It’s a sad day for the WebOS family. Former CEO of Palm, Jon Rubinstein, has left HP.

In 2007 Jon joined Palm and led development for WebOS and the Palm Pre. In 2009 he bacame CEO of Palm, shortly after the release of the Pre. Just a short time ago HP purchased Palm and Jon was in charge of the lead-up to the TouchPad. After a short while he was demoted to SVP of Product Innovation, which was thought to be a way of easing him out. Today ends his crazy ride.

The story of Jon, Palm, and WebOS is truly a sad one. The OS started with critical acclaim and so much promise, but lackluster hardware and some questionable carrier partnerships lead to the downfall. Now WebOS is open source and it’s future is in the hands of developers around the world. What’s next is very uncertain, but it’s sad that Ruby won’t be a part of it.

[via AllThingsD]

You didn’t think HP forgot about WebOS did you? Okay maybe you did, but they are back with announcements today to remind you that they haven’t. HP is changing a few things to make it easier to open source WebOS. The biggest of those changes is switching to a Linux kernel instead of using their own custom one. This is going to make it much, much easier for people to install WebOS on a wider variety of devices. HP has also outed a roadmap for WebOS’ future:

• January: Enyo 2.0 and Enyo source code Apache License, Version 2.0
• February: Intended project governance model, QT WebKit extensions, JavaScript core, UI Enyo widgets
• March: Linux standard kernel, Graphics extensions EGL, LevelDB, USB extensions
• April: Ares 2.0, Enyo 2.1, Node services
• July: System manager (“Luna”), System manager bus, Core applications, Enyo 2.2
• August: Build release model, Open webOS Beta, Open webOS 1.0

It’s common sense that once you buy something it immediately goes down in value. In the fact the moment you drive a brand new car off the lot it’s value plummets. Apparently no one told HP this is how things work. A report from VentrueBeat says HP wanted to recoup their purchase cost for WebOS, which by the way was $1.2 billion. That is incredibly gutsy of HP to ask for that much money for something that they clearly had no success with. Did they really expect anyone in their right mind to pay that much for a failing operating system? Nice try, HP, it’s no wonder no one wanted it.

[via WebOS Nation]

The Pre 3 is the unicorn of the smartphone world. It was shown off by HP with much fanfare, but then never actually came to market in the U.S. It’s a shame, too, because the Pre 3 is what the Pre should have been all along. Well if you’ve managed to get your hands on one and you put your AT&T sim card in you might have noticed less than stellar data speeds. You can fix that with a simple call to AT&T to get HSPA+ speeds.

All you will need is your IMEI which can be found on the box of the phone or in the Device Info on the phone. Once you got that just call up AT&T and tell them you have a Pre 3 which is an unreleased AT&T 4G phone, and they’ll add your device to the list. Just be persistent that you have a 4G device and they should hook you up.

[via WebOS Nation]

Well here’s something you probably thought you would never see. It seems someone has semi-successfully hacked WebOS onto a Evo 3D. The person responsible for this feat is actually WebOS internals developer Ryan Hope. Judging by the pictures it looks like his “proof of concept” is up and working. It’s hard to tell without a video how well the port works, but he’s teasing that he’ll keep working on it now that the source code is available. Hope actually completed this a few months ago, but just posted it this weekend.

[via Ryan Hope  Images (1)(2)(3)]

HP has thought long and hard about the future of WebOS. After months of debate Meg Whitman and company have finally decided on a solution. That solution is open source. HP has announced that they will be open sourcing WebOS, and they plan on being an “active participant and investor in the project.” This is basically HP putting the future of WebOS in developers hands. Most people considered WebOS to be dead, so this move is almost a resurrection.

As far as hardware goes HP is not out of the game…totally. Meg Whitman does not believe HP will be in the smartphone business again, which probably means we won’t be seeing any devices named “Pre” anymore. However she did say HP will be in the tablet business again. She does not know if said tablets will arrive in 2012 or not. This is probably the best news that could have come from the whole situation. A lot of people expected HP to shelve WebOS and for it to be forgotten, but this breathes life into the OS. Now we could potentially see an HTC phone with WebOS, or a Samsung tablet, etc. WebOS is not dead!

[via The Verge]

Palm is promising other improvements ranging from more efficient processing power and battery life improvements quicker web browsing and other upgrades you’d likely hear. In my opinion, it’s the addition of video recording that has been most sorely missed and most welcomed to the mix. How about you?

That’s no slouch of an announcement and definitely a good sign as WebOS grows in reach across many dimensions. More devices, more carriers, more regions, more apps. More WebOS!

[Via Engadget]

More specifically:

This release fixes an issue in which the Calendar app displayed no events for any account after a user synchronized Calendar with an Exchange account. With this update, Calendar events now appear correctly after an Exchange sync.

If the WebOS Exchange calendar has been causing you grief, it’s time to get updated to 1.3.5.1!

Just, wow.

Palm has a chance to regain momentum for WebOS with CES days away, but Google will surely have partners eyeing big announcements as well. How did Palm let WebOS lose it’s luster? WebOS mindshare was cut in half while Android more than tripled. Heck, even BlackBerry earned a percentage point: that’s just embarrassing!

What announcement at CES do you think can swing the pendulem in the other direction?

[Via ChangeWaveResearch]