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LG's smartphone days are officially over as it transitions to global entertainment
From smart TVs to in-vehicle infotainment, LG wants webOS on more surfaces
In the ever-evolving world of technology, companies must adapt to thrive. Once a key player in the mobile sector, LG Electronics is charting a bold new direction: pivoting to become a prominent media and entertainment platform company.
Google's game-streaming service Stadia is coming to new LG TVs in late 2021. When it lands, it will support 4K and 5.1 surround sound (assuming you've got a Stadia Pro subscription) and will be available for webOS 6.0 first, with webOS 5.0 support planned later. Additional information from The Verge claims that GeForce Now is also coming to LG TVs at a later date.
OS update season is always my favorite time of the year. Like clockwork, the next version of Android is released with a bunch of new fixes, features, and fanfare for the future of the world's most popular mobile platform. Unfortunately, new software usually means some old apps are bound to break. For LG webOS TV owners who are suffering from a borked LG TV Plus app following the Android 10 upgrade, we've got some good news for you.
YouTube Kids was originally released in 2015, as a portal for child-appropriate content on everyone's favorite video sharing site. However, there hasn't been a dedicated TV app for YouTube Kids, just iOS and Android apps. Today on the official company blog, YouTube announced a Kids app for various smart TVs - but Android TV is still strangely missing.
Remember when Palm was still very much alive, and competed against Android and iOS with its own webOS? After HP bought the company in 2010, they promptly ran the entire OS and ecosystem into the ground and sold it to LG. Now webOS is a mere shadow of its former self, continuing to exist on various LG electronics (mostly TVs).
[Update] LG Takes On Samsung With The Watch Urbane LTE: Voice Calls, GPS, NFC... But No Android Wear
If the LG Watch Urbane just isn't fancy enough for you, the manufacturer is going to up the stakes. LG just announced the Watch Urbane LTE on its home turf of South Korea, ostensibly to have something to compete with Samsung's Gear S. The Watch Urbane LTE includes the capability to make voice calls, essentially turning it into a wrist-mounted cell phone. It would be the first Android Wear device with stand-alone voice capability... if it were running Android at all. According to LG's (translated) press release, the Urbane LTE is using a proprietary operating system, just like the Tizen-based Gear S.
WebOS, the last and sadly failed initiative from the venerable Palm Inc., seems to have more lives than Mumm-Ra the Everliving. After getting a second chance when HP acquired the Palm company, then a third when LG tried it out on connected televisions, it looks like the Korean manufacturer is going to give it a shot at powering future smartwatches. The Verge spotted a WebOS smartwatch page on LG's development portal, which was then swiftly taken down.
There are more than a few music players available for Android, but you could search the Play Store for days without finding one quite so full-featured as Music Player (Remix). The developer seems to have thrown every possible bell and whistle into the local playback app, and topped it off with a swipe-based interface and some impressive extras. It's available in the Play Store for $4.99, with a 14-day trial app available as well.
In the increasingly crowded market for Twitter clients on Android, another big player is about to jump into the fray - Carbon. You may know Carbon from its days on WebOS, but now that HP's mobile operating system is little more than an open source zombie, Carbon's developers are looking for a new (and more profitable) home.
Remember back when an HP Touchpad was spotted running Android out of the box? Well, it would appear that after some cajoling, the CM team (in association with an attorney) have convinced HP to release the Touchpad's Android kernel source, along with a couple of other GPL components specifically modified for Android-powered Touchpads accidentally released to the wild. In addition to the kernel, HP released code to androidvncserver and i2c-tools. The only thing missing, according to Green (part of the CM team), is the Wi-Fi driver. Green explains this in an announcement on the RootzWiki forums:
With its $99 fire sale price, the TouchPad finally hit the sweet spot. Units have been selling like crazy over the past week, but it seems as though one new owner got a little more than he bargained for. No, unfortunately HP didn't accidentally send him 100 units for the price of one, but he did allegedly receive a unit running Android 2.2, rather than webOS.
WebOS may catch a lot of flack because it never really took off but it does, in fact, have some really awesome features. One feature was the card view multitasking, which has already found its way onto Android. Another cool thing it did was that wacky swipe-up-from-the-bottom launcher gesture. Well, folks, guess what there's an app for now. It's called Wave Launcher - and it's great.
I’m not exactly sure how this strange pairing was birthed, probably somewhere in a boardroom of extremely bored HP executives… but it looks like HP’s Tablet plus Printer combo is drawing closer to readiness for release. I thought one of the driving tenets of the tablet revolution was to obsolete printers, but obviously HP disagrees – hey, they’re the experts. The Zeen, as it’s appellated, is a 7-inch capacitive tablet which will be bundled in a $400 package with the C510 PhotoSmart eStation. While thankfully printing does not appear to be the Zeen’s sole raison d’être, it is certainly one of the devices included features, with a Printer and Coupon app appearing in the app drawer. Can’t wait to see that in action.
One of the most vaunted features of webOS was its decidedly pretty multitasking interface. Users could invoke an overlay of thumbnail “cards” of their running applications and switch to or close them.
Today, comScore released its mobile phone market share figures today for May 2010 (the figures take a while to compile), and the results bode very well for Google. Among smartphone operating systems, Google’s Android now holds a 13% share. While this may not sound huge, keep in mind that only 3 months prior in February Android controlled only 9% of the market. The figures and changes, below:
It has been reported that Matias Duarte, the man responsible for the look and feel of Palm’s webOS, has left Palm to join Google as User Experience Director for Android.