Right now webOS is primarily an operating system for mobile devices including smartphones and the upcoming HP Touchpad tablet. But we already know that HP has bigger plans for the operating system. Eventually it will power all sorts of devices including internet-connected printers, and HP also plans to make it possible to run webOS apps on a Windows PC.
Now HP CEO Leo Apotheker says that starting in 2012, every PC the company ships will be able to run webOS as well as Windows.
The idea is that you’ll be able to buy an app for your phone or tablet and run it seamlessly on a desktop computer — without booting into a separate operating system.
I’m guessing that doesn’t just mean you’ll be able to play Angry Birds on a PC (which you can already do anyway). It could also make it easier to develop apps that share data across platforms such as calendar or task manager apps, instant messengers, or even media players that can pick up a song or movie on a PC where you left off on your phone.
If HP can pull this off, it will be a good reason not only to buy HP computers, but also HP phones. Right now webOS adoption trails pretty far behind iOS, Android, and BlackBerry.
Well, my primary interest here would be for something like the ‘Kitchen Computer’. One of HP’s touch enabled all in ones, set up in the kitchen. No keyboard, no mouse, just touch. Family calendaring, weather, traffic, light web browsing for news, video streaming, recipes, etc. All of this is likely going to be available via WebOS apps I would think, so this *might* be a great idea. But its also possible that you’ll have to jump through hoops to launch a WebOS application from within the Windows 7 ‘wrapper’. If they can make it so I can just buy WebOS apps and drop them on the desktop for simple tab launching, and its easy to switch between running WebOS apps with your finger…