PalmCast Episode 151 - All I want for Christmas are some answers 12
by Derek Kessler
Wed, 30 Nov 2011 6:59 pm EST
Wed, 30 Nov 2011 6:59 pm EST
Adam, Derek, and Tim go over the non-news that is webOS, discuss our holiday gift picks for the webOS fan, and due our best Nostradamus impressions.
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- Listen to it here with the player above
We want you to introduce the PalmCast. Email us an audio introduction to podcast@precentral.net!
Thanks to everybody for writing in!
News
- HP officially reverses course, won't spin off PC division
- Whitman: We'll make a decision on webOS "in the next few months"
- Reuters: HP pondering sale of webOS, likely to net "hundreds of millions of dollars"
- webOS all-hands meeting called for this afternoon, answers likely to result
- HP still not sure what to do with webOS, will take three-to-four weeks to decide
- HP keeping webOS a real possibility – what could that mean?
- HP reports Q4 and 2011 full year results – lost $3.3 billion on webOS
- How HP can sell and keep webOS at the same time
- HP to make decision on webOS by early December; sale may be contingent upon HP getting webOS for printers (what else?)
- No TouchPads to be made available through normal channels (but Best Buy will sell you one with an HP laptop)
- HP laptop + TouchPad bundle extended to Wal-Mart, makes us wonder about that whole "out of stock" thing
- TouchPad returns to TigerDirect in yet another HP PC bundle deal
- TouchPad and webOS apps getting Black Friday treatment
- Black Friday discount kicks in behind schedule for Picsel Smart Office
- HP probing TouchPad customers for feedback, which is odd for a cancelled product
- HP's TouchPad satisfaction survey for everybody
- TouchPad nabs the #2 tablet slot for the first three quarters of 2011, not likely to repeat
- HP Pivot a finalist in 2011 Digital Magazine Awards
- White Pre3 and audio Touchstone make debut on eBay
- PreCentral forum member goes hands-on with swanky Touchstone Audio Dock
- The multi-layer wave launcher that could have been
Thanks again to everybody for writing in as well as everybody that participated live in person and in the chat!
Credits
Thanks to the PreCentral Store for sponsoring the PalmCast. You can email the PalmCast at podcast@treocentral.com or leave us a voicemail at 800-557-6819 x222.
Music comes from ccMixter.org, a great Creative Commons music site. Our specific music is the following:
12 Comments
The only upside I could see to having webOS on printers is Touch-To-Share printing. It would be fantastic to take any webOS device and bump it to your printer to automatically start printing. But that would require HP to actually make devices again...
TTS printing is actually not a bad idea, as long as it works along side other printing features. The naysayers above me are acting as if that would be the only method of printing. Yes, WiFi printing is still best, but not everyone with a WiFi capable printer actually bothers setting it up that way. Lots of average users buy a printer and just hook it up with a good-ol-fashioned USB cable (lol that I've been in this business so long I can actually think of USB printing as being old fashioned.... USB didn't even exist for the first quarter of my career, was still pretty 'new-fangled' for another quarter of it).
Also, consider that there are many times you might like to be able to print something from a mobile device to a printer somewhere else, like in a customer's office. If they had an HP touch-to-share capable printer, you could just pull up whatever document you need and tap your phone to the printer. For certain people it would be a genuinely useful feature.
As you say though, it would require HP to actually make some devices again, including phones which isn't likely to happen any time soon.
This all keeps underscoring the point that the value of webOS to a company like HP was the overall ECOSYSTEM they could have created around it. webOS on phones, tablets, printers, notebooks, even desktop PC's. Create 'synergies' (sorry, buzzword) wherein users find new reasons to use more HP products in more ways. How many of you rarely bother to print anything any more? What if clever apps on printers made it worthwhile to print stuff again? Like a customized morning 'newspaper' that you designed on the printer's webOS touchscreen or any other handy webOS device, and it printed for you each morning. Many people would rather read a few sheets of paper they can quickly fold and stuff in a jacket pocket, then toss them when done instead of carrying around an expensive tablet that has to be guarded and protected just to read the news. Sure, it's not for everyone. But it is for someone.
Things like that are what Mark Hurd was thinking about when he got HP to purchase Palm. This is what the famous "we didn't spend $1.3 billion to get into the phone business" line meant... it was always about more than phones, more than tablets, more than any one thing. Under Apotheker HP lost that vision, and thought only of making a profit on each individual product the day it was sold. I think MAYBE Whitman has a hint of what might have been, and is trying really hard to figure out whether it could still be given how horrifically it's already been fouled up.
Well said johnsonx42. The ecosystem seems to be poorly understood by HP. When I bought my Sprint Pre shortly after launch, I liked the phone system but I was keen on seeing the future and webOS expansion into a full system where hardware and my needs operated seamlessly. Alas, that dream/vision died.
I've been on iOS now for a month with my 4S. Different style of ecosystem, but it will function to fit my needs. It does some things much better, and in other ways webOS is still better. But I don't have to worry about Apple shutting down hardware production and abandoning everything next week. I can focus on getting things done without worrying about the future of the ecosystem. With HP, that's at the forefront - and that's not how great companies operate.
You would still need to pair the printer to the device. It's not just going to print whatever someone has on their mobile device when tapped. Touching just triggers a signal to a device that already has been paired.
wow, you're right... The way tts works today is the only way it can ever work. HP could never enhance it or enable auto-pairing for certain functions.
LOL
johnsonx42, makes a lot of sense. Very insightful!
I blelieve it all is about "the cloud" in which HP sees the future (they invest in cloud services) and then having devices with webOS would be the next step: connecting and accessing those ressources. So it would also break down having webOS also on desktop and server systems oposed to Microsoft ... Wouldn't that be something????
Listening to the podcast I think its pretty sad precentral couldn't afford to buy the audio dock and review it like the other unrleased products it has reviews.
Derek it is clear you looked at phils desk of phones and cried tears of happiness about all the phones you would get to review.
Also the emblaze first else, trumps the wave launcher but that never even made it out the door. Sometimes good ideas die early.
Also a quick not on webos survival guide, you need to change 2013 to 2012 , and easy way out to logical move.
Other than that great podcast, hopefully you guys are back next week after Meg's big decision.
Web Os is so dead I see HP just pulling the plug all together and just using it in printers.No company in there right mind would touch it now only the patents Palm has would be worth anything to anyone. HP will probable hold on to those so they can sue people like apple likes to do Apple and HP two company's I love to hate.So long Palm Hp it wasn't fun at all everything was fine when it was just Palm then HP comes in like they were going to save it but no. same crappy phones no real vision for anything just sad. people don't want a micro phone people want 4in plus slabs with 4g that just work and have apps
HP has made it clear they are going with Windows 8. So that means no webOS phones, tablets or computers from HP.
However there is the question of printers. I suspect Windows 8 is not a good fit for printers (but hey, maybe M$ will create them "Windows 8 for Printers". And really why not. It would be whole new market for them!) But that seems unlikely, so HP wants to keep access to webOS for use on their printers. And if that's true, then there has to be a way for it to remain in development.
But who will do that? Will Autonomy, HP's other recent acquisition, an enterprise software vendor, take over development? Maybe, but these are two very different sides of the software world. So that seems unlikely. Or, will they sell webOS off with the condition of free/cheap access to use it on their printers?
If that later, which all the rumors seem to indicate. Then how might that be possible? Who is going to continue to develop webOS so HP can utilize it on printers?
Now I hold to the theory that M$ had a heavy hand in helping to kill off webOS. They are desperate to get Windoes 8 humming along. And they have a lot of leverage with HP. So I think we can safely say that HP won't be selling webOS to anyone that will attempt to compete with M$ head on.
So given all this, how to fit the pieces together? My guess, and my hope, is Intel. Intel could buy webOS for patent protection and then donate the tech to the Tizen. Which HP can then use as they desire, and with some proprietary modifications, on their printers.
That's doesn't get us a commercial webOS ecosystem. But at least it will still be available to people with the skills to utilize it. I'm not holding my breath, of course, but I am crossing my fingers.
Derek, you forgot one other way to call a contact. You can add the contact to launcher. I actually have my 3 top contacts and voice control as my wave bar on my Pre 2. This helps me make calls while driving. It's still not as cool as you mentioned but you can make it easier by simply aiding a contact icon to your launcher.