HP Breaks Promise -- webOS 2.0 Upgrades for Palm Pre and Pixi Not Coming Discussion

[Mark Calley]

Jon Rubinstein, the head of HP's mobile division and former CEO of Palm Inc., has some bad news for most users of his company's smartphones: the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi, and the Plus versions of both, will not be updated to webOS 2.0.

Read the full content of this Article: HP Breaks Promise -- webOS 2.0 Upgrades for Palm Pre and Pixi Not Coming

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[lelisa13p]

I hear a Death knell. Again.

"Something special"? Behold the opportunity to throw good money after bad, in the wake of misspoken - now broken - promises of pending upgraded OS for current consumers, announced previously without having facts to back up intent. Buying their new devices is their solution? Right.

I loved Palm in its lifetime, mourned all of the sad neglect & mismanaged opportunities and then mentally gave Palm a personal symbolic funeral last year, all the while making plans for the continued good health of my varied half-dozen Palm devices going forward into my future. I don't care what their plan is now. I'm not listening any more. Doubtless I'm not alone.

I've never posted about this topic before; I guess today's news hit a nerve.

[LandSurveyor]

I don't really see much connection between the Palms of old and the Pre, et seq.

Would have preferred that the new HP/Palm products would reflect the sort of hardware that both produced of old.

I guess people would be less concerned about OS updates if the devices didn't cost so much in the first place and if people didn't feel like they were being forced into 2-year contracts just to make the device affordable, which is false economy anyway. I imagine this will fade somewhat as less expensive smartphone alternatives are available. Some will want the high end but I expect the average consumer will pick whatever "free" phone that most appeals when they re-up, expecting to be tired of it anyway and wanting something new in 2 years. That was the past experience with dumphones.

[headcronie]

Oooh, reminds me of the days when Palm.net closed. Here's $50 bucks for your troubles. Buy a new device!

I've long since written off Palm. Cloud based OS is a pitiful misstep. Writing applications using CSS has shown to be a showstopper.

My choices are narrowing, and I'm somewhat looking forward to Adroid. iOS isn't anywhere in my plans, besides my rear-view mirror. *sigh*

[RickAgresta]

I don't really see much connection between the Palms of old and the Pre, et seq.

Would have preferred that the new HP/Palm products would reflect the sort of hardware that both produced of old.

I guess people would be less concerned about OS updates if the devices didn't cost so much in the first place and if people didn't feel like they were being forced into 2-year contracts just to make the device affordable, which is false economy anyway. I imagine this will fade somewhat as less expensive smartphone alternatives are available. Some will want the high end but I expect the average consumer will pick whatever "free" phone that most appeals when they re-up, expecting to be tired of it anyway and wanting something new in 2 years. That was the past experience with dumphones.

as one of the 'older and louder crowd,' I don't mind pointing out that there is still a financial hit, in that one is faced with either doing without purchased applications, or buying them over again. there are a few vendors who will transfer your license to a new OS, but they are scarce. part of my dis(may/gust, not quite sure which applies) stems from the old days, when applications were more expensive {yes, Doctor, I *am* trying to let go......}

IMHO, the connection between PalmOS devices and the Pre/Pixi is that the company once again is thumbing its corporate nose at its customers -- "oh, yes, the replacement for Garnet/PalmOS will be backwards compatible" "oh, yes, your not even 2 year old device will get the upgrade to webOS 2.0". I guess my comment about the new devices, in the thread hal started, was premature -- talk about re-opening old wounds.

still, Rubinstein is consistent, if nothing else (typically, in a non-family friendly forum, I'd follow up with a comment about his parentage and character.....)

[RickAgresta]

I hear a Death knell. Again.

"Something special"? Behold the opportunity to throw good money after bad, in the wake of misspoken - now broken - promises of pending upgraded OS for current consumers, announced previously without having facts to back up intent. Buying their new devices is their solution? Right.

I loved Palm in it's lifetime, mourned all of the sad neglect & mismanaged opportunities and then mentally gave Palm a personal symbolic funeral last year, all the while making plans for the continued good health of my varied half-dozen Palm devices going forward into my future. I don't care what their plan is now. I'm not listening any more. Doubtless I'm not alone.

I've never posted about this topic before; I guess today's news hit a nerve.

well said, Lauren, very well said. damn shame it had to be said, but hey, I'm just a customer who really doesn't matter......

[Varjak]

Too much good stuff here to single out. My applause to all.

[Hook]

And lets not forget pulling the plug on Classic (blindsiding the developer as well as the users).

[chris777]

Is anyone really surprised?

They just dangle the new technology in front of people and enough of them salivate and chase after it that they write their core off, I realize that the future of anything is the next generation (of consumers) But letting us know in the ways they have and as frequently as they have, well lets just say, I am learning my ipod touch and typing on my macbook pro. IF this had included classic, I might be interested. as it stands, I hope the touchpad is exactly HALF the price of the ipad, because thats all it is worth to me. Apple is like a honda, I can buy it for a small premium over another brand, and get a return on my investment at a later time, well its hard to argue me into an touchpad, unless the price is half, or LESS. otherwise I would rather have a company that actually does make better hardware better get my busness.

Nostalgia, will only go so far, and Palm/HP both seperate and now together have burned that up long ago.

[Drillbit]

The one other big change in the new WebOS phones is abandoning the OMAP6 architecture to the Qualcomm Snapdragon.

Doesn't matter for apps because its still all ARMv7 instruction set.

But the internal differences between OMAP6 and Snapdragon does matter for the OS engineers.