Great video, reminds me from those times as being an ex-HP employee. People including myself were so proud when webOS phones came out. Sounded like we were about to beat the smartphone market... and then what - they killed it. Just like that. We already got webOS phones also ourselves, proudly carrying them when meeting clients etc. Phones seem to be pretty ok for business use in those days. Mails, calendars, some quick browsing and so on. Employees were ordering those tablets on their own and some even went to ebay to buy them after the company had formally killed it. So at least where I worked, people believed that we have a pretty competitive product in our hands, but why, why did they let the platform live and develop. Like said it was supposed to be a long lasting development project and could have become a competitor to IOS and Androd if they just would have let it live. After all, LG has been very successful afterwards with webOS in TV's. So the platfrom wasn't that bad.
I actually bought a Veer _after_ HP decided to kill the whole webOS division, because it was just so advanced compared to both Android and Blackberry, the two most successful and advanced systems at that time. (iPhone/iOS was already on the market, but it looked like a toy to anyone who actually used any smartphone before that, because of its limited capabilities and customizability compared to all the other systems.) And I've been a system and applications developer and engineer for decades by that point, so, I also knew what I was in for, in the technological sense. webOS was just so much ahead of the competition in every regard (ease of add development, performance, UX) that it's not even funny. My only objection was with the Java updater, which I didn't make any sense, both because of how cumbersome it was, how much it was losing market share on the desktop, and also how much it didn't fit with the general architecture of webOS. But the actual firmware and OS the device was just unbelievably good and advanced.
A thriving webOS Meetup group existed in the Chicago suburbs from 2011 until at least 2013. One of the primary members had connections at HP, so we were fortunate enough to see and try out a number of these unreleased devices. I may have also benefited from a couple of these meetings where we raffled off various webOS-based devices, one of which may resemble one featured in this video.
As a bilingual Mexican, I always thought that the name "WebOS" was funny, since it almost sounds like the word "Eggs" ("Huevos", used as slang for the male... Uh... Private parts...) in Spanish.
The calendar icon is probably a dynamic icon that displays the current date. That's probably why it looks different from all the other (regular) icons. And, for some reason, it probably sometimes fails to get/render the current date and so you end up with that black square.
I remember looking at webOS, and thinking wow I want one. I think the CEO (Apotheker) they had back at the time, they were basically throwing everything out of the window, even printers. It shows how a CEO without vision shouldn't earn big money.
This is the best video you've ever done. I am the biggest webos fanboy so it was a delight to see you check these out! The platform was insanely innovative and ahead of its time.
So do i. Nowadays, if you are 0.000000000000000001 nano pixel off, you hit the wrong "key." It's at the point where I use my s pen and graffiti like the old days. Yes, I have better results with that than virtual keyboards.
See, handset manufacturers of the world?! You **can** create a removable back with Qi charging! Why do y'all gotta make keeping a handset for ten years so damned hard?
I think qi is not the reason. It's mostly waterproofing. Still, I'd choose a phone with a removable back plane with reasonably low ip rating instead of watertight ip99 phone any day. It's not every day I drop my phone into the toilet, ya know😂
Speaking of Prototypes - I remember when the HP TouchPad firesale happened, a few units running a dev copy of Android ended up being shipped out on accident. So, they were using Android as some kind of prototyping OS at some point for that.
The smaller display apps are because running phone apps on the Touchpad didn't properly scale and reflow the app and they use an older version of the framework/os. This is just a leftover from porting webOS 3 from the Touchpad. It would eventually have been fixed.
Imagine if this was the base OS for Android phones now. Look how old that is and the animations, the smoothness (when it's not doing alpha-software shenanigans), the way the cards interface works. It's a crying damn shame this OS is not still available on a mobile device. Given the same time iOS and Android had, webOS could have been groundbreaking.
@@DonMr this is known, but it is in no way a resemblance to the software in its original form. webOS was a big boon for LG because of the smart part of the TV was now a fully grown, modern, modular, and ready to go with the right hardware.
i used a Pre 2, Pre 3 and HP TouchPad back in the day. remember the windsornot and touchpad go prototypes from webos nation as well and still want one years later! there was also a very rare white TouchPad with updated processor, updated Pre Touchstone wireless charger etc still have a new verizon pre 3 in box i’m never using!
The calendar icon most likely glitches because, unlike all the other icons, it's not fixed, but rendered on-the-fly or at least periodically re-rendered to reflect the actual day of the month. And it likely tries to do so by taking some kind of default font size (which is then used to render the numbers reflecting the actual day, but also used to determine the icon size), which is different on this prototype device than it was in the original image (probably that of a Veer or whatever) the firmware was built on.
I remember a friend got the original palm pre at ~release and was side loading some Linux apps/tool onto the phone as well as overclocking it right away. I wanted one but it was outside of my budget.
calendar app is probably meant to show actual day on the icon (same as mac os does)- which would make that icon "dynamic", meaning there is some logic that is executed to "create" the icon, and it might lead to improper scaling and black icon.
(0:20) I could immediately tell that's a codename from when they hadn't yet settled on the model name. I could tell from the design that HP's project codenamed "WindsorNot" was likely aimed at people who may have been coming over from something like an iPhone 4 or original Galaxy S and may have not been accustomed to using a physical keyboard. As for the calendar icon, I think it's because there was a bug with the live icon that caused it to be rendered incorrectly, but the standard icon was fine.
I work with DVT and EVT devices on a pretty constant basis. If I remember correctly, HP codenamed this as it was supposed to be a multi device-wide launch. The OG Windsor is your large large device. WindsorNot was the cinch. They go together. You have the Windsor and the Not. One tablet made for bigger things and the cinch (WindsorNot). It was kind of a double entendre as well.
I distinctly remember my uncle (again, same one who used to work at Palm/HP during the time WebOS was a thing) having two of those miniature TouchPad prototypes stored away somewhere. I should ask him about these again when I get the chance (assuming he still has them), I never got to test them out to see if they worked.
My Palm Pre is still sitting in a drawer somewhere. I switched it on a year or so ago and it still worked! It’s a shame that these devices never saw the light of day: I remember Apotheker not being the most popular chap with the community! WebOS was light-years ahead of both Android and iOS in terms of the user experience, but sadly didn’t get the buy-in it deserved from 3rd party app developers, which is what ultimately killed it
I was in love with my Treo devices. Near perfect form factor for calls, texts, and simple web browsing. Nothing now really hits that spot. There's something to be said for tactile physical buttons and keys.
You were saying how you think that the AT&T software was likely a restore. I actually think the verizon version was being ported from the AT&T version. I think you are on a development build.
I remember hearing about this, really cool to see it up close in a video. Yeah what happened in 2011 is why I say WebOS was killed, it didn't die, it was killed. I had a Pixi Plus at the time to so I was totally on board. It was so unceremonious too. Interesting to see what they were cooking up. That TouchPad Go looks pretty nice. Oh what could have been, WebOS was so ahead of it's time. After what HP did to Palm it made me data horde palm software, Lul.
Palm OS, was so ahead of its time, that even now with modern tech and UI. Still they are the inspiration of the major companies like Apple, Samsung, Google and etc.
Rear Cameras are useful for uploading pics if you're selling stuff online as using the interface is always easier on a tablet and having the camera right there makes it painless
I miss palm. I had a treo 650 in high school and then I got a treo 800w, I always wanted the palm centro and palm pre, but then they killed palm os and web os. Rip
Palm was way too ahead of its time. Touchstone basically was the precursor to Apple Magsafe, it was the first to use magnets to align the wireless charging. Many bits of webOS still live on today in Android, as the original designer, Matias Duarte, went on to work for Google. The card app switcher came straight from webOS, except it lacked the ability to stack cards.
The HP webOS story is such a depressing one. Such a potential and such a proper time for all of that - and it's all flopped due to mostly bad management.
Michael, by chance would you be willing to find a HTC ChaCha? It has the Facebook button and I remember back then it was such a convenient and insane feature back then lmao
This looks like it would have been more advanced than the iphone or windows phone. It really made no sense to me when that CEO joined HP and then gave money to the software company he came from.
In retrospect, HP did make a grave decision to can Palm devices. WebOS was way ahead of it's time and more powerful hardware would have made it's real multitasking potential shine. Too bad we had people whom were too dismissive of real innovation.
I really hate how everyone has settled on the worst date formats. Month day year is terrible and day month year is just as terrible. Year month date just makes the most sense in all scenarios where you'd be using all three dates.
They should have at least released this before pulling the plug on WebOS. I feel if it was priced right, it would be a good contender to Android and Iphone, or maybe it would have ended up similar to Windows Phone-who knows?
It frustrates me that HP killed WebOS before it gained any traction, which everyone expected would happen, and Microsoft failed to get developers to put their software on Windows Mobile 10. It feels like they both gave up too early. Microsoft should have paid developers to put their apps on Windows Phones so there was a good app ecosystem and HP shouldn't have given up so easily. Too bad the days where a 3rd mobile OS has a chance is essentially over. Maybe Microsoft should try again.
Great video, reminds me from those times as being an ex-HP employee. People including myself were so proud when webOS phones came out. Sounded like we were about to beat the smartphone market... and then what - they killed it. Just like that. We already got webOS phones also ourselves, proudly carrying them when meeting clients etc. Phones seem to be pretty ok for business use in those days. Mails, calendars, some quick browsing and so on. Employees were ordering those tablets on their own and some even went to ebay to buy them after the company had formally killed it. So at least where I worked, people believed that we have a pretty competitive product in our hands, but why, why did they let the platform live and develop. Like said it was supposed to be a long lasting development project and could have become a competitor to IOS and Androd if they just would have let it live. After all, LG has been very successful afterwards with webOS in TV's. So the platfrom wasn't that bad.
I actually bought a Veer _after_ HP decided to kill the whole webOS division, because it was just so advanced compared to both Android and Blackberry, the two most successful and advanced systems at that time. (iPhone/iOS was already on the market, but it looked like a toy to anyone who actually used any smartphone before that, because of its limited capabilities and customizability compared to all the other systems.) And I've been a system and applications developer and engineer for decades by that point, so, I also knew what I was in for, in the technological sense. webOS was just so much ahead of the competition in every regard (ease of add development, performance, UX) that it's not even funny. My only objection was with the Java updater, which I didn't make any sense, both because of how cumbersome it was, how much it was losing market share on the desktop, and also how much it didn't fit with the general architecture of webOS. But the actual firmware and OS the device was just unbelievably good and advanced.
A thriving webOS Meetup group existed in the Chicago suburbs from 2011 until at least 2013. One of the primary members had connections at HP, so we were fortunate enough to see and try out a number of these unreleased devices. I may have also benefited from a couple of these meetings where we raffled off various webOS-based devices, one of which may resemble one featured in this video.
Did you or any of the other members have any blog posts/videos/podcasts etc about these meetings/thoughts about these devices?
As a bilingual Mexican, I always thought that the name "WebOS" was funny, since it almost sounds like the word "Eggs" ("Huevos", used as slang for the male... Uh... Private parts...) in Spanish.
Don't you use cojones as that name?
We use the word "eggs" too - "jajka"
In Finland we say "munat' (eggs) for... the.. you know
FR FR
we say "bolas", for balls
The calendar icon is probably a dynamic icon that displays the current date. That's probably why it looks different from all the other (regular) icons. And, for some reason, it probably sometimes fails to get/render the current date and so you end up with that black square.
Or maybe this was filmed on _Black Friday._
I remember looking at webOS, and thinking wow I want one.
I think the CEO (Apotheker) they had back at the time, they were basically throwing everything out of the window, even printers. It shows how a CEO without vision shouldn't earn big money.
This is the best video you've ever done. I am the biggest webos fanboy so it was a delight to see you check these out! The platform was insanely innovative and ahead of its time.
No, the Bliss video was the best one he ever made.
Would've been so cool to see what it'd end up as today. Shame it didn't get to that stage
Thanks for this. I love seeing webOS stuff. At the time I thought it looked so sleek and way ahead of iPhone OS in terms of usability.
I miss physical keyboards tbh, something so satisfying about them
removable batteries as a standard, headphone jacks
(smaller phones too, but thats probably just me)
I agree, I was much faster on them.
So do i. Nowadays, if you are 0.000000000000000001 nano pixel off, you hit the wrong "key." It's at the point where I use my s pen and graffiti like the old days. Yes, I have better results with that than virtual keyboards.
Solution: Unihertz Titan
See, handset manufacturers of the world?! You **can** create a removable back with Qi charging! Why do y'all gotta make keeping a handset for ten years so damned hard?
You already know 🤑🤑🤑
Nokia did it as well with the lumia 820 iirc
I think qi is not the reason. It's mostly waterproofing. Still, I'd choose a phone with a removable back plane with reasonably low ip rating instead of watertight ip99 phone any day. It's not every day I drop my phone into the toilet, ya know😂
@@Zoomer.88 the galaxy s5 has a removable back cover and ip67 rating iirc. Also there's a qi compatible back cover accessory
Sad that it never saw the light of day
Nice
Nice
Nice
Nice
Nice
Speaking of Prototypes - I remember when the HP TouchPad firesale happened, a few units running a dev copy of Android ended up being shipped out on accident. So, they were using Android as some kind of prototyping OS at some point for that.
The smaller display apps are because running phone apps on the Touchpad didn't properly scale and reflow the app and they use an older version of the framework/os. This is just a leftover from porting webOS 3 from the Touchpad. It would eventually have been fixed.
Imagine if this was the base OS for Android phones now. Look how old that is and the animations, the smoothness (when it's not doing alpha-software shenanigans), the way the cards interface works. It's a crying damn shame this OS is not still available on a mobile device. Given the same time iOS and Android had, webOS could have been groundbreaking.
Isn't there a fork of WebOS?
LG Smart TVs still use It.
@@DonMr Isn't it called TizenOS or something nowadays? It's unfortunately not the same I think. They stripped a lot of stuff.
@@DonMr this is known, but it is in no way a resemblance to the software in its original form. webOS was a big boon for LG because of the smart part of the TV was now a fully grown, modern, modular, and ready to go with the right hardware.
@@dashcharger24 Tizen is Samsung.
This all makes me so nostalgic, happy, and sad at the same time. I read every leak and article I could about this device when it was still a rumor.
i used a Pre 2, Pre 3 and HP TouchPad back in the day. remember the windsornot and touchpad go prototypes from webos nation as well and still want one years later!
there was also a very rare white TouchPad with updated processor, updated Pre Touchstone wireless charger etc
still have a new verizon pre 3 in box i’m never using!
The calendar icon most likely glitches because, unlike all the other icons, it's not fixed, but rendered on-the-fly or at least periodically re-rendered to reflect the actual day of the month. And it likely tries to do so by taking some kind of default font size (which is then used to render the numbers reflecting the actual day, but also used to determine the icon size), which is different on this prototype device than it was in the original image (probably that of a Veer or whatever) the firmware was built on.
I think the calendar icon showing as a black box is because of missing dates if the calendar is live.
I love prototypes of more unusual operating systems!
I remember a friend got the original palm pre at ~release and was side loading some Linux apps/tool onto the phone as well as overclocking it right away. I wanted one but it was outside of my budget.
calendar app is probably meant to show actual day on the icon (same as mac os does)- which would make that icon "dynamic", meaning there is some logic that is executed to "create" the icon, and it might lead to improper scaling and black icon.
I LOVE MICHAEL MJD !!!!!!!!
Me too
Fr
(0:20) I could immediately tell that's a codename from when they hadn't yet settled on the model name.
I could tell from the design that HP's project codenamed "WindsorNot" was likely aimed at people who may have been coming over from something like an iPhone 4 or original Galaxy S and may have not been accustomed to using a physical keyboard.
As for the calendar icon, I think it's because there was a bug with the live icon that caused it to be rendered incorrectly, but the standard icon was fine.
I work with DVT and EVT devices on a pretty constant basis. If I remember correctly, HP codenamed this as it was supposed to be a multi device-wide launch. The OG Windsor is your large large device. WindsorNot was the cinch. They go together. You have the Windsor and the Not. One tablet made for bigger things and the cinch (WindsorNot). It was kind of a double entendre as well.
HP really dropped the ball on this one.
I loved the tablet and WebOS.
I distinctly remember my uncle (again, same one who used to work at Palm/HP during the time WebOS was a thing) having two of those miniature TouchPad prototypes stored away somewhere. I should ask him about these again when I get the chance (assuming he still has them), I never got to test them out to see if they worked.
My Palm Pre is still sitting in a drawer somewhere. I switched it on a year or so ago and it still worked! It’s a shame that these devices never saw the light of day: I remember Apotheker not being the most popular chap with the community! WebOS was light-years ahead of both Android and iOS in terms of the user experience, but sadly didn’t get the buy-in it deserved from 3rd party app developers, which is what ultimately killed it
I miss webOS so much. I had a Pre 3 as a daily driver until around 2017 or so.
What do you have now?
@Brushedmetal69 z fold 4
@xeroniris Nice, I thought you were a normie and were going to say iPhone lol.
I was in love with my Treo devices. Near perfect form factor for calls, texts, and simple web browsing. Nothing now really hits that spot. There's something to be said for tactile physical buttons and keys.
You were saying how you think that the AT&T software was likely a restore. I actually think the verizon version was being ported from the AT&T version. I think you are on a development build.
Nice,I love watching MJD!Keep up the good work Michael!
LuneOS (an open-source re-write of WebOS) is still alive, too. It is probably closer to what Palm/HP have originally dreamed of (than the LG's WebOS).
the jankiness of the UI makes me smile... in a positive way
...is that a laptop SATA connector inside the Touchpad Go???
I remember hearing about this, really cool to see it up close in a video. Yeah what happened in 2011 is why I say WebOS was killed, it didn't die, it was killed.
I had a Pixi Plus at the time to so I was totally on board. It was so unceremonious too.
Interesting to see what they were cooking up. That TouchPad Go looks pretty nice.
Oh what could have been, WebOS was so ahead of it's time. After what HP did to Palm it made me data horde palm software, Lul.
WebOS prototypes... thank you
I had one of these. Amazing little devices
Imagine this running that ultra modern WebOS prototype OS 🤩
Palm OS, was so ahead of its time, that even now with modern tech and UI. Still they are the inspiration of the major companies like Apple, Samsung, Google and etc.
Such an awesome video!
Great video again.... :) mrMJD needs to do a Mac 1.0 to 15 upgrade Saga video .. lol
Rear Cameras are useful for uploading pics if you're selling stuff online as using the interface is always easier on a tablet and having the camera right there makes it painless
I miss palm. I had a treo 650 in high school and then I got a treo 800w, I always wanted the palm centro and palm pre, but then they killed palm os and web os. Rip
Palm was way too ahead of its time. Touchstone basically was the precursor to Apple Magsafe, it was the first to use magnets to align the wireless charging. Many bits of webOS still live on today in Android, as the original designer, Matias Duarte, went on to work for Google. The card app switcher came straight from webOS, except it lacked the ability to stack cards.
4:35 it's probably a reference to Logic Gates (AND, OR, and NOT gates, etc) so if they continued they most likely would have had the WindsorAND
That HP Touchpad Go looks like it has a SATA interface in the back for a SATA notebook hard-drive.
The case design on that WindsorNot reminds me of one of those Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich smartphones.
It would be nice if community took this dead project back to life and make it usable again
2 hours old video LETS GO!! IM NOT LATE!
26:00 Is that an msata port on a tablet?
i have the same question, problably is the LTE wwan, what is uncommon on a non-notebook, and open a platora of questions
The calendar icon is probably glitchy, because it tries to render the current date on the icon.
The HP webOS story is such a depressing one. Such a potential and such a proper time for all of that - and it's all flopped due to mostly bad management.
6:50 - that is actually the normal way to write dates in other countries, it's just America that uses month-day-year.
6:56 German word: "Vorsich" spelt wrong should be Vorsicht! Vorsicht = Attention!
Windsor knot, maybe, like the tie
That poor calendar icon getting no love at all hehehe
Wouldn't be the only time they backed the wrong horse. The Elite X3 with Windows 10 Mobile and Continuum was released five years later, in 2016.
Where can I gat a WindsorNot and Touchpad mini?
webOS is pretty cool imo
I just happened to watch this video on my LG tv😂
OH MY GOD IT SEES THE LIGHT OF DAY
Michael, by chance would you be willing to find a HTC ChaCha? It has the Facebook button and I remember back then it was such a convenient and insane feature back then lmao
It's so sad that WebOS was scrapped for mobile devices. WebOS had such potential.
Team LG WebOS TV
possible video idea installing different operation systems on a prototype phone
I imagine how the marketing for this smartphone would have been if it gets sold on Mexico.
Dang that EVT1 battery for the winsornot has the same production date as my birth 😭
6:15 I half thought they are going to type out "property of hewlett packard" instead of "property of hp"
I wonder why its named after a necktie technique
How is the TH-cam change "change thumbnail" feature going?
Was the name of the developer Gabe by chance? I know it's a random question but my Uncle worked on the software and I was just curious.
It’s weird the touchpad go was so different from the regular one.
It would have been nice to see WebOS continue on tablets
This looks like it would have been more advanced than the iphone or windows phone. It really made no sense to me when that CEO joined HP and then gave money to the software company he came from.
In retrospect, HP did make a grave decision to can Palm devices. WebOS was way ahead of it's time and more powerful hardware would have made it's real multitasking potential shine. Too bad we had people whom were too dismissive of real innovation.
I really hate how everyone has settled on the worst date formats. Month day year is terrible and day month year is just as terrible. Year month date just makes the most sense in all scenarios where you'd be using all three dates.
Month year day or day year month is the best in my opinion...
@Brushedmetal69 both ways sort terribly.
I want the HP TouchPad Go!
I always like field tech products
I did not know that hp had phones back in the day. I also didn't know that webOS was used on phones, i thought webOS was used on LG tvs only.
They took over its development.
Man I have heavily modified Firefox I left this tab opened for 2 hours without watching it and now this tab LEAKS memmory heavily aaaaaaa
yeah the latest firefox seems to have a memory leak somewhere.
7 months had 7 calendars flying in video🍉😬
It was ahead of the completion. Look at Android and iOS from the time.
They should have at least released this before pulling the plug on WebOS. I feel if it was priced right, it would be a good contender to Android and Iphone, or maybe it would have ended up similar to Windows Phone-who knows?
It frustrates me that HP killed WebOS before it gained any traction, which everyone expected would happen, and Microsoft failed to get developers to put their software on Windows Mobile 10. It feels like they both gave up too early. Microsoft should have paid developers to put their apps on Windows Phones so there was a good app ecosystem and HP shouldn't have given up so easily. Too bad the days where a 3rd mobile OS has a chance is essentially over. Maybe Microsoft should try again.
Looks very similar to Gnome Shell interface.
The german translation on the battery has typos.
I only knew webOS before as the OS on smart LG TVs.
Does this WebOS have something to do with LG’s?
Was that an NVME slot on the touchpad prototype?
could be mSATA or other thing like wifi card
It would be funny to watch Steve Jobs taking these devices for a spin!
I guess it's... WindsorNot-that-good.
Text appearing outside its bounds AKA CSS.
Ngl the back design really looks like the Huawei G610-U20
I have a Tegra prototype tablet that runs Windows RT if you're interested
HMM..... Very interesting. VERY interesting.
By the way, Windsor s a city in Ontario, Canada.
What a Weird name for a Prototype. HP Could have end the suffering of WebOS.
Sounds like Borat trying to make "not" jokes. Windsor.......not!
omg I want that!
"Is it powered by android?" My dumbas💀
The Palm/hp phone looks like the Microsoft kin