webOS Nation Best of 2012 Award Winners 3

2012 was a weird year for webOS, and we decided it was best if the webOS Nation Best of 2012 Awards reflected that. As did you, with nearly four thousand votes cast, it's time to reveal the winners…

2012 Homebrew Project of the Year

Winner: Open webOS for Galaxy Nexus by WebOS Ports

Unsurprisingly, the WebOS Ports-led project of porting Open webOS to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus was the overwhelming winner of this category. The project, underway in visible earnest since late September, has made considerable progress bringing Open webOS to the then top-tier open source Android hardware.

Runner-up: Google Maps by 72ka

2012 Homebrew App of the Year

Winner: Google Maps by 72ka

Supporting both webOS tablets and smartphones, the homebrew Google Maps composed by developer 72ka is chock-full of features that we never fathomed would come to webOS mapping. It's become our go-to mapping application on webOS.

Runner-up: App Tuckerbox

2012 Homebrew Patch of the Year

Winner: webOS Scrollbars by isagar2004

It's almost unfathomable that scrollbars haven't ever been a part of webOS, but this patch by isagar2004 made it happen and made it happen with style.

Runner-up: AIOSettings by Garrett92c

2012 Open webOS Improvement of the Year

Winner: Enyo 2.0

The next-generation cross-platform application framework that is Enyo 2.0 was far-and-away the winning selection for Open webOS improvement of the year, even with a small but growing number of applications written off of it we couldn't help but be impressed by its versatility.

Runner-up: Linux Standard Kernel 3.3

2012 Open webOS Project Device of the Year

Winner: Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Beating-out devices like the hacker-favorite Raspberry Pi and the pricey Samsung Series 7 Slate, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus came out ahead as the readers' favorite Open webOS port device of 2012, which is no surprise given the tremendous progress made by WebOS Ports on the affordable and hackable smartphone.

Runner-up: Raspberry Pi

2012's Biggest webOS Story

Winner: Open webOS OE booted onto Galaxy Nexus by WebOS Ports

The big news wasn't the release of Open webOS 1.0, no, it was WebOS Ports getting Open webOS up and running - albeit in an early alpha form - on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the space of a few hours.

Runner-up: Gram working with LG on an Open webOS TV

2012's Biggest webOS Failure

Winner: Open webOS will not support existing webOS devices

As exciting as many of 2012's developments were in the open source space of Open webOS, we weren't without disappointments. Chief among them: the news that existing webOS devices not only weren't going to get an official release of Open webOS; they weren't even going to be compatible in any way, shape, or form. But that sting of rejection isn't anything new to the webOS community...

Runner-up: HP writes down $8.8 billion over 'improprieties' in the Autonomy acquisition (i.e. they lied)

2012 Unreleased webOS Device of the Year

Winner: HP TouchPad Go

In a battle royale of never saw the light of day, it came down to the wire between the seven-inch HP TouchPad Go tablet and the keyboardless HP WindsorNot smartphone. Neither saw store shelves or mass production, but both warmed their way into our hearts with the thoughts of an alternate universe where we all have goatees we can stroke while we ponder the awesome webOS devices in our hands.

Runner-up: HP WindsorNot

Our thanks to everybody who voted and helped with the selection of the webOS Nation Best of 2012 Awards. It's been an interesting and fascinating ride thus far, and we have no doubt that 2013 is going to be more of the same!