated installation procedure. We’ll discuss those details when the product is ready for testing but for now just follow the guide. We’ve made quite a few changes and will release the full changelog soon you can read the major ones here. As a reminder, there are three things we need and want from you as a tester: 1. Sign up for the bug tracker 2. Get involved and 3. Join the mailing list Don’t forget to contact us with any questions and feel free to join the discussion on the webOS Nation forums. Also, continue spreading the word! Image: http://www.wallpaperpics.net View the full article from pivotCE

Have you been wondering what LG will do with webOS next? According to The Verge, a since pulled website has arisen (here are the cached pages from Google 1 and 2) detailing info about LG’s all new platform supposedly called “webOS Wear“. It is thought that this is going to rival Samsung’s Tizen, maybe even in retaliation to Apple’s new smart watch. Hopefully our loyal fan-base will make it popular! According to pictures pulled from the site (see below), the SDK for the said smart watches, will supposedly be released with the announcement of LG’s plans to move webOS to the Smart watch platform. To see the other banners pulled from the site click here. Join the conversation. View the full article from pivotCE

Now I should demote this announcement to the news crumbs section, but I’m going to give the organisers one more chance to send us some pictures, videos, write-ups…whatever! It’s the latest webOS meetup and it’s happening this Sunday (28th September), 7pm at Moretti’s Ristorante and Pizzeria, Schamburg. You can at least expect a demo of LuneOS! Maybe someone will load a webOS TV into the back of their car and bring it? As ever, you can bring along your phone & tablet collection and talk about all three types of webOS that now exist while eating pizza. Could there be a better night out? Find the details and Sign up here or comment on the webOS Nation thread. The team at pivotCE remind you that if you are planning a meet up, let us know! We are interested in promoting your events (it might even increase attendance!). We are also interested in reports and pictures from webOS events. View the full article from pivotCE

The webOS community may be a bit smaller these days but it’s no less devoted to the platform. And it’s that community that is rallying behind us here at webOS Ports. Thanks to your direct support, our team has grown from just 5 members at release to over 12 with more on the way. As you can imagine, leading up to the initial release the team was a bit overwhelmed with the details of creating an entire operating system. Now that we have a few more folks directly developing for LuneOS, things are starting to come together. But we still need your help. As nice as it is to have the additional folks contributing, developing, and working issues, we still need more developers to get involved to make this community project really take off. “Our focus is core functionality” We cannot stress enough that we are building an OS focused on core app integration that is simple, beautiful, and user-centric. Right now, function comes first. If we had a penny for every developer that knew some web code and could make a beautiful static mock-up of an app that didn’t do a thing in the backend and then said “I did my part, it’s up to you to make it work”…well, we’d have a lot of pennies. Developer requirements Once core app integration happens we will need HTML/CSS smart people BUT to be an asset to the team as a developer NOW these technologies are what we need folks to have a good grasp on any or all of these: Javascript C node.js C++ QML Qt Are you decent at some of these but might need help from time to time? That’s ok! We’re a community, remember? Hit up the IRC channel and ask! Get the bugs out! We have several applications already available but many are placeholders. Some of the apps are almost fully functional like Settings. But even Settings has bugs. Ok there are bugs everywhere! (If only it were as easy as a can of Raid to fix them)! We’ve received lots of questions about how to get plugged into the project quickly. Easy! Head over to our bug tracker to see current issues. Find an area where you think you can help and then find us on IRC (see below) to talk about it. Some examples of areas that need bug fixing are: Email: bug fixes, better integration with Contacts, Calendar, etc Settings: Add Settings when needed Phone: features/calls Calendar: needs integration Contacts: edit, add, and search functions need added/work Browser: Authentication issues File Manager: various issues that need attention And more. Core Apps/Features/Backend magic The Open webOS project released several core applications that were Enyo1 based. Some of those apps are in LuneOS and need updated to Enyo2. For instance, Contacts and Calendar have already been updated to Enyo2 but need quite a bit of work to be fully functional and integrated into the OS. Messaging stills needs Synergy connection and quite a bit of work. The Phone app is there but doesn’t have telephony functionality yet. PDF needs converted to QML since doing it in webkit really hurts its performance. LuneOS also needs a media player. The C+Dav connector is there but needs some UI beautification in the Credentials Check area (especially Google OAuth). It also needs testing for other providers. Preware is missing feed management, needs its settings overhauled, and the UI isn’t great on phones yet. And more. Looks aren’t everything As you can see, to really make stuff work first, most of what we need is in the backend. It’s the old battle between form and function. Which comes first? Designers will argue form! But Ports is focused on the core functionality that has to work first and look pretty later. It’s a hard pill to swallow and we get that, but when building an OS, it’s the most important thing. If it looks pretty but doesn’t work, the project loses potential users from bad press. If it works but doesn’t look pretty it will at least show promise and that encourages positive feedback. And with a community led project, if you don’t have good feedback you’ve already lost. Additional help wanted Ports is looking to expand our public relations presence. If you are located outside of the United States or more specifically speak a different language than English and would like to help us advertise and direct interested people toward LuneOS and webOS Ports, please let us know. We are also looking for a WordPress “expert” for a new site we’ll be setting up soon. Are you good at making tutorials? We have several “how to install LuneOS guides” on the wiki. If you’d like to make more colorful and user friendly guides, that’d be great! I’m sure we could get them posted right here on pivotCE. We know people. And finally, we need a “wiki-meister”. Someone that really knows the ins and outs of running a mediawiki! Get involved Everyone can help in some way. We need testers and bug reports! Sign up on the webOS-Ports Bug Tracker, contact us to let us know that you signed up and what your username is, and we’ll upgrade your account so you can post issues. Developers please join us on the Mailing List and drop by the IRC chnanel How to Contact webOS Ports Want to get involved? Have a question? Get in touch with us. [email protected] Twitter: @webosports IRC #webos-ports Bug Tracker: webOS-Ports Bug Tracker webOSnation Forums User Support Forums LuneOS Developer Mailing List Developer ONLY Mailing List, no User Support. Join the forum conversation. Image credit: http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com View the full article from pivotCE

It’s been quite a while since we’ve highlighted a developer on pivotCE! So here’s a long over due highlight on a webOS developer practically every webOS user should know for his homebrew solution to Google Maps: 72ka. What’s your handle? My name is Jan Heřman, webOS people know me as 72ka. The “72” comes from my old beloved Palm Zire72 and “ka” is the Czech suffix for number personifying. Where do you hail from? I live in Prague, Czech Republic. What was your first Palm device? My first device was the 3Com Palm IIIe, which helped me to finish the university, mainly using the famous EasyCalc, which was my right hand all the time! Then I owned a Zire71, Zire72, then I won a Tungsten T and Palm Vx in the competition for the best article on [a] website about Palm devices. I still have the Zire72 and Palm Vx. After PalmOS died, I migrated to the Nokia internet tablets N770 and then N810 and made the czech localization for Maemo OS2008. After Maemo died I jumped into Android for one year, but I was not satisfied with the system and bought a “dumb” phone for a while. The webOS Palm/HP devices have not been and are not available on the Czech market, so one day I saw an offer for a used old locked AT&T Pre Plus and bought it. The same day I successfully unlocked it just for fun and to try it. I fell in love with webOS. Then I started the Google Maps development activity, because the map application is important for me. I have never seen an original Google Maps application in real use, because I started to be a webOS user after Bing Maps was released to all Palm/HP devices. Then, thanks to the amazing webOS community, I received enough money to buy a Pre3 from Germany for an unbeatable price (many thanks again). Then I was able to optimize my apps for it which contains many development exceptions. And what´s the point? If I like some device/system, it will always die (PalmOS, Maemo, webOS) and vice versa (Android)… I´m not lucky with that. Have you published any apps in the HP App Catalog? I don’t have a developer account. I tried it to upgrade my community account, but the dev account needs a credit card with PayPal and I don’t have (and don’t want) to bind any card with PayPal, so the dev account is not available for me… sadly. And the support e-mail is cancelled, it always returns as undelivered. Any advice is appreciated. What homebrew apps have you developed? Google Maps – http://github.com/72ka/google-maps wInNeR – http://github.com/72ka/wInNeR HERE maps – http://github.com/72ka/here Gas&Oil Mix – http://github.com/72ka/GasOilMix Aladin Have you written any patches? Nothing…because I started to be a webOS user at the end of webOS’ life, all the patches that I needed I found. Thanks to the authors! What’s your daily driver phone? I use the Pre3 and after one year, I love its form-factor. Only the battery life is really poor. Which tablet do you use? One of a dozen cheap tabs. ICOO D70GT. I successfully ported Open webOS on it but without graphics acceleration. Recently looks like that the touchscreen will definitely fail soon, typical for such cheap hardware. How did you get your start into programming? My first experience (I was around 10) was a Commodore 64 and BASIC, Assembler and Pascal. Then I developed two apps for Psion Series 3a handheld. Then some apps in TurboPascal for the electronics, like 4 channels oscilloscope just for logical circuits developing. I made an app for model train automation and for driving the model locomotive using pulse width modulation, including the inertia simulation. I remember an app for converting the midi music files to the old Nokia phones text code for custom ringtone melodies. I like reverse engineering in combination with C low-level programming of linux kernel – but it needs a lot of time. Recently I developed one app in .NET, one database system using WAMP for my job. Currently I´m developing only for webOS with care for other possible platforms, which are supported by Enyo2. I need to say, I´m not a professional developer as most of the others, my profession is far different. Do you develop for other platforms? My most successful time was in Linux development for Palm Zire72. As a Hacking&Development member of the Linux4Palm project, where we ported the Linux kernel on almost all PalmOS devices. My latest release of a complete bootpack for Palm Zire72 can handle all hardware excluding a camera. Some of our code was submitted to mainline, what I see as a big success. Within this project, we even organized some meetings and we participated twice at international linux conference LinuxExpo Prague 2007 and 2008. Back then, linux on a handheld was really rare. What projects are you supporting in the future? My current active project is still Google Maps for webOS (Mojo framework), and the rest of the apps written in Enyo 2. I have a lot of tasks to do, but my free time is very limited (almost nothing). My future plans are aimed to bring my apps to other platforms using PhoneGap. I´ll see how the things with Open webOS and the other platforms will go. Finally, I want to thank all the people who supported me. Compared with my other activities, I have never seen people so accommodating, supportive, and positive with feedback. It makes me more sad about the fate of webOS. No need to thank the community. It is the community that thanks you for the continued development for webOS. I for one, use the homebrew Google Maps app from Jan all the time! #webosforever View the full article from pivotCE

Here we are two weeks into the LuneOS initial release and I find myself staring at the install on my HP TouchPad wanting it to do more. Don’t get me wrong, I’m patient enough to wait for a functioning OS of core app integration. And I’m not in a hurry for all of the “I wish it had <app name>” whining. Although, since LuneOS supports Enyo apps, isn’t it possible that it could run current webOS apps built from the technology? I set out to find out. Read on for the results. Finding some apps to test I was able to backup all of my apps some time ago using the donotdelete IPK patch from webOS Nations forums user, GMMan. So I just browsed through my collection looking for Enyo apps and here’s what I found: 1. Apollo 1.2.5 2. ACL Documentation 1.3.2 3. Neato 2.0.0 4. Shortcut Launcher 2.0.2 5. QuickChat for Facebook 1.0.11 6. HP App Catalog 5.0.3500 7. USA Today 1.2.0 8. Just Draw 1.2.0 9. Communities 1.0.8 10. Project Macaw (enyo) 2.2.12 11. Box for TouchPad 1.0.21 12. Facebook Tablet 2.0.35 13. Maps (Bing) 3.1.32 14. FeedSpider (enyo) 2.0.0 Setup Now that I had some apps to test I needed to get the .ipk files onto my TouchPad. Uh, wait…plugging in the USB cable to my laptop netted me a media device called TouchPad but when I open it there’s nothing there. Copying over files results in an error message. Well poo. Oh yeah! LuneOS uses a certain amount of Android “magic” soooo in command line on my PC I tried: adb push nameofmyapp.ipk /media/internal/downloads Success! I then opened up Preware, hit the menu, clicked Install Package, browsed for and selected the file, and hit Install. I’ll note here that installation always worked but some apps caused Luna-Next to restart. Despite the glitch the app always installed. Also, the Preware success dialog still sports a back button which isn’t necessary since the gesture area is there and the spinning “working” symbol never quits. Just minor issues for now. For the results, I divided them into 3 categories: Fully Functional, Partially Functional, and Non-functional. Non-functional As I mentioned, every app installed fine but this category means the app won’t open. Those apps were the HP App Catalog (duh no surprises there), Communities, and Facebook Tablet. Facebook disappointed me since it’s such a great example of what an enyo app can look like and do but no dice. Communities has been broken for a while anyway so even if it had opened it wouldn’t be very usable. Bummer. Partially Functional This category is a bit wider in interpretation but essentially if tapping on the app icon gained a card, that was enough for me to say it at least did something. This means that the app opens or you can tap, move, or manipulate the UI in some way. Those apps were Apollo, Maps, ACL Documentation, Just Draw, QuickChat for Facebook, Shortcut Launcher, Box for TouchPad, USA Today, FeedSpider, and Project Macaw. Apollo only opened the card and never progressed beyond the splash logo. Maps opened and immediately showed a “could not locate” notification below which is no surprise since the WiFi TouchPad I’m using to run these tests didn’t ship with GPS functionality. Everything seemed great until I swiped away the notification and the app suddenly scrunched into super widescreen view. Closing the app, reopening it, and leaving the notification there let the app display properly. Search and directions all worked fine. ACL Documentation opened and displayed properly but many of the buttons did not work. Presumably it’s because of the webkit changes in LuneOS over webOS. Just Draw opened but that’s about it. The page to draw in is a small box in the upper left corner which didn’t draw and the color selector won’t select color. QuickChat for Facebook opened and showed the top line of what I remember from my webOS devices to be the web view of the “authorize app on Facebook” page. That view doesn’t populate but again most likely because of the webkit changes. Shortcut Launcher opened fine and the buttons functioned and the fields took text input but browsing didn’t go well. No amount of backswipe worked and the app remembers your last directory! So reopening the file browser function only allowed you to go a level deeper and never back up. That’s a problem as you can imagine. So I could never try to add a shortcut. Box for TouchPad opens but that’s it. The login screen is halfway on the screen and the input boxes do nothing. That’s another app that is broken anyway. USA Today opened, pulled down new stories, scrolled properly and I thought I had a 100% functional winner! Oh! But videos didn’t play. So close. I have always liked that app though. Pretty neat implementation with Enyo 1. FeedSpider works amazingly well. I was able to get an early copy and I was impressed. The interface is clean and familiar from his previous work and I could log in and pull down new stories with ease. It’s on the partial list though because the back swipe didn’t take me back and some things just haven’t been coded yet. VERY promising indeed. Perhaps this will find its way into a release of LuneOS in the future. Yup, it’s that good and it’s not even done. Macaw is an early build of the enyo version but everything seemed kosher there too. There were some visual glitches but something tells me that’s LuneOS since it surrounded the virtual keyboard use. Multi-account use was a bit wonky but overall the app functioned to view and post to Twitter rather well. It’s not done either but it’s pretty darn good as it is so I imagine the final release product will be amazing. Fully Functional That leaves Neato! Neato opened, logged in, and not only could successfully send text or URLs to my webOS devices and browser but if you sent a message to the TouchPad, Neato would display the page! Cool! This is what I’ve done with LuneOS over the last 2 weeks. Do you have an Enyo app I didn’t try? Let me know your results in the comments below. #webosforever View the full article from pivotCE

Alright, let’s be honest. If you’re a webOS user in 2014 you have to understand how to use patches, occasionally use webOS Quick Install‘s Linux Commandline, and may have even built your own custom webOS doctor using webOS Internals‘ meta-doctor. The tutorials can be complex for some of the fixes webOS users have to make but a basic understanding of Linux can really help. Especially since webOS is built upon Linux! If you already knew that then you might also know about LWN.net. Essentially, if you want to know anything and everything worth mentioning within the world of Linux then you’ll get yourself over to LWN.net for the news. And the fine folks over there just did a very nice write-up on LuneOS! Jonathan Corbet from LWN just published a thoughtful, introspective, and down right honest review of the recent efforts of the webOS Ports team and their LuneOS release. The review is simple enough and praises the UI. Jonathan says, “The overall presentation is attractive and, in many ways, pleasant to use”. Although he gets the no-back-button complaint part of his review wrong since he’s unaware that back swipe is the webOS and now LuneOS equivalent to the Android back button. (Try it again, Jonathan. It works. I promise.). But he has this to say about the potential success of LuneOS: “It would be a good thing if they did succeed. As nice as Android is, it is in need of strong competition from at least one open-source alternative. LuneOS, a community-developed distribution based on a known-to-be-popular system, could possibly be such an alternative if it could build up some momentum.” Yes, a nice bit of momentum would be excellent. Inside reports say that webOS Ports has built up a larger base of developers who understand form over function and are willing to spend time developing in the back-end of the core apps rather than waste time building beautiful UIs without the knowledge of how to integrate it into the core system. And some of those team additions have been since the release last Monday. Great news! I think it’s important to note that competition doesn’t seem to really be part of webOS Ports’ goals. Neither are timelines. From what the community has seen so far, it seems webOS Ports is focusing on core app development first and ensuring a quality product is released to the masses. Will good things come to those who wait? So far so good. And who am I kidding, I’m not going anywhere! Have you tried out LuneOS? These folks have. Check out the videos below. #webosforever View the full article from pivotCE

There’s been a lot of big news in the last week, so time for a quick clean out! Some app updates went through HP’s admin last week. We know there are a couple more in the pipeline. Thanks to all the developers still supporting webOS. Expect reviews soon on pivotCE. Platform game, Orcrest has new levels. See the pivotCE article here. What’s Shaking is a must for earthquake… er fans? Zap Photo Share let’s you share photos and slideshows across the wifi network. Why hand your phone around when you can beam to a bigger screen? Lithium Messenger is an assistant for messaging, posting & tweeting. Expand words, add emoticons, pics, videos, shorten links, even translate! Is there a news crumbs mode? Maybe in the next update. LG posted photos of Dev camp 2014. Owners of webOS TVs eagerly await the results of their efforts. Meanwhile we were concerned to hear that two of the top designers had moved to Pebble. Will this affect the progress of webOS? We hope not. Further disappointment came from This article from Gigaom.com, claiming that all is not well in LG’s Sillicon Valley Lab. Some disputed the fairness on twitter and webOS Nation. Have a read and decide for yourself. I hope you enjoyed that, I fancy a nice grilled pannini to go with my affogato. View the full article from pivotCE

It’s been a long while since we announced our Alpha 2 release back in June of 2013, but today after months of very hard work the webOS Ports team are very proud and happy to provide our latest release to the community now named “LuneOS”. The first eye catching change is the new name we’ll be using for our project going forward. The distribution will be called “LuneOS” instead of “WebOS Ports Open webOS” because it wasn’t very catchy and we felt it important to specify we are separate from Open webOS which is it’s own project from HP and now LG. Lune is the French translation of moon and refers to the user interface we all love so much in legacy webOS, LunaSysMgr, which is named after the Latin/Spanish translation of moon. The release model for LuneOS is a rolling one where each of the releases will get its own name from a list of coffee beverages. This first release is “Affogato”. All work for each release is visible to the public and users can also update to unreleased stages to support the developers with testing and bug fixing. Our overall aim is to deliver high quality software which is stable and satisfies the needs of our users. We plan to have a new release at the beginning of each month. General focus As a mobile operating system, we’re tailored for smartphones and tablets. Our main focus is not to add new devices as they appear on the market but instead to provide a stable, easy to use and easy to port software base. Porting OS pieces itself was never the real problem of our approach since we solved the most important bits by using libhybris. The actual problem we’re facing is to get applications software implemented and to add all the back-end functionalities to the system we love and need. The main focus of LuneOS is to provide an operating system which is driven by the community and continues what we love(d) about webOS. We’re not trying to reach feature comparison with Android or iOS but rather building a system to satisfy basic needs in the mobile environment. Building a good quality mobile operating system from scratch is a hard job and is built in just the spare free time everyone involved in the project has. To get the best ratio between what we want and what we can do, we’re analyzing architectural decisions from both existing solutions we can base our work on and whether we have to write things from scratch. Supported devices We’re currently supporting the Nexus 4 and HP TouchPad. The Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 7 (2012 Wifi) are still supported with this Affogato release, but will not be actively maintained anymore by the project team for future releases. We would like someone to step up as maintainer for these devices. We also have started to write a porting guide to make it easier for community members to port LuneOS to other devices. What works Wifi! We also have a working settings app which includes things like wifi, screen, developer mode, and about. Apps that work include a basic browser, Preware, mail (enyo1 but it’s working albeit a tad buggy because of screen size related things), accounts (with some minor issues), memos is fully working, a stubbed contacts app, initial calendar app with no real backend functionality yet, synergy connectors for a lot of endpoints (Google, Yahoo, i*, owncloud, and more) and initial work for a phone app. Also, contacts sync is working along with better suspend/resume handling, and a bunch of other smaller things. Click to view slideshow.System/architecture improvements After the Alpha 2 release we made the drastic decision to rewrite LunaSysMgr from scratch and name it Luna Next. This decision was made because LunaSysMgr distributed with Open webOS caused too many headaches, mainly due to the legacy device support and the overhead of code that was in there to support various things. Keeping LunaSysMgr would not allow proper hardware acceleration without a lot of work and would have made porting to other devices harder in the future. Therefore, the team decided to start rebuilding the user interface from scratch using the latest technologies available (QT 5.2 / QML, WebKit 2, etc). This of course meant a lot of work, but also a lot of benefits because it provides design flexibility going forward. Where possible, existing code from LunaSysMgr was re-used. As you can imagine, the rewriting has been a lot of work and there are many different scenarios to cover, so there might still be some bugs present. After this release we will focus on adding additional features to Luna Next. Starting with this release, LuneOS has a built-in update mechanism which makes it easy for users to update to the latest build. The implemented mechanism is similar to the one which was used in webOS before but has a different backend implementation. Right now there is no automatic notification when a new update is available. The user has to check on his own in the Settings app if a new update is available to install it. Ecosystem We’re still using Preware to provide application feeds which enables the community to distribute their applications. Currently we only support one feed which is built from purely open source applications. Submitting a new application is as simple as creating a pull-request against the relevant repository which sets up the feed. On the application side we have a reworked Preware application which is now based on Enyo 2. It is faster compared to the original Preware based on the Mojo framework due to the fact it can simultaneously download multiple feeds. However, it’s back-end is still based on the same code as in the legacy webOS system. Improvements since Alpha 2 Overall there are a lot improvements since the last release. Below is a list which doesn’t aim to be complete but gives a good overview what the team worked on and is still working on: Core OS system improvements Built upon libhybris to enable easy portability on available Android based devices where the followings things are currently re-used from Android: Telephony system (rild) Graphics drivers We’re planning to utilize more things from Android soon like: Hardware accelerated video/audio playback Sensor integration Functioning camera There is currently no plan to support running Android applications within LuneOS like ACL or AndroidChroot do. Using systemd as system init manager instead of Upstart, giving shorter boot times and easier control of tasks during boot. Emulator based on VirtualBox is available for testing and development Completely built by the community (OpenEmbedded build system) Application improvements Preware 2 is now working and enables users to install additional applications. Various bugs have been addressed in the Memo, Calculator and Email apps. A new PDF app has been created based on Mozilla’s PDF.js implementation. A basic file manager application is available. Open webOS core applications are still present but a little buggy at times; this needs to be fixed or replaced by new versions of the apps. A system update mechanism is available to easily update to a new build once available. Current work in progress for future releases Native QML based phone application for speed & reliability Media Indexer Support with legacy webOS compatible API Support for audio and video playback Tweaks support Further Status Bar indicator support and updates Further improvements to the keyboard layouts Adding user interface features to Luna Next which were also available in webOS 3.x and LunaCE such as “Card Stacking”, “Mini Cards”, “Card Zoom Gestures”, “Stack Spread Gestures”, “Infinite Card Cycling”, “Tap-to-Maximize Edge Cards” etc. Help needed As LuneOS is a large project with just a small group of people working on it, we could use help with various things. Especially on the application development front. We have a lot of parts on the service side in place but the app UIs need a lot of work from creative people. If you like webOS, know how to develop on the web and enjoy working with an enthusiastic team on a new community built mobile operating system, don’t hesitate to contact us through the available communication channels (see http://webos-ports.org/wiki/Communications). Besides doing real development we also need people spreading the word about LuneOS, working on the website or documentation for others about how to participate in the project. Here is a rough and unsorted list of things we need help with: Fix bugs in existing applications (Settings, …) Create replacements for old Enyo 1 based applications: Contacts (first draft exists) Calendar (first draft exists) Messaging (with Synergy integration) Create documentation and workflow for app developers to develop and submit new applications Improve the project website with a better look & feel Testing and bug reporting If you’d like to get involved, contact us! Get started with LuneOS Ready to start using LuneOS? Great! Here’s what you need to know: there is still a lot of work in progress and the current state should be considered as being alpha even though it’s working quite nicely for the parts that are implemented already. Therefore, use is at your own risk. Currently BlueTooth, the accelerometer, camera and ALS are not implemented yet. Audio & wifi should work, though might be buggy. If you have a TouchPad you can start here. You will want to use the “Release” version. Nightly is used for things that are being worked on and bug fixes for the next release. If you need help installing it, go here. If you’d like to try the emulator go here. And for the Nexus 4 go here. All the supported devices can be found here. Found some bugs? Once you’re happily testing, it can of course happen that you will run into some bugs. Feel free to report them at http://issues.webos-ports.org/projects/ports/issues so the developers can look into it. Of course you’re free to help in solving existing bugs as well! Have questions about the project? No problem! Send us an email to [email protected] or tweet to us @webosports. If you’re excited about the project, use the hashtag #LuneOSishere and spread the word! View the full article from pivotCE

You may have heard that preware.org was snatched away from webOS Internals yesterday. If not, what the heck? You live under a rock? I digress. Long story short, preware.net is now the new home for all things Preware to include our beloved patches, homebrew apps, etc. Don’t bother copying and pasting that as a link because until the ducks are lined up there won’t be much to see. I’ve been assured that the Preware Homebrew Documentation app and get.preware.net will all be updated in the near future. Come on. This stuff takes some time. Relax. So this domain snatching business was pretty ugly. Turns out “preware” means something very different to the folks that grabbed the domain and they have no intention of selling it back to webOS Internals which was the initial assumption. No, in fact they plan to use it for whatever “preware” means to them. Like you, I am waiting with bated breath for the answer to that mind boggling riddle. But now that preware.net exists and more importantly, ipkg.preware.net, the home of patches, apps, etc., how do you fix your broken webOS Quick Install (WOSQI) and Preware that point to preware.org? Fix WOSQI You’ve got a couple options here. Until an official version bump is released you’re going to have to settle for some workarounds. The good news is they are relatively simple. The bad news is you’ll have to do more than just download a file. What? Work? I know. Sorry. UPDATE: Jason Robitaille, creator of webOS Quick Install, has merged the commits by pattyland. He has not yet answered the question as to whether we can expect an updated build on the main WOSQI thread on webOS Nation Forums, however, pattyland went ahead and built a new version of WOSQI. It is UNOFFICIAL! You can download the .jar here. Option #1 – Edit your computer’s hosts file This is probably not the simplest solution but it’s a solution nonetheless. And I’m going to give you folks the Windows answer. Mac and Linux users, I assume you already know what you’re doing. Nerds. Hit the Windows key on your keyboard. Type notepad. Don’t open Notepad, right click on it and click Run as administrator. Click yes on the box that appears or type in your admin password and hit yes. In notepad, click File > Open and browse to C:/windows/system32/drivers/etc/. Change Text Documents (*.txt) to All Files (*.*). Then click hosts and open. Add 140.211.169.161 ipkg.preware.org like you see in the screenshot. Click File > Save and then close Notepad. Now open WOSQI and all should be swell. Note: If you go this route, you’ll have to do it for every computer you use WOSQI on. You could also edit the hosts file on your webOS device(s) too found in /etc/hosts BUT same deal, every device and it does not survive a doctor. Option #2 – Replace PackageFeed.class in WOSQI .jar I thought I would go into a step by step detail about how to modify PackageFeed.class inside WOSQI’s .jar file here but instead I modified it for you and all you have to do is drop the file in place. Get the file from here, open the PackageFeed.zip, and extract the PacakgeFeed.class file to your Desktop. And then do this: 1. Get 7zip and install it. Run the .exe or the .msi and “next next next finish” yourself until it’s done. You can also use whatever compression tool you like. 2. Find where you store WebOSQuickInstall-4.5.0.jar on your computer. Right click on it and choose 7-Zip > Open archive or Open with > 7-Zip File Manager 3. Navigate to .cacanucksoftwareipkg (see image). Find the PackageFeed.class file you downloaded and drag it into the 7-Zip window and click Yes when it asks you if you want to copy files to the archive. 4. Close 7-Zip and open WOSQI. Ta-da! UPDATE: I removed Option #2 for the WOSQI fix because for whatever reason I could not get the fix to duplicate on another computer. Also, a couple nice folks pointed out their frustration with the fix since they couldn’t get it to work either. Must have been a fluke. The good news is, the correct changes have been made to the WOSQI github but will have to be accepted first. Hopefully, Mr. Jason Robitaille builds the updated WOSQI and adds it here. Preware Preware’s version was bumped yesterday to 1.9.13. It fixes the .org problem and also the birthday icon which never got updated after last year’s Preware birthday. Anyway, to get Preware going again you have a few options. Option #1 – If you jumped down here because fixing WOSQI seemed annoying…well, you can skip to here but IF you fix WOSQI first all you have to do to get the updated Preware that fixes all the old .org feeds to the new .net ones is click the globe, search for Preware, and install it. Option #2 – Uninstall Preware on your webOS device first. On your PC grab the .ipk here, plug your phone or TouchPad into your PC, open your broken WOSQI, drag the .ipk into the WOSQI window and click Install. Done. Now scroll up and fix WOSQI. Option #3 – On your webOS device copy this URL http://ipkg.preware.net/feeds/webos-internals/armv7/org.webosinternals.preware_1.9.13_arm.ipk, open Preware, immediately swipe down for the menu and tap Install Package, paste the copied URL into the File box and click Install. Preware will close. Reopen it and you’re good to go. Note: When I first fixed Preware I had old beta feeds added and some of them didn’t auto-update to the .net address. To remedy the situation I uninstalled the new Preware, removed the beta feeds, readded the beta feeds, and reinstalled Preware. Problem solved. Well there you have it. Good luck! #webosforever View the full article from pivotCE

Having trouble accessing Preware feeds in either Preware or WOSQI today? Tried getting to www.preware.org and failed? Well, you’re not alone. Read on for the details. UPDATE – Rod Whitby chimed in on the discussion (linked below). He confirmed the domain was newly expired and taken over. The webOS Internals team is contacting the individual for their demands but mentioned they also purchased preware.net to use as a backup if need be. Preware will be updated as well to reflect to domain change. He did offer a temporary solution for ipkg.preware.org. Edit your local DNS to point it to the IP 140.211.169.161. pivotCE reached out to the webOS Internals team today on Twitter for answers. It seems the sysadmin team has been alerted. As for the course of action they’ll take, I’m not sure. But while we all wait, have a look at your favorite “whois” site for the likely culprit. Don’t have one? I did the hard work for you. Simply put, someone snatched the domain. See the “whois” result from http://whois.domaintools.com/preware.org. What does this mean for feed access? Well, it’s hard to tell for the moment but for now we’ll just have to wait and see. Hopefully some type of temporary solution can be put in place soon. This has put the fear into some people (me included). You may remember when the webOS patches portal was hacked and permanently closed. Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself. Speculation would say it won’t because LuneOS will be using the same feeds for Preware2. Folks are discussing this topic over at webOS Nation. Feel free to chime in. On a personal note, to the person who seems to have snatched the domain, not cool. Seriously. Not cool. #webosforever View the full article from pivotCE

During HP’s “Think Beyond” event, in addition to revealing the HP Veer, the company unveiled the latest and greatest from the new webOS Global Business Unit, which was in charge of both hardware and software engineering under their management. The devices they showed off would be the refined Pre 3 and the bulky yet powerful HP TouchPad. The Pre 3 was for all intents and purposes, the best display of what HP’s resources could do for Palm and the G.B.U. It had a chance to both sway public opinion and make webOS competitive again from a hardware perspective, something that really hadn’t been seen since the launch of the original Pre. Sadly though, the device only saw release in the UK for the span of an entire day before HP announced the end of webOS hardware development. This made the Pre 3 both the most powerful, but also among the rarest of webOS smartphones (outside of the unreleased Windsornot & Mako concept phones). the Pre 3 was never officially released in the U.S., yet was sold through the HP store in California before being put on sites like Amazon and eBay to be sold off. The device was made for ATT and for Verizon, yet the latter device is a far less common variant. In terms of hardware and build quality, the Pre 3 was in it’s day, one of the most powerful smartphones available. It had 512Mb of ram to run the software, but what really turned heads was the jaw dropping single core 1.4Ghz Snapdragon Processor, which was amongst the most powerful in the realm of mobile computing at the time. The design did not disappoint either. It had the largest qwerty keyboard, battery and at 3.6 inches, the largest touchscreen of any webOS phone. It also had a subtle black matte finish that curved elegantly around the device. Marking the end of an era, Palm’s logo was replaced by that of HP. Beneath it was the induction coil of a new feature: ‘Touch To Share’. Pre 3s and TouchPads could now pair on contact and pass data between them. The slider mechanism was sturdier than that of the Pre 2 or Veer. The keyboard was spacious and my personal favorite until I used the BlackBerry Q10. It had a strong tactile feel that lasted well into nearly 9.5 months with the phone. The device looked and felt like a refined, elongated, and smoothed Palm Pre. It was one of the best phones I ever held. The device also held a 5 mega pixel camera with 720p video recording and HDR, which made the camera on the Pre 3 a little more well..less horrible. It’s not a fantastic shooter but it is the very best ever put on a webOS smartphone to date. The more powerful hardware made webOS 2.2.4 smoother than I had ever seen it on a phone. Memory crashes were few and far between. The Verizon unit I used had pretty average call quality and the larger screen made web browsing the exact opposite of what it was on the HP Veer, being actually usable for me. I found that when placed on a Touchstone, my Pre 3 was noticeably louder with notifications and alarms and that the lock screen widgets were easier to glance at. My favorite aspect of the Pre 3 was being able to answer text messages on my TouchPad due to the Pre 3’s TTS software. Beyond that, the software experience on the Pre 3 is the same as the Pre 2 and Veer with minor differences. Preware functions much the same as it does on other devices with the exception that the Pre 3 can overclock to a crazy 1.9 Ghz and has a few Pre 3 exclusive patches and applications. Although the Pre 3 is a gem and is what webOS enthusiasts should consider as a daily driver if price isn’t a factor, it is not as abundant as the Pre or Veer. It is somewhat difficult to find and if you’re on Verizon, its even more of a slog. If you do find one, take it and run with it. Prices for the Pre 3 vary, but expect to spend between $250-350 on the device. Compared to previous flagships, like the Pre 2 and Veer, the Pre 3 is much more modern in a visual sense and the hardware makes a far more capable device. This makes the gulf between it and current devices like the Xperia Z2 or HTC one M8 more bearable. I would say that the Pre 3 is very much a 2011 flagship that is wrapped in a 2014 design. I feel that the external design stays more modern than the internal hardware but it still feels zippy and responsive. The HP TouchPad would be the final device unveiled during the “Think Beyond” event. It would be Palm’s first and officially last tablet built and manufactured before the G.B.U.’s dissolution in August of 2011. The TouchPad was a large 9.7 inch behemoth that was even for the time, a heavy and thick tablet. The TouchPad had the distinction of also being the first HP tablet with integrated Beats audio, which gave the speakers a noticeable “ommph.” The HP TouchPad also had an extremely healthy ecosystem of accessories. These included an all metal bluetooth keyboard, a touchstone charging dock, and even its own smart cover, that lacked the magnets of the iPad variant. With regards to build quality and the hardware, The TouchPad was a general mix of bad on one end of the spectrum, to pretty good in the other. I feel that in describing the TouchPad, I need to get the bad out of the way first as it is a decidedly different device from it’s smartphone brethren. The finish of the HP TouchPad is horrid. It’s bulky plastic body makes it a fingerprint magnet. In the year that I used it, the device developed the common problem of cracks around the speaker openings. My device was never dropped and never left its case. Actually, most of the time it never left the charging dock except when I was in class where I never used it outside of sharing info or zoning out on a lecture. So the physical build of the TouchPad is surprisingly bad considering this device was to challenge the iPad 2. The speakers unsurprisingly are really good…when they don’t clip out or distort through general use. Although to be fair this was uncommon for me and the times it did happen usually came from a result of extended Apollo or binges. The hardware that runs the TouchPad is an underclocked 1.2 Ghz Snapdragon Processor with 1GB of RAM and a single front facing video camera (The White 64GB TouchPad had the processor bumped to 1.5 Ghz but that version is hard to come by). The screen had a resolution of 1024×720 for a very standard VGA screen resolution. There also exists a 4G version that comes with a standard 32GB of storage and the sped up 1.5 Ghz processor.The software aspect of the HP TouchPad is a very unique story, so I will tell it in three parts. Firstly, the standard webOS experience, with Preware and without. Then I’ll examine the Application Compatibility Layer, which gives access to some Gingerbread applications through a dedicated app store. Finally, I’ll discuss Android and other systems installed on the TouchPad as dual boot options. The HP TouchPad launched with webOS 3.0 and it was both a drastic departure from where the O.S. started and a glimpse of the brilliance of where it could go. webOS on the bigger screen showed great potential for the O.S. as everything looked nice and scaled beautifully. The gestures to swipe between applications and swipe them away functioned much in the same way as it did on the phones. webOS 3.0 brought with it a ton of new features, including TTS and the Enyo application language. With the multitude of improvements to the platform, the application experience was good, yet third party support was minimal. Quality applications for the HP TouchPad were few and far between. The app catalog had a unique magazine-like section called Pivot, which featured applications in themed editions. When it was abandoned, it was eventually colonised by the webOS community to host new content. The latest version is what you are reading now. One major problem of webOS 3.0 was how un-optimized and buggy it was when first launched. Although some fixes would come through five software updates, it would only go so far. Applications were prone to either crashing or randomly reloading, the “too many cards” bug was back in full effect and overall everything felt slow and very unintuitive, which showed how rushed 3.0 was. With Preware though, a huge amount of the TouchPad’s problems from a software perspective were patched and smoothed out and made the device a much more refined and polished experience. These efforts culminated in the release of a rewritten system manager: LunaCE. Although Preware would prove to be an almost indispensable piece of software, there was another matter that had to be dealt with: The cripplingly low application count. This would be solved with the addition of a piece of software called the Application Compatibility Layer which was the result of a successful kickstarter campaign by Phoenix International Communications. The money funded further development of work by OpenMobile. What is so special about the software is it allows selected Android applications to run on webOS. It is a relatively small selection, but things like Skype, Netflix, and supplementary document editors are available to augment the applications of webOS. What this does to the tablet is both amazing and sobering. Sure you get enhanced usability, but the available apps are based on Gingerbread, an older Android O.S. that isn’t much in the way of looks and the older version sometimes has problems with applications even working properly. While this isn’t a huge deal breaker, it does show that the HP TouchPad, from a software perspective, is a truly ‘Frankensteinian’ creation, requiring different patches and non-native Android apps to make it live. Even though ACL is only a temporary fix that just manages to keep the tablet outside the realm of uselessness, there are those in the development community who have managed to port every version of Android from Gingerbread to KitKat to the tablet. This opens the device to a whole new world of possibilities for those who still hold on to the HP TouchPad, nearly three years on. Android and webOS have always had a rather odd relationship. It has been of general benefit for our platform, whether it be from ACL or a full-on port. Android on the HP TouchPad is a relatively easy thing to do. While you can get stable builds of 4.0 all the way to 4.3, later Android builds are either in early Alpha or Beta stages. In order to get the very latest Android O.S. you will most likely take a massive hit in almost basic functionality. Android has managed to keep the HP TouchPad relevant even in 2014. It isn’t webOS, but it is a different, larger and more diverse avenue for TouchPad owners to travel. It is somewhat unorthodox to mention Android when discussing webOS, but it is both a part of our tablets history and something that can be considered when looking at purchasing a TouchPad. To further emphasize the flexibility of the tablet, you can install Ubuntu Touch, Arch Linux, Open webOS (LuneOS), and even Linux from a webOS card. It is dang impressive. With regard to cost, the HP TouchPad can be an investment depending on where you look. Typically, places like Craigslist and eBay are great places to look as people tend to knock down the prices to the sub $200 dollar mark. But, if you want peace of mind, look at Amazon’s selection and note that it does go into the $300 dollar mark for some models. In terms of investment, it is a solid one that every webOS enthusiast should consider. Do I recommend the Pre 3 and the HP TouchPad? For starters, I do solidly recommend the Pre 3, regardless of the carrier. The Pre 3 is the last great smartphone from Palm. It is the very best our platform can offer and its very existence is an important piece of history for webOS users. If you have the money and want a beautifully crafted phone, buy the Pre 3 and never second guess it. About the HP TouchPad, I am a little more on the fence. I do recommend it, but only if you are able to embrace some its quirkier software aspects and its rather damning build quality. But what you get, is a device that has possibly the most devoted software community in the mobile arena. With a little bit of work, the software that is available fully unlocks the device’s potential and gives you one of the most dynamic, fun, and useful software suites regardless of your platform preference. The HP TouchPad to me in my 13 months of using it, has proven its bulky, plastic weight in gold. It is for all of its flaws, a masterpiece. To conclude, thank you for joining me in this look back at webOS: Both the history and the devices that define our small but great community. I will be creating different content in the future for pivotCE and I hope you enjoy reading these articles as much as I enjoy writing them. View the full article from pivotCE

Here is something very interesting. If you are not sure what you are looking at, It’s the code repository of Open-webOS. That’s the code originally released by Hewlett Packard and developed by LG electronics. What it shows is webOS being tested on a Nexus 5. We’ve already had some excitement with the recent Ports to the Touchpad & Nexus 4 by the webOS-Ports team, but this was submitted by an engineer at LG. So is this a gift for the team to help with future ports or is it LG’s own project? If LG puts webOS on a Nexus 5 and makes that code available, isn’t that an LG webOS phone? Could this test merely be a prelude to a future project? We’ll keep you updated on any developments and in the meantime will speculate wildly with the rest of the webOS community. View the full article from pivotCE

Microsoft recently announced the end of support for older versions of Skype including on it’s own Windows Phone 7 system. When reports started to be posted about Skype not working on webOS, they were greeted with an air of inevitability. Another bit was falling off the zombie! So what are the options? Often the open nature of webOS means that when something stops working (usually due to an API change) or needs some other improvement, it can be patched. It was possible that Skype was reading version numbers from apps and blocking the old version. Very early in webOS’s history, Palm were ‘spoofing’ Pre’s to appear to be iphones – enabling them to connect to itunes. This was a move swiftly blocked by Apple, but a similar trick was employed by a homebrew patch to ensure access to richer versions of mobile websites designed for the iOS products. Unfortunately, Skype is a proprietary and closed-source product. Serious hacking skills would be required to convince the servers that Skype for webOS was an up to date version. There are a number of options for running Android. On the Touchpad you can dual boot to Cyanogenmod, the open Android project or run the ACL under webOS. On the Pre3 you can try the Android Chroot project. The developer Nikolay Nizov, has tested Skype for Android and it appears to work, but it is still early days for this project. The limited memory of the Pre3 means it is slow and as sound support is yet to be implemented, only messaging is possible at this time. Microsoft make a version of Skype for desktop Linux and webOS is a Linux-based OS. It may be possible to run it on webOS devices, but as interfaces differ, usability may turn out to be impractical – it may not be possible to graft a card interface onto what is again, proprietary software. Are there open-source options? Well, yes. For example, there is Linphone, but here of course, we run up against the popularity problem. Who do you know who uses it or any system based on the open-source SIP protocol for Voice over Internet Protocol? Hmmm. By now you are wondering about that headline. Doesn’t it say that Skype still works on webOS? In a suprisingly pleasant shock announcement today, the community manager of the Skype forums recommended re-logging in, claiming Skype on webOS was still supported. He’s right. So was it a coincidental temporay fault? Was webOS blocked in error then restored? There are no details. Let’s just be thankful and Skype our friends with the good news. We should bear in mind that sooner or later, Skype will get an update that may break functionality with the webOS version. Given the current state of webOS, it’s unlikely that the Skype integration will be updated. So due consideration should still be given to the options above. One hope is that LG will want to offer video calling on those big screens and any future LGwebOS app may be portable to mobile devices… [update] In a roundabout way, I found there is an alpha version of Linphone for webOS which may have some use in the future. View the full article from pivotCE

There’s not been much popping up from the toaster lately, but there are still a few crumbs to sweep out. gizmo21 reported that AVforums had awarded LGwebOs reference status – a quality level for other Smart TV platforms to aim at. I thought this happened ages ago, but it seems only Marc Aurelian over at webOS France was paying attention! Fin de support de webOS, Blackberry et Symbian par Phonegap. The end of phonegap support for webOS, Blackberry & Symbian. (en français, naturellement!). This is not necessarily a huge problem as discussed here: Phonegap depreciates webOS. Project Macaw updated to version 1.5.4. Find it in Preware, but remember if you want to try this Twitter client for the first time, you need to add the special feed… LG’s connect SDK has also had a version update. No, it doesn’t quite work on Legacy webOS, but if you want to make apps that interact with webOS TV’s it’s a must. The new technology in LuneOS means future support is a possibility… Finally, the conclusion to an odd part of webOS history: The Chubby Checker court case. The comments section of the article contains all the jokes you are likely to need on this matter. I suddenly fancy a hot muffin… View the full article from pivotCE

2010 was a special year for webOS. It would mark the release of the Pre and Pixi Plus, alongside something special. That something special, would be the Pre successor and the very last smartphone to ever be released, under the “Palm” branding. The Pre 2, code named “Roadrunner” first appeared in August of 2010, as a rumor but launched in November as a unlocked developer device in the U.S. and finally an actual carrier launch on Verizon in February of 2011. The Pre 2 had the distinction to be the launch device for webOS 2.0 which would bring with it a bevy of upgrades and refinements to the much beleaguered operating system. A few of the most prominent updates and refinements include “stacking,” which allowed for open apps to stacked on one another for better organization of tasks and a powerful universal search engine called “Just Type,” which allowed you to search both the device and the internet for applications, questions videos etc. A final and more solemn distinction, is that the Pre 2 would be the last webOS phone from Palm, until it was purchased by Hewlett Packard (HP) earlier that year. webOS 2.0, overall built upon the original 1.0 foundation and moved it forward in a very positive way. Universal Search alone, was one of the biggest additions. It expanded up the idea brought in webOS 1.0 and brought to the table a unique, simple, and powerful way of searching for items that would not be matched until the likes of Siri or Google Now, in the years to come. The Pre 2 was very much a departure from the original Pre, yet in the same way built on the device that won so many people over and refined it. The overall build quality of the Pre 2 was a noticeable improvement over the Pre. Improved and slightly curved Gorilla Glass covered the front. A matte black plastic build with a enhanced touch/notification LED accompanied the front panel of the Pre 2. The back had an integrated Touchstone back cover. Making wireless inductive charging that much easier to adopt. Finally, one of the best design updates for the Pre 2, was a refined sliding mechanism, making the Oreo effect from the first generation Pre, almost non-existent. In terms of hardware, the Pre 2 was a device that was a year behind in terms of specifications. The 1Ghz processor that powered the Pre 2, was not antiquated by any means by late 2010, but when compared to flagships during the time which were pushing the threshold to dual core chipsets, the Pre 2 came in just as single core was beginning to be over looked in the spec race. The Pre 2, had a similar array of sensors that most modern smartphones during the time. Wifi, Bluetooth, and ambient light sensors made the device feel more competitive with other 2010 smartphones. In February of 2011, HP following it’s purchase of Palm, would unveil the next and final generation of devices running webOS. The devices they showed off were HP’s answer to the iPad, The HP Touchpad, Pre 3 and finally, a third more peculiar and somewhat more compact device, the HP Veer 4G. The HP Veer was designed to be the next step in the evolution of the Pixi line of webOS devices. It came in two colors, black and white. Had a peculiar magnetic headphone jack that was prone to being lost (I went through two of them in my own time with the device) and was the first webOS phone to feature the Touch To Share magnetic coil that would allow users to share data between the phone and the upcoming HP Touchpad. Sadly, the software to enable the technology to work, would never arrive from HP. The phone ran the then new 800 Mhz Scorpion processor and on 512 MB of Ram which already put in a similar performance category as the Pre 2. In terms of quality the Veer was a combination of improvements and backtracking. The overall design of the HP Veer was great. The much improved mechanism for the slide out, Pre-esque design of the Veer made it sturdy and feel really solid in the hand. The device was Touchstone compatible. The keyboard, was cramped and not designed for people with larger hands, yet it was sturdy and very solidly built. The phone was made of a single plastic shell that was very solid and curved beautifully around the body, showing off the pebble design ethos that was a trademark of Palm. Although the overall design of the Veer was a great step forward for the Pixi line, it had several design flaws that kept it from really being taken more seriously as a webOS device. The first was the size of the device. In a literal attempt to keep up with both the Pixi line and to follow it’s own marketing message of “webOS in S, M, and L.” HP built the Veer to be very small phone with a lot of power underneath the hood. With a 2.6 inch screen, the phone was to small to do a lot of meaningful tasks. Web browsing was a squint fest. Composing email with the cramped keyboard was very hard to accomplish error free and although gestures work as well as previously, it was a little difficult to more precise gestures with the smaller gesture area. In terms of Software and Performance the Veer in my time with it, was a very snappy device, that downloaded web pages quickly over ATT’s 4G network and was generally a pleasure to use. In terms of webOS software it ran essentially what the Pre 2 does, just in a smaller package. There is one real hardware difference worth noting is the inclusion of the TTS coil for sharing information. Software does exist for the coil to be used and a few developer units of the Veer have leaked that include this software yet it hasn’t been made available by HP. There is though a more iffy way of installing a custom build of webOS unto the device but the stability of the software and legal ramifications of messing with software that isn’t owned by the person who made the build make it a risky endeavor. In terms of 2014 devices, The Pre 2 and Veer like the webOS devices before them are a worthy device for those who are looking for the more middle runners of webOS devices. They are stable devices that are capable with their enhanced hardware and software. On a side note: In terms of usability for the devices. it is important to note that due to the general decline of upkeep for the software that Preware is near necessity if you plan on using your Pre 2 or Veer as anything more than a dumb phone that has a decent browser. As email (Google and Yahoo) recently released with new patches in order to make syncing a far less painful job. I do recommend that the Veer be looked at with a grain of salt as it really is just a smaller Pre 2 and should only be used with those who have smaller hands or want the added TTS coil for TouchPad collaboration. The Pre 2 in my opinion is the best webOS smartphone I have ever used and I do recommend it. It lasted me through a very rough year of solid use and I keep it to this day as a reminder that a good phone can come in any shape or size. Although it lacks the TTS coil, I use the Pre 2 as the definition of why webOS was great and it’s phones were just as good. It was the very last phone Palm ever released and may have been its very best. The Veer on the other hand was the first that HP had released in years and it was a mixed bag with even more mixed results. It from a design standpoint was a solid device and alongside its nice internals, it had a chance of being even greater than the Pre 2, instead it was met with mixed reception due to it’s size. The actual costs of both devices is mixed. Both the Veer and Pre 2 are sub 150 dollar phones that have great build quality and should be great additions for current and newcomers to the world of webOS. So stay tuned next time when I review the last webOS devices released, The Pre 3 and the TouchPad. View the full article from pivotCE

webOS is all about connectivity. If Chicago is your kind of town, you can breeze into The Windy city, pass through the Cloud Gate and link up with a local area network while enjoying some pizza! Yes, it’s a webOS meetup and it’s happening this Sunday (13th July), 7.30pm at Moretti’s Ristorante and Pizzeria, Schamburg. Find the details and Sign up here. The team at pivotCE remind you that if you are planning a meet up, let us know! We are interested in promoting your events (it might even increase attendance!). We are also interested in reports and pictures from webOS events. View the full article from pivotCE