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Hey there webOS developer, have we got a suggestion for you. Frustrated by the lack of a trial option or refunds for your webOS customers? Wish you had a way to offer a free trial that was easy to find? Have we got the answer for you - use Enyo and the web.

Thanks to the nature of webOS and Enyo, developers are proving how easy it in fact is to take an app, even a relatively complex one like Flashcards, and port it to the web browser. Practically any Enyo developer could leverage this flexibility of Enyo to offer their app to anybody with a web browser (especially once Enyo 2.0 comes around). Throw in a cookie to limit usage to a few hours or days or whatever you want and then redirect users to the App Catalog to purchase.

Putting an Enyo app online, even in time-limited fashion, offers something that Apple, Google, BlackBerry, and Microsoft haven’t been able to conjure: more than just an online description and some screenshots, it's the actual app, easily available for anybody to use. And if you're the type of Enyo developer who's porting your app to other platforms (if you aren't, you're silly), you can use the same website to provide a preview of your app for all platforms. Sure, it'll cost a bit up front to set up a website and pay for hosting charges, but you've got to spend money to make money. We can't think of many better ways to spend that money than to actually make it possible for any potential customer to try your app out on any platform.

A few months back, deep in the midst of the TouchPad fire sale, at least a few of HP's webOS tablets shipped out the door and to customers with an unexpected install: Android. While HP never figured out exactly how their internal build of Android got released into the public, they've gone ahead and released the kernel and GPL (General Public License - i.e. open source) components. It's worth noting that releasing this is not something HP had to do - while those that ship Android devices are required by the licensing terms to release the kernel to open source, HP's release was accidental and thus open sourcing was not required - this release can be chalked up to goodwill, even if resulting from being pressured into doing it.

As was noted on RootzWiki, the source code released appears to have been developer separately from webOS on the TouchPad, possibly as a precursor project to HP's acquisition of Palm. The last change in the code was in March 2011, three months before the TouchPad's July 2011 release, but well after HP announced the webOS tablet in February. The crew at RootzWiki is understandably encouraged by the release and intends to adopt various portions into the CyanogenMod 9 Android 4.0 port.

Source: RootzWiki; Via: WebOS Internals (Twitter)

Good news, webOS Nation: Theme Manager is now available! The Enyo-based app by Janne Julkunen (better known around these parts as homebrew master coder Sconix) is now available from WebOS Internals and stands ready to safely install, remove, and mix-and-match your themes.

Thanks to AUSMT, Theme Manager is 100% update safe, meaning you shouldn't have to panic about removing themes before installing an update to webOS. The app can manage both ZIP- and IPK-packaged themes, both side-loaded and downloaded. Themes are even applied in the background by Theme Manager, though a quick Luna Restart may be required afterwards for the changes to take affect.

Have multiple themes and like to switch things up? You can actually mix-and-match parts from multiple themes - a wallpaper from here, icons from there, a boot logo from that one, and system menus from the other one. You can even just pick an aspect or two from a single theme and add them to the default theme - just pick that one part of the theme you like and hit the apply button.

We're working on adapting our own themes gallery here at webOS Nation to be Theme Manager compatible, in the meantime developers interested in packaging their themes for compatibility can find instructions on how to make that happen at the source link below.

Source: WebOS Internals; Via: Janne Julkunen (@therealsconix)

So far 3D in smartphones has proven to be a bit of a gimmick. At least we don't have to wear glasses to make it work with devices like the Android-powered HTC Evo 3D, but as it turns out - you don't need a 3D device to take 3D pictures. You can do it with your webOS smartphone and Stereo Camera by AJGF Projects. The app works thanks to the magic of stereoscopy, taking two horizontally separated photos and then 'diverging' your eyes when viewing them. You know, like those Magic Eye books. Stereo Camera allows you to do that with your webOS phone in landscape and portrait, just look un-cross-eyed at the resulting image to see it in magical three dimensions. Normally Stereo Camera would cost you a dollar from the App Catalog, but this week we've got 100 copies to give away to you!

Contest: We have 100 copies of Stereo Camera 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 100 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 2.1 or higher with the latest version of the App Catalog.

This weekend's post from webOS developer Dan Perlberger on dealing with app piracy has generated one of the best conversations on the issue I think I've ever seen. A lot of opposing voices have been brought into the discussion, with good points made on both sides of the issue (as always, we remain opposed to piracy here at webOS Nation). One point in particular worth noting is the availability, rather the lack of availability, for apps internationally. There are three levels of app availability: (1) the United States, where 99% of apps are available; (2) the approved international market - Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Singapore, New Zealand, Spain, and the UK - which has a healthy majority of the US apps, plus a smattering of country-specific apps that for whatever reason haven't been made available elsewhere, but lacks a good chunk of apps that are for whatever reason only available in the US, and (3) everybody else.

Group numero uno makes out like gangbusters when it comes to app selection on webOS [insert USA chant here]. The approved countries in the second group do alright too - it's up to app developers to submit their apps for these countries. Group three - everybody in other countries that have gone out of their way to purchase webOS devices - they get the real short end of the stick.

As developers in the piracy conversation pointed out, they will gladly deal directly with outside-of-the-system international users to get the app they so desire, but that shouldn't have to be the case. A user shouldn't have to track down who the developer is, hope they'll be willing to send over an IPK, and hook up with them over PayPal.

So here's today's webOS wish list item: a truly global App Catalog. We certainly understand the pain that could come from trying to set up credit card agreements overseas, so here's a solution: allow users to pay with PayPal. Or set up a system where they can purchase credit in the store instead, certainly that'd be easier to put together (plus it would lay the infrastructure for App Catalog gift certificates).

On the developer front, simplify things there too. Instead of having a developer submitting click off each country in which they want their app to be available, give them the option to click 'global' and automatically enable app sales in any new countries added after their last update.

webOS fans are a strangely dedicated bunch. For all this platform and community has been through over the past few years, HP should definitely take the time to put together a system for international app purchases. These people deserve it for the lengths they've gone through to acquire devices, and they shouldn't feel they have to resort to piracy to get apps on them. In fact, HP, this really isn't a wish list item. Wish list means "I'd like for this to happen." No, this needs to happen.

HP CEO Meg Whitman isn't making out like a bandit as much as her predecessor, but she still has potential to do pretty well for herself as HP's chief executive. She agreed to a salary of one dollar a year, plus bonuses and stock options. With 2012 closed out, HP filed with the SEC their customary forms, including disclosures about how much Whitman and the rest of the executive team were compensated for their time and effort.

For her part, Whitman received her $1.00 paycheck, $372,598 in "other compensation" and stock awards worth* more than $16 million. We put an asterisk on 'worth' for a reason - they're only worth that and only available if Whitman can get HP's stock price up. The stock options are broken into two 800,000 block units, the first vesting on her one-year anniversary as HP CEO (22 September 2012) if HP's shares close above $28.31 for 20 consecutive days. The second block comes due a year later at $33.03 per share. As you can imagine, should Whitman be able to hit those marks, she'll have quite the nice payday as a result. Currently, shares of HPQ are trading around $28.76.

We've always been fans of performance-based compensation here - giving the executives a stake in the company gives them motivation to work extra hard. That said, even though they're practically an industry standard, there's something about tying that to the stock price that doesn't sit well with us. The stock price is a general summation of the company's worth, and that includes metrics like market share and profit. But the stock price is also focused almost exclusively on the short term - on the next quarter. A few good quarters can mask a lot of underlying structural problems in a company. Stock-based compensation is centered around the personal enrichment of the executive as a result of the enrichment of the company.

We suppose that's not a bad thing, so long as the deal is structured competently. What we finally got a glimpse into HP's filings is the result of a bad deal: Leo Apotheker. The ousted HP CEO's 11 month reign of terror included a much criticized $10-billion acquisition, the thought of splitting of HP's profitable PC division, and the closure of webOS hardware development. During his time at HP, Apotheker brought in $1.15 million in salary, a $4 million signing bonus, $2.4 million severance payment, $17 million in stock, $2.9 million in relocation expenses, and $1.7 million in non-competition payments (perhaps HP should have paid Apotheker to go work somewhere else). Yup, Apotheker made nearly $30 million in the course of wrecking HP and slashing its valuation by 40%. Contrast this with Whitman's compensation package and you can see that the HP Board of Directors learned its lesson the hard way.

Source: AP; Via: The Verge

The first Enyo open source framework-based apps to land on other platforms flew quickly to Android and the world wide web. One of those was James Harris' Flashcards, now suffixed with a "To Go", which blasted onto the web and brought cross-platform synchronization into the mix. Today Harris' app took the Enyo jump onto two more platforms, Android tablets (like Paper Mache before it) and - a new one for Enyo, as far as we're aware - the Apple iPad. As both Android and iOS support webapps, even complex ones like Flashcards To Go, the app works the same way and brings the same Enyo-styled user interface webOS users are accustomed to to the other platforms.

On both iPad and Android, Flashcards To Go is retailing for $3.99 - a dollar less than on webOS. Of course, on Android and iOS, Harris and other Enyo developers will have a much larger audience to which they can market and sell their app, reducing the overhead costs of that deployment. In fact, if HP can convince more developers to develop in Enyo first for the cross-platform appeal, we might end up seeing more and less expensive apps on webOS as a result. Of course, that's all contingent upon HP being able to convince those developers.

Source: Android Market, iTunes App Store

Over the past several months we've watched HP's webOS work force get chopped in half and suffer some pretty serious attrition, all thanks to HP's former lack-of-a-plan. That's now getting resolved, but what was once a thousand-plus-strong workforce at the Palm, Inc. HQ in Sunnyvale, California, has been reduced to a few hundred. As such, the three buildings that make up the Palm campus are, well, they're too much space for the webOS group. HP's been looking to consolidate their operations for some time, and the Palm campus is going to play a role in that.

In dual messages sent to HP employees by Personal Systems Group EVP Todd Bradley, webOS Software Engineering SVP Ari Jaaksi, and webOS CTO Sam Greenblatt, HP outlined its plans to move the webOS group out of Sunnyvale and into the former ArcSight building, seven miles away at 5 Results Way in Cupertino. HP purchased security firm ArcSight in 2010 and has since integrated its workforce into HP locations - the building used to house somewhere between 300 and 500 workers.

After webOS moves out of the old Palm campus, HP will be moving in with PSG employees from Cupertino, a change from mid-2010 plans to move that crew to HP's corporate headquarters in Palo Alto. Todd Bradley, formerly CEO of Palm, knows the space in Sunnyvale fairly well, telling those moving in that their "future home offers thoughtfully designed work environments and a large variety of meeting locations intended to build a sense of community. We will retain its current furniture and workplace layout. This location also provides sufficient lab and office space to meet our Bay Area needs." No word if Bradley himself will be taking his old office back, especially now that fellow former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein has left the building.

The move from 950 W Maude Ave. will be bittersweet for the webOS group - that location has been the home of Palm for over a decade. The memo sent to the webOS group describes the rationale behind the move as getting them all into one space appropriate for their needs, instead of spreading them between the three buildings in Sunnyvale. The ArcSight building is described as having "lots of spaces designed for collaboration and working in teams—with each other and with the broader webOS community" and "a clean modern design suited for developing the future of an important technology."

The move is expected to take place in second half of this year. The memos are both in full after the break, as well as the best picture of the old ArcSight building we could find. Start saying your goodbyes to Sunnyvale, and look out Apple - somebody else is moving into Cupertino!

Derek and Adam discuss HP's open source roadmap, Enyo everywhere, Jon Rubinstein's departure, and apps - what else?

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Synergy is awesome, and it's been awesome since Palm unveiled it as part of webOS way back at the beginning of 2009. The simplicity of webOS' linked contacts has yet to be matched by any other OS maker, but there hasn't been much of any iteration on that theme in the last three years. And in some ways the competition has moved beyond what Synergy does in its current state. Since the start, Facebook has been available as a contact sync option, and later on LinkedIn was added. Yet, the only thing that these social networks are able to pull down is basic contact info - none of the actual social stuff makes it into the Synergy mix.

With the possibility of Twitter making it into Synergy as well, we think it's time for an extension of what Synergy pulls in, and it's a relatively simple one: social status. Link a Facebook account to a contact and whenever you view that person via the Contacts app, it quickly downloads the most recent status update. Throw in LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ (once they make an API), and all the rest. Sort them by most recent update and launch the appropriate app or mobile site to that status when tapped on. And if you want to get real fancy, include the single most recent status update under that contact in Just Type search results.

Have your own thoughts on this wish list entry? Of course you do - the comments are below. Surely you have your own ideas as to what ought be on the webOS wish list, and so we've created a forum thread just for what is sure to be an awesome discussion.