HP has officially announced the forthcoming launch of webOS 2.0, heretofore now branded as HP webOS 2.0.
The latest and forthcoming update to the operating system features true multitasking, an updated version of Synergy with improved social networking integration, Adobe Flash 10.1 support, and new advancements related to the user interface. The first webOS 2.0 device in the Palm Pre 2, will launch later this week in France on carrier SFR and on Verizon in the US in the next few months.
This follows months of integration work by HP following the acquisition of Palm by HP earlier this year in the summer after Palm placed itself up for sale and months after the initial announcement of webOS 2.0 made during the former Palm Developer Conference in the Spring.
Update: Specifications for the Palm Pre 2 consist of a 3.1-inch HVGA resolution multi-touch glass-front display, 16GB of internal storage, GPS support via A-GPS, Exchange support, accelerometer, ambient light and proximity sensors, Wi-Fi radio, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and a 3.5mm headphone jack along with a 5.0 megapixel camera and upgraded 1Ghz processor with 512MB of RAM.
To clarify, HP currently is only dropping the Palm name from webOS, not the hardware.
This is consistent with HP’s plan to make webOS their consumer-facing OS for many devices, including printers and tablets.
Any plans to place webOS on their laptops as a quick boot option? Will Apple do it with their laptops?
HP has indicated that this is not a short-term idea. It seems like a no-brainer, I suspect the issue is webOS’s infancy and issues related to maintaining an x86 build of webOS that stays compatible with the ARM build in phones, printers, and tablets.
Eventually, once HP brings webOS back up to speed (and par) against Android and iOS, I suspect they’ll turn their focus back to these kind of options.
Aside from what HP has said in public, I certainly believe that a “quick boot” version of webOS for laptops was a major reason why HP acquired webOS… it just isn’t going to happen any time soon.