webOS - definition

Glossary

WebOS is a proprietary operating system, based on a Linux kernel, and developed by Palm for its last generation of smartphones.

The first WebOS device was the original Palm Pre, released by Sprint in the US in June 2009.

The webOS offered some innovative UI features, which gained lots of popularity. Unfortunately, the platform didn’t provide the traction Palm needed on the smartphone market.

In 2010 HP acquired Palm and later on in 2011 released a tablet using the OS – the HP TouchPad. After some restructuring changes, it was decided that HP will no longer develop webOS and the TouchPad project was abandoned.

Later on HP released an open source version of the OS called Open WebOS.

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