webOS Now Open Source – ENYO Coming

Administrator — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:07:00 GMT

Hewlett Packard announced last week that webOS was going open source. The mobile operating system was initially developed by Palm and introduced in January 2009.

Developers have been attracted to the platform because it uses standard web technologies and offers multiplatform compatibility (thanks to its single integrated stack). By engaging the open source community, HP hopes to accelerate development of the platform, and provide some necessary governance to avoid fragmentation of the operating system.

“webOS is the only platform designed from the ground up to be mobile, cloud-connected and scalable,” said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer. “By contributing this innovation, HP unleashes the creativity of the open source community to advance a new generation of applications and devices.”

HP also announced that it will contribute ENYO, the application framework for webOS, to the open source community in the future.

Fun Facts, Few Surprises in AdMob Mobile Metrics Report

Linc Wonham — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:35:00 GMT

The release of AdMob’s January 2010 Mobile Metrics Report reveals some intriguing data from the mobile advertising network’s latest consumer survey, but the trends taking shape across iPhone, Android and Palm webOS application platforms are for the most part predictable.

The just-released report was compiled as a six-month follow-up to AdMob’s July 2009 survey intended to track consumer usage and attitudes throughout the mobile Internet category. There were 960 respondents among users of iPhone, iPod Touch, Android and webOS devices on the more than 15,000 mobile Websites and applications presently in AdMob’s network. Left out of the survey was the RIM platform because AdMob does not currently serve ads into Blackberry applications.

Some interesting, if not surprising statistics coming out of the report include a 5 percent rise in requests coming from mobile Internet devices throughout AdMob’s network since the first survey was conducted six months earlier—17 percent in January 2010 as compared to 12 percent in July 2009; a 10-percent disparity between iPhone users (16 percent) and Android users (6 percent) that said they intended to purchase the new iPad when it becomes available next month (webOS users split the difference at 11 percent), and the following breakdown of monthly application downloads among the four groups of respondents: 12.1 downloads per month for iPod Touch users (10.5 free downloads and 1.6 paid); 8.8 monthly downloads for iPhone users (7.0 free, 1.8 paid); 8.7 for Android users (7.6/1.1), and 5.7 for webOS users (5.1/0.6).

This last trend in particular is easily explained by the fact that 78 percent of iPod Touch users are under the age of 25—a group made up largely of students and kids downloading free games. Less easily explained, though, is perhaps the most curious of all the data: 73 percent of Android users responding to the survey were males, compared to 58 percent of webOS users, 57 percent of iPhone users, and 54 percent of iPod Touch users.

Perhaps the folks behind the Android’s male-friendly marketing campaign will take note and we’ll see a more delicate touch in the future—or not.

'Net Features : webOS

webOS Now Open Source – ENYO Coming

Fun Facts, Few Surprises in AdMob Mobile Metrics Report