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We've said it many times over the past six months since HP announced their intentions to open source webOS: open source is not a plan. Once the software is out there… then what? It's a question we've been asking for a while, and we've been hearing you ask the same one. HP CEO Meg Whitman said that they'll eventually make new webOS tablets, but we haven't heard anything since, and it doesn't seem like webOS is really a big priority for HP. So what's an enterprising webOS fan to do? Take matters into their own hands, that's what. That's part of the beauty of open source: once it's out there, anybody can do whatever they want with the code. So a group of webOS fans - developers, designers, and engineers - formed a group they've named Phoenix International Communications. The goals of Phoenix are both simple and attainable while also complex and ambitious. Unlike some of the other noise that's been made recently about webOS devices, Phoenix is taking a slow-and-steady approach and focusing initially on porting Open webOS (once it's out in full in August) to existing devices - not just webOS devices, we would assume. And they're not just going to take Open webOS and throw it onto other devices, as anybody with minimal skill could figure that out, no, Phoenix wants to improve upon webOS with new features and fixes. Long term, the folks at Phoenix hope to be able to bring new webOS-specific devices to market, but that's a ways off and dependent upon things like money. We've talked with Phoenix about their plans, and while there's plenty that they can't share at this point, we're confident that they're being realistic and optimistic about their goals here. Right now Phoenix consists of a small team, but they're looking to expand. Developers and engineers might be able to make devices work, but in the end they still need designers, marketers, accountants, sales representatives, and the like to actually get their work out to the public. You could say that Phoenix is hiring, but in reality their hope for expansion at this point rests on volunteers. And what better place to pick up a few genius collaborators than webOS Nation? If you're finding yourself interested in pitching in for the Phoenix webOS effort, hit up the source link below. View the full article

Four months ago, HP's Executive Vice President of Software took on a new role at the Silicon Valley giant: Chief Strategy Officer. That man was Bill Veghte, and today he's taking another step up the corporate ladder. Veghte is shedding the EVP title and moving into the newly-created Chief Operating Officer position at HP, reporting directly to CEO Meg Whitman. Taking over Veghte's old HP Software job will be HP newcomer George Kadifa. He comes from multi-billion-dollar technology investment firm Silver Lake, previously having held executive positions at IBM and Cisco. The COO role is a new one for HP, providing further evidence of Whtiman's consolidation and reorganization of the company. According to HP's press release on the matter, COO Veghte "will help further accelerate the execution of the company’s strategy by working across HP to drive innovation and customer satisfaction" and will "work closely with Whitman as well as his peers on HP’s executive council to support key projects affecting the company’s operational success." In essence, it's going to be his job to make sure things happen, much like it was current Apple CEO Tim Cook's job to make things happen in Cupertino when he was Apple's COO. What does this mean for webOS? We're not certain. Back when Veghte was announced as the Chief Strategy Officer, HP moved webOS under his domain. The webOS group had previously been under Shane Robison and the Office of Strategy and Technology, with the CSO position kind-of-sort-of replacing that role. Veghte will still be the CSO in addition to the new COO, giving him a lot of responsibility at HP, but presumably also a lot of pull. Though with everything going on at HP right now, we can't imagine he'll have a lot of time to devote to guiding our favorite open source mobile operating system project. Update: We've confirmed with HP that Veghte will continue to directly oversee the webOS group even with his new position. So breath a sigh of relief, we don't have to learn a new name this week. So far. View the full article

While you will not typically hear complaints about the Wi-Fi on most webOS devices, the Pre3 seemed to take a step backward in the reliability of its wireless radio. In addition to a seemingly decreased W-Fi range, it also tends to not show all the available networks that are in range, even if they are previously saved Wi-Fi profiles. This can be an extremely annoying bug that will cause your device to fail to connect to a known network, but it has an equally annoying (although relatively simple) fix. All you need to do is turn Wi-Fi off and then back on again, and all the wireless networks within range will show up again. If you are a homebrewer, you can also install the "Cycle Wi-Fi in Device Menu" patch in Preware by GuyFromNam that will, not surprisingly, add a "Cycle Wi-Fi" option to the device menu to toggle your Wi-Fi off and then back on. This also appears to work alongside some of the Device Menu expansion patches such as Jason Robitaille's "Device Menu Megamix" patch. View the full article

We get asked it a lot, surprisingly: "Where can I get a TouchPad?" It's a rare beast these days, that HP TouchPad, but today you can had over to woot.com subsite Moofi and get a refurbished 32GB TouchPad for $194.99. Unlike Woot proper, which is a deal a day, Moofi's deals last for much longer - you have six whole days left to take advantage of this offer. Now, $194.99 is nearly fifty bucks higher than the firesale pricing of the 32GB TouchPad back in the day, and that was for a new tablet, not a refurbished version like we have here. But it's also a good $400 less than the launch price less than a year ago. It might be slightly used, but HP's gone over them with a fine-toothed comb and is throwing in a 90-day warranty. Should you grab one? Opportunities to pick up a TouchPad have been growing fewer and farther between with each passing month since the great Leopocalypse, and we expect that trend to continue. Less than $200 isn't a bad deal, but then again, there are new (but smaller) tablets available for that price, or you can put your money towards a newer big-screened tablet, though that'll cost you dearly too. If you want webOS, well, this is your only option. View the full article

So much has happened in the past 36 hours it’s enough to make your head explode. First HP announced its cutting 27,000 jobs over a two-year period; then the core Enyo team is packing up and going to Google. We are happy that the team found fantastic jobs, but we all would like to slap you individually. Anyone that was up at 10:30 pm yesterday got the heart sinking news via Twitter. Not the best way to be met with bad news the second time in a week. The fans of webOS who are true blue were again slapped in the face. What’s going to happen to our phones, what’s going to happen to the TouchPad? What’s going to happen to webOS? The Enyo team has released this statement: The core of Enyo 2 is solid. We’re hearing great things from developers about the performance improvements in the last release, and we have another release on the way. After that, we’ll focus on expanding the Onyx widget set. We’ve enlisted the support of the developer relations engineers you know and love to help out as we work on growing the team. That’s right, we’re growing. As we said earlier this month, we’re hiring — not just to replace the engineers who have left, but to increase the size of the team going forward. If you would like to contribute to the success of Enyo (and get paid for it) please let us know. And of course, all are welcome to contribute to the code by making GitHub pull requests. Our door is open; if you have any concerns, feel free to voice them in the Enyo forums. We’re always listening and will do our best to address your questions. We’ll also be out in person at next week’s O’Reilly Fluent Conference in San Francisco, and at HP Discover in Las Vegas the following week — we’d love to see you there. So there you have it, we are moving on as planned so calm your fears. The Enyo team are here for the long haul. View the full article

So you're a TouchPad owner. Maybe you purchased it full price or maybe you waited until the now legendary fire-sale of the TouchPad after good ol' Leo Apotheker killed webOS hardware. You might even be one of the hardcore webOS users that paid top dollar for a beautiful white 1.5GHz TouchPad with a whopping 64GB of storage! Regardless of how you got your hands on one or how much coin you dropped on it you love your TouchPad all the same. Because you love your TouchPad you want to protect it with the best case possible. However sometimes a good case can be a bit expensive so we all tend to look for the best deal possible. Well if you're looking for a deal look no further than HP's very own Home and Home Office Store. Here is a quick list of all the great deals they have right now: HP TouchPad Slipcase: $1.99 HP TouchPad Power Charger: $4.99 HP TouchPad Case: $4.99 Timbuk2 Envelope Case: $14.99 Timbuk2 Plush Sleeve: $14.99 The best part is all of this can be had with free shipping. So act quick folks because we are sure at these prices supplies will not last very long! View the full article

Update: webOS Nation has just received the following statement from HP: "We’re pleased with the traction Enyo has gained to date and plan to continue its development along with the open source community. The Open webOS project is on schedule and we remain committed to the roadmap announced in January.” Key members of HP's Enyo team have reportedly just quit the company and left to set up shop over at Google. While initial rumors made it sound like it might be the entire team, webOS Nation's own sources indicate that this will move less than half of the team. It will, however, include Matt McNulty, the Senior Director of Frameworks and Tools. As to what this means for webOS, well... what would it mean for Apple if the entire iOS application framework group jumped over to RIM, or if the entire Android dev team did a walk in over at Nokia? In other words -- nothing good. To be successful, operating systems need to be platforms, platforms need apps, apps need developers, developers need a framework to make apps, and that framework needs a strong, smart, passionate, engaged team behind it. If these rumors turn out to be true, in whole or even in part, webOS' struggle has just become that much more difficult. Again. Now Enyo might well still be on track, and Enyo isn't the only way to develop for webOS, but it's the first party framework, and that makes it important. Enyo 2 Beta 3 was released back on March 23 and while no doubt work has already been done on the next beta, and on the release version, it's hard to imagine a large scale defection wouldn't cause problems and delays. As to what the Enyo team might do over at Google, well hooking back up with Matias Duarte, who designed the original Pre user interface for Palm and now does that same job for Android, is an easy guess. Google's a web services powerhouse, however, and Enyo is a cutting edge web technology framework, so the sky's very literally the limit. Google's made a serious effort to improve not only the look but the user experience of everything from their web sites to their smartphone apps lately, and there's still Chrome and ChromeOS to consider. A team of skilled web framework developers could go a long way towards furthering all of those goals. But Enyo and webOS are commited to being open source projects now, and they're bigger than any one person or group of people. This is still a developing story, and we're tracking it in the webOS nations forums, so head on over there for more. Source: The Verge View the full article

HP on Wednesday announced its Q2 2012 earnings. In an exceedingly dry news release, HP noted a 3 percent drop in revenue, from $31.6 billion a year ago to $30.7 billion for the three months ending in March. The bigger news, perhaps, is that HP also announced plans for "a multi-year productivity initiative designed to simplify business processes, advance innovation and deliver better results for customers, employees and shareholders." That means restructuring, of course, and restructuring generally means a reduction in force. HP announced that it "expects approximately 27,000 employees to exit the company." That's 8 percent of total employees, and they'll be gone by November 2014. Early retirement options will be offered, HP said, so hopefully that will mean fewer layoffs. The reductions also will vary by nation, HP said. "These initiatives build upon our recent organizational realignment, and will further streamline our operations, improve our processes, and remove complexity from our business," said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer. "While some of these actions are difficult because they involve the loss of jobs, they are necessary to improve execution and to fund the long term health of the company. We are setting HP on a path to extend our global leadership and deliver the greatest value to customers and shareholders." But what about the continued future of our beloved OS? Not surprisingly, the former Palm and the now open-sourced webOS barely garnered a mention in Wednesday's announcements, save for a note that "HP recorded impairment charges to goodwill and certain intangible assets associated with the acquisition of Palm Inc. The charges relate to HP's decision to wind-down the webOS device business." Source: HP 1, 2 View the full article

As the temperature gets warmer and the pavement hotter, it is apparent that summer is here. So whether you are at the beach, at the park, or in your own backyard it’s a time for a get together with family and friends. The one thing that brings people together (other than music) is food. So we here at webOS Nation wanted to bring you the best cooking and grilling apps to get your foodie groove on. Some you have no doubt heard about before, some that might be brand new to you. read more View the full article

Mobile Nations Podcast Feed Mobile Nations on iTunes Mobile Nations YouTube Want a chance to win 1 of 4 new iPads? Windows Phone Central Contest - Win a Nokia Lumia 710 with Mobilicity Multiple Nexus devices could be a game-changer for Google and Android ITC orders import ban on Motorola Android phones over Microsoft patent issues HTC says some products have passed US Customs review New BlackBerry 10 photos shed more light on the homescreen flow experience BlackBerry DevCon renamed BlackBerry Jam Americas Week one with the BlackBerry Curve 9320 - Initial thoughts webOS Nation moboot theme now available for everyone HP to possibly cut up to 30,000 jobs in restructuring plan New webOS Meet Ups The 4 inch iPhone: Detailed analysis of Apple’s options for the next generation iPhone display Best free iPad games Pogo Sketch Pro vs. Kuel H12 vs. Jot Pro vs. Bamboo: iPad stylus shootout Windows Phone sales nearly double in the US passing RIM, according to Kantar Worldpanel Official Time Magazine & LinkedIn apps drop for Windows Phone Must-Have Xbox Live games for your Windows Phone View the full article

Popcorn check, Slurpee check, chocolate covered peanuts check, sweetheart check; and finally tickets to the hottest movie in the country, check. You’re all set to take your seat in the darkened theater, and as the lights lower, you know it makes happy you planned all of this on your webOS device. We know there are not many movie apps in the webOS catalog, but what we do have will serve the purpose of an entertaining night out; and for planning for a comfortable night in. So we invite you to peruse the fine selection of apps we found just for you. read more View the full article

Almost everyday we are reminded of what happened on that dark day in August when they killed webOS hardware and got rid of most of everyone in the hardware division; and it looked like the OS was to be suffer the same fate. Luckily for us, some the most diehard fans, along with some equally determined webOS developers, worked very hard to keep webOS alive. We here at webOS nations know the hot news stories have been slow to turn up, but don't despair. We say to those who have been taunted by larger screens, faster processors and hardware, fear not. Your time, my loyal friends is coming sooner thank you think. Bide your time my pretties although some wanted to put us in the coffin long before the TouchPad arrived, we are far from being dead. It reminds me of that line in Dark Shadows,"They tried to stone me my dear, it did not work." We want to give you a realistic forecast of how everything is progressing so far. We wanted to let you know everyone at HP and Open Mobile are working as hard as they can so you can have the goodies you all deserve. read more View the full article

One of the best things that ever happen to webOS was the fire sale. It made TouchPad available and affordable for everyone. Which comes to my next point, the price point of 99.00 to 149.00 made it easy for not only adults, but for kids who wanted their first tablet during the holiday season. So with such responsibility of owning a TouchPad comes finding the right apps for the children. To not only entertain, but keep them out of mom’s hair while she’s cooking. read more View the full article

According to several reports across the interwebs, HP could be cutting as many as 30,000 jobs in a new restructuring plan starting as early as May 23rd. On that day, according to several sources, CEO Meg Whitman will announce a company-wide restructuring plan that will include the cuts of approximately 10 to 20 percent of the current workforce of 320,000 employees. The numbers all vary from source to source but usually when there is this much grumbling in the tech world it is almost a guarantee that something is going to go down. Before you all go pointing your fingers at Meg keep in mind when she took the helm at HP she was handed a company that was on a downward spiral the like of which was almost unrivaled in the tech industry. The now infamous former CEO Léo Apotheker who had no previous hardware experience, killed off production of webOS hardware, attempted to spin off HP's PC division, and pretty much wanted to change the focus of the company altogether. Shortly after all of these decisions made by good ol' Léo, shareholders witnessed HP stock plummet more than 20% in a single day. Needless to say Meg Whitman had her work cut out for her when she took over as CEO of HP. So we are sure that if she does in fact make the decision to cut all these jobs it will be for an awfully good reason. This unfortunately should feel all too familiar to the webOS community as we've seen our fair share of job cuts in recent history. Fortunately webOS or HP's Personal Systems Group have not been directly mentioned in any of the sources. However, with a cut this large one can almost bet on the proverbial "axe" reaching across the entirety of HP. Heck even the poor guy who pushes the mail cart around the offices should be scared at this point! All we can say is that we sincerely hope that webOS doesn't take any hits from this as there really isn't much left to cut. Stay tuned and we will keep you informed of any news that may come out of all of this. Update: Enda McGrath has told us on Twitter that this will not be affecting webOS. Bullet dodged! View the full article

What do you get when you combine Minesweeper, logic puzzles and pictures together? The answer is Picross, a fun and addictive game by PenduinBits that challenges you to solve picture puzzles (or picture crosswords, as the app name indicates) on an 8x8 grid solely using number clues that indicate how many blocks you need to fill in on a given row or column of the grid. For $0.99, you get 384 puzzles split between Easy, Medium and Hard levels, and even a Builder feature that lets you create up to 64 more of your own custom puzzles. And with a minimum webOS requirement of only webOS 1.4.5, one purchase will work on all your webOS devices from the original Pre or Pixi to the newer Pre3 or TouchPad. read more View the full article

The forecasters say it’s supposed to be a warmer summer than usual, and it looks like the same for webOS meet ups. Armed with new tools to make developing and porting apps even easier, it would only seem appropriate to share the news with other webOS lovers in your area.There’s a lot to talk about, too. From our new developer leader, Enda McGrath who is actually been with the company longer than some of the CEOs of late, to our own Jason Robitaille joining the Enyo team. And with the news of new developer tools making their way into the webOS developer center, and the tidbits of news streaming in, we can’t think of a better way to celebrate . Hey tidbits are better than none. But there are few other things worth swinging by for… At selected meet ups there will be drawings for TouchPads, Pre 3’s, Veers and other accessories. Along with good food, friendly banter, and free Wi-Fi to use with your new toy.There will also be promo codes from the best app developers given away, as well as round table discussions and app building techniques discussed. Sounds inviting doesn’t it? You bet it does! So point your mouse to that address bar and head on over to the palm developer center and register to an event in your area and check out the ones below. Come and join the best community anywhere for the fun and prizes. Sunday, May 20 in Dallas, Texas Thursday, May 31 in Dillingen, Germany Sunday, June 3 in Chicago, Illinois Sunday, June 17 in Nashville, Tennessee TBA, June in San Francisco Tuesday, May 29th in New York So wake up the wife and kids, bring your laptop cords and ideas. This my friends is just the beginning. View the full article

So you've used our awesome how-to and installed Android on your TouchPad. You may have even spiced up Android by changing the task switcher to the webOS esque WebCM9 mod. Even with all that work done you still have not completely "tricked out" your TouchPad until you have installed our brand new theme for your moboot screen. Moboot is what the guys on the Cyanogenmod team created that allows TouchPad owners to dual boot their devices. Without this nifty little program you wouldn't have an easy way to switch back and forth between Android and webOS. With as great as moboot is and as much as we appreciate the hard work of the developers we have to say moboot leaves a lot to be desired in the esthetics department! Luckily ReverendKJR on the Rootzwiki forums did a little conversing with moboot creator jcsullins and came up with a way to theme the ugly black screen for moboot. After reading ReverndKJR's easy instructions on how to build a moboot theme we decided to build our own and share it with our awesome readers. So without further ado we give you the official webOS Nation moboot theme. Installation Note: Must be using moboot 0.3.5 The process of installing our theme (or any moboot theme for that matter) is very straightforward. Simply download the zip file we have put together for you onto the root of your device. If downloading from a computer plug your TouchPad into the computer with your USB cable then drag and drop the zip file onto the root of your device. Remember the download location of the zip file to make it easy to find later. Once you have downloaded the zip file safely to your device boot your TouchPad into ClockworkMod Recovery. After you have ClockworkMod Recovery up use your volume rocker to highlight "install zip from sdcard" and then select it with the back button at the bottom of your TouchPad. Now the first option highlighted should be "choose zip from sdcard" so go ahead and press the back button again to select that option. Once again use your volume rocker to move to the file where you have stored the theme zip file (more than likely the "Download" folder) and press the back button to select and enter that folder. Again using the volume rocker highlight the theme zip and hit the back button to select and install the webOS Nation theme. After installing the theme you can go back to the home menu screen of ClockworkMod recovery and select "reboot system now" to complete the process. Once your TouchPad has rebooted you should now see our awesome moboot theme instead of the dreadful old black one. If for any reason you wish to go back to the stock moboot theme jcsullins has created a zip that will revert moboot to its original state. All you will have to do is install that zip the same way you installed our theme and everything will be back to the way it was. View the full article

Help Us Help You! In our ongoing quest to better serve our community, we want to gain a better understanding into your phone buying habits. Are you buying your next phone in store or online? On contract, off contract or pay as you go? Those are the kinds of questions we're asking on this one. The survey will only take you two minutes or less. Thanks! Take the Survey! View the full article

If there's one thing webOS doesn’t have a lack of is unit converters.The problem here is which one is right for you? From the initial observations of the app catalog it seems to be personality driven. Are you the dark brooding scientist? Are you the perky, verbal mathematician who loves color? Or are you the suited corporate business type, trading currency around the world? Do you like all the bells and whistles, or do you like to keep it simple and streamlined? The following converters have been selected for ease of use, style and ability to hold you attention whilst using them. Well at webOS nation we have found some great converters to suit your personality. read more View the full article

This tip is only for webOS TouchPads running webOS 3.0 or higher webOS 2.1 on phones introduced Exhibition mode to replace the standard lock screen when your phone is on the touchstone charger, providing a unique interactive experience for the user while the phone was still charging. This feature was carried over to the TouchPad and webOS 3.0, even though the phone touchstones were not compatible with the TouchPad and required you to purchase a TouchPad-specific touchstone. And if you have multiple TouchPad touchstones, you can even specify which Exhibition app you want to launch for each touchstone. Once you put the TouchPad on the first touchstone, just select the Exhibition app that you want to run. When you move the TouchPad to a second touchstone you will notice that it loads up the stock clock exhibition app and not the previously selected Exhibition App, requiring you to choose the Exhibition app you want to run on this touchstone. Once you make that selection, you can move back and forth between touchstones and the TouchPad will remember which app was running on the each touchstone charger. View the full article

By now you know how we feel about former HP CEO Léo Apotheker and his reign. Many of the major players in the tech industry - Apple, Google, Microsoft - have charismatic CEOs that act as the sole and unchallenged leaders of their companies. HP is a little more traditional in the Fortune 500 sense, with a Board of Directors tries to stay involved in company business, though it seems that having several competing ideas leads to more drama than we had imagined. Over the past few years everybody in the tech space has seen that HP's board has suffered from no small measure of dysfunction. They've had a revolving door of CEOs - Léo Apotheker's predecessor Mark Hurd had last just five years, and Carly Fiorina before him was forced out after HP's near disastrous merger with Compaq. The board had garnered a reputation of being a leaking sieve to the press, so much so that the chairman had at one point hired private investigators to examine the phone records of other board members and reporters (that ended with a publicly embarrassing trip before a Congressional committee). But none of that compared to the brief reign of Léo Apotheker. Brought on in November 2010 after Hurd's ouster, Apotheker had no hardware experience and had been fired from leading a German enterprise software firm with revenue a fraction that of HP's. His tenure as HP CEO included the unveiling and launch of the HP TouchPad and webOS 3.0 (a project started by Hurd with the acquisition of Palm)., the cancellation of that very product, an ill-advised "exploration" of spinning off HP's PC division, a catastrophic drop in stock value, and his eventual firing by the HP board just eleven months after being brought on. Fortune set out to find out just what happened, interviewing dozens of current and former board members, executives, and employees and examining confidential company and legal documents in the process. What they found is a broken company, struggling to repair itself, with a board full of infighting and open challenges and a chairman desperate to maintain his position while burying over the decisions he'd spearheaded. Not for the first time, the news reached the press before the official announcement. On Sept. 22, Apotheker read that he was being fired and replaced by Whitman. He was flabbergasted. In a meeting that morning, Lane told him that he had lost the support of the board and every single member of the executive team -- including former SAP loyalists such as Homlish. Before the board, Apotheker was subdued, dignified and resigned. But he was incensed. He had fully consulted with the board on everything, he told friends. He'd trusted Lane to make the board a functioning one, but instead Lane had turned it against him. Lane distanced himself from the disaster, blaming Apotheker. The man who'd been proud of HP's bold moves was now running as fast as he could from the word "transformation." It had, Lane said in a conference call with investors, "been stricken from our language." Asked in a CNBC interview whether the board bore responsibility for HP's chaos, Lane reacted defensively. "I'm going to give you an answer right from my heart, okay? In January, I added five board members to this board. This is not the board that was around for pretexting. This is not the board that fired Mark Hurd. It's just like open season to write about this board. It's not this board. This board did not select Léo, okay?" It's a massively long read, but for those interested in just how bad HP got, and how far it has to go, we have to recommend that you head over to Fortune and check it out. It's a doozy. View the full article

There are numerous ways to fool around and make art with your TouchPad. One of those ways is a fun app by Phantom App named Pixelism. As you might gather from the name, Pixelism is pixel art of sorts. With the app you can create from scratch or overlay on existing images your own art built from tiny little stamp-like shapes including squares, triangles, and stars - all in any color you so desire. Normally Pixelism would cost you $1.49 from the App Catalog, but thanks to the developer we have 50 copies to give away to you! Contest: We have 50 copies of Pixelism to give away. Just leave a comment on this post to enter. Contest ends next Sunday at midnight US Eastern Time, after which time we will select 50 random entrants to win. Please only leave one comment, multiple entries won’t count. Promo codes are only valid in countries serviced by the App Catalog, and users must be running webOS 3.0.0 or higher with the latest version of the App Catalog. View the full article

HP is looking for several new webOS team members ranging from software engineers to visual designers to user experience experts according to job listings on HP's Taleo job site. While we are hesitant to take this as signs of things drastically changing for the better on the inside we can't help but feel good knowing that HP is looking to hire some people into the organization after all of the drastic staff cuts in recent months. The job openings come after a hiring freeze was put in place in August immediately following the decision to stop the manufacturing of webOS hardware. HP has exactly twelve job postings live at this time. Four of them are internships, one for the Enyo team, one product management internship, and two user experience design internships. There are also eight other job openings that include two senior interaction designers, two senior visual designers, one network engineer, one senior product manager, one in quality assurance, and one senior cloud services architecture role. A couple of these openings appear to be for the Enyo team, specifically the interaction designers, as they are based out of the San Francisco office where the fine Enyo folks work. We hope the listings continue to expand, especially given the vast number of employees who were laid off. The more employees they have on the team the faster they should be able to get Open webOS out, and the better it should be when it becomes available in September. We do know one of those listings will be coming down fairly soon given that the Enyo team has already hired one of the smartest minds in webOS homebrew, Jason Robitaille, as an intern, unless the Enyo team is actually hiring multiple interns which could certainly help the framework grow to be even bigger and better. View the full article

HP updated the webOS Developer Center today to add in sales reporting graphs, a move presumably brought on or sped up by the planned shuttering of Metrix last month, as well as adding more compliance with state and federal laws requiring developers to provide privacy policies when their apps access certain user data which has been an issue on iOS and Android over the past few months. The App Catalog was updated in weeks prior to allow users to see the app's privacy policy but developers were unable to actually add one in until this past weekend. This new functionality allows a developer to provide a privacy policy for an individual app or a company-wide policy. This should add a bit of reassurance to every user knowing that they should soon see a privacy policy for most, if not all, apps that are required to provide one under applicable state and/or federal laws. The other major update of the day is the addition of sales data in the form of graphs. Earlier today the data was available but many a developer tweeted back to the developer relations team to let them know the displayed numbers were horribly off. I personally noted a nearly twenty-fold increase in numbers under "active users" versus actual download numbers. This is a welcome change, of course, because developers have been asking for an integrated solution for some time now. This does not yet not replace Metrix or true analytics systems, however, because while it does provide some information such as active users and download statistics it falls short of providing detailed user data such as device type, the version of webOS being used, screen resolution, and the language of the users. That data is critical to developers and we hope HP adds at least some of it in to the developer portal, even if it requires an extra Enyo or Mojo library be added to the app. View the full article

If you were to ask any of the webOS faithful what they used their devices for the most you would more than likely hear Twitter from a fistful of them. Outside of our forums here at webOS Nation, Twitter is how most of us keep in touch with one another. We debate, give virtual high fives, discover cool new apps, and keep track of news with Twitter. To say that is important to us would be understating just how much we depend on the popular micro-blogging service. Once upon a time the webOS landscape was full of third party Twitter clients. We never let a little thing like not having an official app stop us because at any given moment we had a multitude of choices to keep us tweeting 'till our hearts content. Over time interest in webOS dwindled and many developers either pulled their apps or abandoned them altogether. The most recent loss was developing house dots and lines pulling their powerhouse Twitter clients Carbon and Graphite. After the initial shock of loosing two of the greatest Twitter apps to ever grace our platform we composed ourselves and ventured off to the App Catalog to see what we could find. This journey turned out to be quite an eye opener for us as it was brought to our attention that good Twitter apps are hard to come by on webOS these days. A quick search of the App Catalog will bring you a fistful of results however with a little research we discovered many of these apps have been rendered useless by Twitter's various API changes over the years. So in the spirit of saving our readers time and money we decided to put together a quick roundup of great Twitter apps. It should be noted that this list contains apps that work as advertised and can be found in the App Catalog. This article is also not intended to compare these apps as we just want to give our readers a quick heads up on what options they have available. read more View the full article