Mobile Internet Solutions » Palm (HP)

Open WebOS 1.0 Coming in September

lesliemanzara — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:49:06 +0000

Adrian Covert, Gizmodo, 1/25/2012

When HP kinda, sorta killed webOS as a money making endeavor, they promised to keep it alive as an open source project, but offered little in the way of concrete details. According to The Verge they’ve partially pulled back the curtain, revealing that Open webOS 1.0 should arrive in September. Along with news of the OS’ rebirth, they also released the 1.0 version of their Javascript-based Enyo framework for Javascript app, and it contains parts of what will come in the 2.0 release. The 2.0 components will allow apps developed for webOS to run on other platforms and browsers.

HP confirms WebOS smartphones coming soon Tony Bradley, PC World, 10/7/2010 To paraphrase American author Mark...
HP throws WebOS to open source community Iain Thomson, The Register, 12/9/2011 HP will bite the bullet...
Palm’s Results Still Good, and webOS Update Is Coming Jennifer LeClaire, Mobile Tech Today, 12/18/2009 Palm reported a drop...

HP throws WebOS to open source community

lesliemanzara — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:40:31 +0000

Iain Thomson, The Register, 12/9/2011

HP will bite the bullet and dump the WebOS operating system on the open source community.

The company made the announcement, as expected, that it would no longer sell the software and instead will transfer the source code, along with the ENYO application framework for WebOS and the remaining components of the user space, to the community in the near future. HP said that it will continue to work on the code, but gave no details of what that support might entail.

“WebOS is the only platform designed from the ground up to be mobile, cloud-connected and scalable,” said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer, in a statement. “By contributing this innovation, HP unleashes the creativity of the open source community to advance a new generation of applications and devices.”

The move is a pretty humiliating climb-down for HP. It paid $1.2bn for Palm last year, saying it would put WebOS on every PC, printer and tablet that left HP’s factories. WebOS would be available on all HP’s computers as a dual boot option, Leo Apotheker promised, and Touchpad sales would give Apple something to worry about.

The reality proved vastly different, not least for Apotheker. The buying public gave a poor reception of HP’s short-lived Touchpad (unless the price was cut to $99) and developers, who had been at the heart of Palm’s early success, were ignored or fed misinformation. WebOS, despite being, at its core, as good as anything else on the market, began to die from lack of interest and support.

HTC, Samsung, and others had been mentioned as possible buyers for the operating system, but with Android dominant, Apple doing well and Microsoft promising to unleash a tsunami of support for Windows Phone, no one was really going to pay that much for the OS as it stood. It’s now hoped that open source enthusiasts will keep the operating system alive, but essentially that’s the end of the line for Palm’s ambitions in the handheld computing market. ®

How Important Is Open Source To Mobile Devices? Ed Hansberry, Linux Today, 10/28/2009 Open Source software has been...
Open WebOS 1.0 Coming in September Adrian Covert, Gizmodo, 1/25/2012 When HP kinda, sorta killed webOS...
What Is the Top Mobile Platform for Open Source Developers? Michael Kerner, Developer.com, 3/17/2010 Mobile platforms like Apple’s iPhone and...

HP readies fresh WebOS update

lesliemanzara — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:26:57 +0000

Tony Smith, Hardware, 12/7/2011

HP CEP Meg Whitman is expected to announce the fate of WebOS next week. If the claimed imminent release of version 3.0.5 of the tablet’n'phone operating system is correct, the omens for the OS may be good.

HP released WebOS 3.0.4 in October and its successor’s first Release Candidate has just been issued to developers, PreCentral reports.

Like the previous version, WebOS 3.0.5 is all about fixing bugs rather than adding new features.

Of course, if HP really wants rid of WebOS, why bother devoting resources – programmers, update servers and such – to the operating system’s upkeep?

We’ll know soon enough. At the end of November, Whitman said she will pronounce her verdict on the future of WebOS. Some 600 software engineers and other WebOS workers are awaiting the announcement with some trepidation.

“We should announce our decision in the next two weeks,” she said in an interview published on 30 November by French paper Le Figaro. ®

Palm’s Results Still Good, and webOS Update Is Coming Jennifer LeClaire, Mobile Tech Today, 12/18/2009 Palm reported a drop...
HP throws WebOS to open source community Iain Thomson, The Register, 12/9/2011 HP will bite the bullet...
Crosstalk for webOS enables easy Wi-Fi file sharing between devices Lee Mathews, DownloadSquad, 2/8/2011 HP is holding a big webOS...

What Mobile Consolidation? Canonical Wants Ubuntu On Smartphones, Tablets

lesliemanzara — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:50:05 +0000

Tom Krazit, MocoNews, 10/31/2011

At least one company thinks the world hungers for another mobile operating system. Canonical, the company that builds and maintains Ubuntu Linux, is planning to release a version of their operating system for smartphones and tablets.

ZDNet scored an interview with Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth, who discussed plans for mobile Ubuntu ahead of Canonical’s developer conference this week. The timing is uncertain, as it doesn’t appear that Canonical has even started the project, but Shuttleworth said the company is seeing the same trends that all of us are: the world is embracing mobile devices built around touch-screen user interfaces.

Linux on the desktop PC remains a bit of a joke despite years of promises that it could supplant Windows and Mac OS as a true alternative. But the mobile world is certainly different, with Google’s Android using Linux code at its heart to help it become the world’s most widely used mobile operating system in just a few short years.

It’s not clear what Canonical and Ubuntu would bring to the table in a crowded mobile world. Already this year we’ve seen HP all but throw in the towel on WebOS development, paring the number of viable mobile operating systems from five to four. Still, only two are truly relevant, as RIM is moving as quickly as possible to embrace the QNX operating system across its flagship BlackBerry devices and Windows Phone struggles to find converts. And we’re already starting to see signs of “app fatigue” inside even big companies fed up with supporting multiple mobile environments.

There’s a school of thought, however, that if the mobile Web lives up to its promise that the underlying operating system becomes less important: apps will run on any mobile device in the browser. There’s another school of thought (articulated by Shuttleworth in the article) that current Android hardware partners are looking for another mobile operating system in the wake of Google’s decision to purchase Motorola. Microsoft and Windows Phone were expected to win much of that business, should things come to that end, but another Linux-based mobile OS that perhaps offered as much customization as Android could be appealing.

Ubuntu Extends Cloud Service to Smartphones Ryan Kim, GigaOM, 10/7/2010 The latest release of the free...
Ubuntu – yes, Ubuntu – poised for mobile melee Matt Asay, The Register, 1/18/2011 The enterprise world may increasingly...
Ubuntu One to Offer Music Streaming to iPhone and Android, Windows Client Kevin Purdy, LifeHacker, 10/7/2010 We mentioned the rather nifty cloud-syncing/mobile-streaming...

Google+ for Android gets key feature: Reshare

lesliemanzara — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:55:50 +0000

Stephen Shankland, CNET News, 8/25/2011

One of the first things I looked for in the Android app for using Google+ was an option to reshare posts with others. Today, Google delivered it.

And I’m not alone. Resharing was the top-requested feature for using Google’s social network on mobile devices.

“The Google+ Android app update includes our No. 1 most requested mobile feature, resharing posts,” said mobile product mamager Ben Eidelson in a YouTube video. The feature is in Google+ for Android 1.0.6.

To use it, users tap on a post, then tap on the three dots in the upper right signifying actions they can take with it. The “share” option lets people share the post publicly or just to circles.

The feature stands to significantly improve the activity on mobile devices, where it’s often handy to forward an e-mail or retweet a tweet–activities that are a lot easier than creating an original post from scratch.

The feature won’t be limited to the Android app, of course.

“Don’t worry, iOS and Web app folks, reshare is coming soon for you too!” added Punit Soni, the lead product manager for Google+ games and mobile, in a Google+ post.

Google intros “Near me now” feature for Android and iPhone Todd Haselton, MobileBurn, 1/8/2010 Google recently announced a new LBS...
Android 2.2 to feature USB + WiFi tethering as standard Simon Chester, MobileCrunch, 5/13/2010 TechCrunch, found out today that the...
Google Offers Click-to-Call Feature for Mobile Ads Jennifer LeClaire, Mobile Tech Today, 1/29/2010 Google has added a...

Apple’s iOS unaffected by malware as Android exploits surge 76%

lesliemanzara — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 18:14:59 +0000

Josh Ong, AppleInsider, 8/24/2011

A new study has found that iOS remained untouched by malware during the second quarter, while Android faced 76 percent more threats than in the first quarter, making it the most targeted mobile platform.

McAfee detailed the information in its Second Quarter 2011 Threats Report, noting that the “threat landscape of 2011 is undergoing a year of chaos and change,” as noted by MacNN.

Google’s Android platform jumped from being the third-most targeted platform for mobile malware in the first quarter to taking the number one spot with 44 cases of malware. Java ME, the second-most targeted platform, had one-third the volume with just 14 exploits.

“This increase in threats to such a popular platform should make us evaluate our behavior on mobile devices and the security industry’s preparedness to combat this growth,” the report said.

Several security firms warned early this month that Android has become increasingly susceptible to attack, while at the same time noting that Apple’s platform is relatively more secure than its rival. In June, Symantec issued a report that found iOS to have “full protection” against malware attacks, while Android was characterized as having “little protection.”

McAfee did note that Apple’s Mac platform has faced a threat from a fake anti-virus malware called MacDefender. The firm speculated that such attacks would eventually make their way to the iPhone and iPad, calling it a “case of “when” rather than “if.”"

In addition to Apple’s iOS, HP’s webOS was the only other mobile platform to avoid any attacks, though the platform’s inability to attract user interest may explain the lack of malware.

Intel surprised Wall Street by purchasing McAfee last year for $7.68 billion. The world’s largest chipmaker has expressed an interest in implementing security features at the chip level with the help of McAfee.

Android, Symbian have most malware among mobile platforms Dan Seifert, MobileBurn, 6/2/2011 A new report on mobile security...
Malware writers gunning for Google Android Ellen Messmer, Network World, 5/10/2011 Apple iPhone threats increasing, but...
Expensive malware appears for Microsoft’s Windows Mobile Prince McLean, AppleInsider, 6/5/2010 Malware embedded into legitimate-looking games designed...

Google move hints at Chrome for Android

lesliemanzara — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:03:35 +0000

Stephen Shankland, CNet News, 8/23/2011

Android‘s unbranded browser is coming back into the WebKit fold.

The software–called simply “Browser” on Android phones and tablets–is based on the open-source browser engine called WebKit. It’s long been disassociated from it, though, and now Google is trying to reunite the projects in a move that could portend the arrival of a branded Chrome on Android.

“We’re looking forward to a much better collaboration with the WebKit community,” Google’s Andrei Popescu said yesterday in a mailing list message flagged by new Chrome developer Peter Beverloo and spotted by TechCrunch.

Convergence between the Android browser and Chrome seems inevitable. Tablets bring a more PC-like experience to browsing, and Google is of course keen on tablets with the arrival of version 3 of Android, aka Honeycomb. Google TV, also based on Android, has a browser that sports the Chrome brand. But what’s been keeping them apart?

At the Google I/O show in May, Chrome Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai said it’s because, although the browsers share some common code, the Android browser is “not based on Chromium,” the open-source version of Chrome. The implication was that the Chrome brand name carries a certain promise of Web page compatibility that the Android browser couldn’t necessarily fulfill.

By merging with the WebKit project, though, that barrier will be overcome. “We’re fully committed to maintaining this new flavor of the Chromium port of WebKit,” Popescu said in the message.

And when Beverloo filed a WebKit but to track the project, he said, “The Android Browser has come to a point where it shares enough code with Chrome to entirely reuse the Chromium port of WebKit.”

The change is good news, according to Dion Almaer, a browser and Web development expert who mentioned the move on the Function Source blog today.

“Having watched my team deal with painful Android WebKit bugs for the last few weeks, I am very glad to read more news that the Android WebKit is getting Chrome-ier,” Almaer said. “When you go deep on making a rich Web application work there, you find sharp corners all over the shop.”

In other words, he expects some of the compatibility issues separating Chrome and the Android browser to diminish.

Google wouldn’t comment on its branding plans for the browser. In a statement today, the company said:

The Android Browser and Chrome already share a lot of code, such as the same WebKit rendering engine, V8 JavaScript engine, and HTTP [Hypertext Transfer Protocol] stack. We expect them to continue to share more code over time and have actually started harmonizing our efforts so that Google will have just one port of WebKit to maintain. Beyond that, we have nothing further to share at this time.

It seems to me the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android, due later this year, would be a great time to make the branding change. This version of the mobile operating system is designed to bridge the current divide between Android 2.x for phones and Android 3.x for tablets and to make it easier for Android app programmers to support multiple devices.

But re-integrating the Android browser with WebKit will take time–and it requires more than just Google’s Chrome programmers working with Google’s Android browser programmers. WebKit began as an Apple project spawned from the earlier KHTML browser engine used in the KDE interface for Linux, so other developers are involved.

One potential benefit to Google’s move is a more mature mobile browser for others. Safari on iOS uses WebKit, and so do browsers for new BlackBerry phones, Samsung Bada phones, Hewlett-Packard’s ill-fated WebOS, and more. Open-source software makes sharing software easier, and Google’s goals with browsers are not so much to profit directly from its own product as to improve browsing in general so the Web becomes more powerful.

Google sometimes keeps variations of open-source projects in-house. The Linux kernel used in Android, for example, is fairly detached from the mainstream Linux kernel project maintained by Linus Torvalds. That doesn’t violate any laws and gives Google the ability to control its own destiny a bit better, but as a practical matter, the open-source philosophy works better when projects aren’t fragmented and out of sync.

It’s a two-way road, too: Google should have an easier time incorporating others’ changes into the Android browser. If Apple comes up with a clever CSS feature, for example, it’ll be less effort for Google to incorporate it.

Thus, overall, Google’s WebKit move with its Android browser seems helpful for Web developers, browser makers, and Android users. And one last point: there’s no doubt that Google, which is sensitive to branding issues, would love to see that Chrome icon publicized on millions of smartphones.

Chrome to Phone now available in Android Market Ross Miller, Engadget, 8/12/2010 Chrome to Phone isn’t a new...
Google Chrome Becomes Location Aware Frederic Lardinois, ReadWriteWeb, 3/4/2010 Google just launched the latest developer...
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AT&T expands its mobile app services

lesliemanzara — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 22:21:06 +0000

Matt Hamblen. Computerworld. 8/22/2011

Businesses get a fully-managed mobile app development service and cloud storage

AT&T has expanded its mobile application services for businesses, offering them a fully-managed service for building apps on various mobile platforms and storage of the apps in AT&T’s cloud.

The service, announced today, is available in 220 countries. AT&T didn’t specify pricing, saying it would vary depending on the needs of each business.

The services offered include integration of a company’s mobile apps with existing office systems; access to development teams to plan and build mobile apps; and management of apps in AT&T’s network-based cloud.

The AT&T managed service also provides mobile development software from Pyxis Mobile. According to AT&T’s website, the services support a variety of mobile operating systems, including Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Palm OS, and Windows Mobile.

An AT&T spokeswoman said the service is already being used by some customers, including the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, which just launched a camping and recreation locator mobile app. The app shows mobile users information about campgrounds, hiking trails and visitor centers and will be expanded to help users make campground reservations or buy a fishing license from a mobile device.

All of the major U.S. carriers offer services related to mobile device management and app development, sometimes by partnering with third parties. Sprint recently said it will set up cloud services for business customers later this year and will offer a variety of software and security applications.

IDC, which tracks carriers and companies that offer a complete MEAP (Mobile Enterprise Application Platform), has forecast that the MEAP market will reach $930 million in 2014 after starting from nearly zero just two years ago.

Cloud services spurring mobile enterprise apps Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service, 10/29/2010 Some enterprises are finding...
RIM links with Microsoft for cloud services Iain Thomson, The Register, 10/25/2011 RIM has begun a beta...
RIM Expands Developer Tool Set Eric M. Zeman, PhoneScoop, 11/9/2009 Research In Motion introduced a...

Apple looks at device-to-device transfers while competition heats up

lesliemanzara — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 13:57:42 +0000

Casey Johnston, Ars Technica, 7/8/2011

Apple appears to be getting on board with a trend that other companies have already made significant headway on: wirelessly transferring content between devices with different owners. PatentlyApple has dug up a patent application from last year showing the various ways Apple thinks consumers might want to flick, vacuum, or pour files from one device to another.

Apple took a big step toward seamless content transfers with the introduction of iCloud, but that only handles the devices of one user. Apple’s competitors are currently a step ahead when it comes to sharing information between devices that aren’t necessarily tied to the same user account. (For example, Google has the unreleased Deep Shot, while HP has webOS’s Touch to Share.)

In its patent application, Apple shows various ways that files could be sent from one device to another, such as “pouring”—tipping the first gadget over the second like a tea kettle and letting the files tumble out. Another method involves moving one device—say, an iPhone—over the display of another, like an iPad. While the iPhone moves over the surface of the iPad, it would suck up the displayed files, like a vacuum.

Another sharing method strongly resembles the capabilities of the upcoming Wii U controller. Apple proposes that one device could send a file, picture, or piece of data to another by simply flicking it in that device’s direction, even across a room. Apple also includes examples in the application of this sharing method being used to move files to broader categories of computer devices, like projection screens or electronic whiteboards.

The patent application is mostly conceptual and lacks technical details, such as whether devices sharing with each other would have to be connected via Bluetooth. And, as always, a patent application doesn’t mean it will be implemented. Still, we expect Apple to move on these transferring techniques soon, given the progress of similar technologies from competitors. After all, what’s a shiny gadget owner to do when he wants to show his friends a picture—let them handle his phone with their greasy fingers?

RIM Making Necessary Changes as Smartphone Competition Heats Up Michael Barkoviak, Daily Tech, 2/8/2010 RIM making adjustments to better...
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iOS, Android Big With Developers; Mobile Web Further Along Than You Think

lesliemanzara — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 22:19:40 +0000

MocoNews.net, 6/8/2011

Android and Apple have the greatest mindshare among mobile developers, but if you were wondering who is the strongest third player right now, walk right past Windows Phone, WebOS and RIM and stop at none other than the mobile web.

Research presented by VisionMobile today at the Open Mobile Summit found that while Android and Apple’s iOS are currently the most-used platforms by developers—at 67 percent and 59 percent respectively—the mobile web is not that far behind, with 57 percent developing for the cross-platform platform. That represents a leap of some 16 percent for the mobile web over last year:

And what about when the question gets turned around, to ask what platforms are getting abandoned in the future by developers?

Unsurprisingly, the list is led by Symbian, which Nokia is outsourcing to Accenture and has promised it would only continue to support until 2016 (and of course that might get revised again). Other “losers” include WAC—the platform created by a consortium of operators but yet to yield any actual products. Java is getting less attention, too, as feature phones become less popular; as is PalmOS as HP puts more effort into its new WebOS—although that, too, comes up on the list (sorry, HP):

The growing interest in, and activity on, the mobile web is being borne out by lots of developments of late on the platform. High profile web app launches from the likes of Twitter and the FT have given the platform a new look from consumers.

And although the mobile web is still limited in its scope compared to the capabilities of native apps, that appears to be slowly changing: Gavin Stirrat, MD at Millennial Media, noted how the latest release of Safari for iOS lets developers incorporate the use of the iPhone’s accelerometer into ad content. Features like this will ultimately make the switch from the two platforms more seamless, and significantly more attractive for developers.

App Developers Not Happy With Android Om Malik, GigaOM, 11/30/2009 With dozens of Android-based smartphones likely...
Gartner: bullish on Android, bearish on Windows Phone 7 Clint Boulton, Linux Today, 9/12/2010 Google Android will become the...
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