HP's decision means webOS could end up more open than Android
1–10 of 21 posts
Re: HP's decision means webOS could end up more open than Android
#2Exciting. In some ways webOS seems more modern and advanced than iOS and Android because it's using web / cloud paradigms at it's absolute core.
Even though I run iOS, the fact that you can build entire apps in Javascript is cool. Hopefully I can get my hands on a touchpad to try it out
Re: HP's decision means webOS could end up more open than Android
#3Or it could end up dead. No products = no development. No development = dead.
WebOS will have exactly the same fate as so many great OS that had zero commercial backing, let alone products. Let alone that it'll fall massively behind the current market leaders and never be able to catch up again..
Re: HP's decision means webOS could end up more open than Android
#4Or it could end up dead. No products = no development. No development = dead. WebOS will have exactly the same fate as so many great OS that had zero commercial backing, let alone products. Let alone that it'll fall massively behind the current market leaders and never be able to catch up again..
I bet Samsung, HTC, Sony, etc. all want to reduce their reliance on Android now that Google will soon own Motorola.
Re: HP's decision means webOS could end up more open than Android
#5Or it could end up dead. No products = no development. No development = dead. WebOS will have exactly the same fate as so many great OS that had zero commercial backing, let alone products. Let alone that it'll fall massively behind the current market leaders and never be able to catch up again..
Open dead is better than closed dead. I've got an Aureal 3D sound card which works perfectly with its Windows 95 drivers. The company died, took its software with it, and that card is landfill material rather than happily providing beeps, bloops, and buzzes in a Linux box.
Re: HP's decision means webOS could end up more open than Android
#6WebOS UI could easily run atop an Android kernel. Programming in some nice web-based toolkit instead of java-like stuff would be a godsend (PS: I always hated java to the bones).
Re: HP's decision means webOS could end up more open than Android
#7Or it could end up dead. No products = no development. No development = dead. WebOS will have exactly the same fate as so many great OS that had zero commercial backing, let alone products. Let alone that it'll fall massively behind the current market leaders and never be able to catch up again..
I bet Samsung, HTC, Sony, etc. all want to reduce their reliance on Android now that Google will soon own Motorola.
I'd rather see them a more open alternative like WebOS than WP7, which hasn't been successful for them so far anyway. I love Android, but a strong WebOS alternative would be great.
Re: HP's decision means webOS could end up more open than Android
#8WebOS UI could easily run atop an Android kernel. Programming in some nice web-based toolkit instead of java-like stuff would be a godsend (PS: I always hated java to the bones).
No, it couldn't.
If by "Android kernel" you mean the full richness of the existing APIs, the UI framework, UI conventions etc., then no, you can't just mash up two full-featured OS who both need exclusive access to hardware, have their own UI conventions, APIs, different ways of doing the same things (like showing notifications, switching between applications) etc.
If by "Android kernel" you mean "slightly modified Linux kernel that Android uses" then technically yes but it's a meaningless statement. WebOS already uses (possibly slightly modified) Linux kernel, the kernel changes constitute about 0.1% of their code and they are not what defines Android or WebOS.
Re: HP's decision means webOS could end up more open than Android
#9WebOS UI could easily run atop an Android kernel. Programming in some nice web-based toolkit instead of java-like stuff would be a godsend (PS: I always hated java to the bones).
No, it couldn't. If by "Android kernel" you mean the full richness of the existing APIs, the UI framework, UI conventions etc., then no, you can't just mash up two full-featured OS who both need exclusive access to hardware, have their own UI conventions, APIs, different ways of doing the same things (like showing notifications, switching between applications) etc. If by "Android kernel" you mean "slightly modified L…
The inverse is more useful.
webOS running with an interface to the Android market and ability to run Android apps. It should not be that hard to get that working if people pitch in to help.
- Dalvik needs to work under webOS which should be a recompile and some changes. There's also Alien.
- Android apps need to have a generic wrapper to put them into webOS cards.
- Some other interface issues to clean up.
So, who wants to help do this?
PS: FWIW, webOS essentially uses an Android kernel already.
Re: HP's decision means webOS could end up more open than Android
#10Exciting. In some ways webOS seems more modern and advanced than iOS and Android because it's using web / cloud paradigms at it's absolute core. Even though I run iOS, the fact that you can build entire apps in Javascript is cool. Hopefully I can get my hands on a touchpad to try it out
Interestingly enough isn't that how iOS started out? At least to some extend.
It would be interesting to know how mobile/web would look today if Apple didn't introduce native apps and instead fully committed to web apps.