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Re:Ask HN: What makes Firefox OS better than webOS? by viraptor on Tuesday May 27, 2014 @05:37PM (#7807026)
Probably the company behind it. HP dropped the tablets instead of investing in developing some software for it (you could review the whole catalog in an hour or so). WebOS itself was great (still is as Enyo framework) in my opinion. I'd really like it if Mozilla just picked up that project instead.
Re:Ask HN: What makes Firefox OS better than webOS? by e15ctr0n on Tuesday May 27, 2014 @06:38PM (#7807326)
LG bought parts of webOS from HP[0] in 2013 and showcased a smart TV running on webOS[1] at CES this year[2]. HP continues to be involved in the development of Enyo[3].

[0] http://www.lg.com/us/press-release/webos-release

[1] http://www.lg.com/us/tvs/lg-55LB7200-led-tv

[2] http://lgusblog.com/product-news/lg-wins-35-awards-2014-inte...

[3] http://www.webosnation.com/lg-committed-open-source-webos-de...

Re:Ask HN: What makes Firefox OS better than webOS? by viraptor on Tuesday May 27, 2014 @07:02PM (#7807424)
I know they're trying to continue, but neither HP nor Palm when they owned the brand did anything amazing with it. Palm pre was really cool and WebOS on Touchpad was great to use... it just really missed useful apps. I get a feeling that if they invested in getting even a 100 of good apps either written for or ported to WebOS at the time of the first tablet, it could turn out completely differently...
Re:Ask HN: What makes Firefox OS better than webOS? by e15ctr0n on Tuesday May 27, 2014 @07:11PM (#7807459)
The Verge has a great article on the decay of Palm once HP bought it.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/5/3062611/palm-webos-hp-insid...

So, coming back to the point of contrast with Firefox OS, one has to acknowledge that Mozilla is pushing Firefox OS very hard. There is a dedicated app store which has more than a thousand apps now. Mozilla also has a passionate community behind it.

Re:Ask HN: What makes Firefox OS better than webOS? by justinreeves on Tuesday May 27, 2014 @07:17PM (#7807480)
Yeah it seems like it was a great platform, and was just held back by the companies that owned it. I'd still like to see it be picked up again, even if it's not by Mozilla for the reasons that fabrice_d pointed out. I remember it looking really slick, and running incredibly smooth, even on the hardware that was available 5 years ago.