HP has announced plans to release webOS as an open source project soon, but while the source code isn’t available yet some folks have already started working to port webOS to run on hardware originally designed to run designed for different operating systems.

WebOS-Internals member Ryan Hope posted a few pictures today of an HTC Evo 3D running a buggy build of webOS 3.0 today. The pictures are actually a few months old, and the phone isn’t really usable with HP’s operating system. But it shows what’s possible even without having access to the source code.

The version of webOS Hope is using was designed for the HP TouchPad tablet, and he picked the Evo 3D smartphone for his project because it feature similar hardware.

You can find a few more photos on Twitter.

via The Verge and PreCentral

HP may have canceled the Pre 2 smartphone, but the company is still rolling out software updates… for now. This week HP released webOS 2.2.5 for some Pre 2 handsets, adding new features including:

• Support for Skype voice calls and instant messages
• Ability to share text messages and calls with an HP TouchPad over Bluetooth
• Sync improvements for Google Calendar, Yahoo Calendar, and contacts

Up until now Skype was only available on the HP Pre 3 or the Verizon Pre 2. This udpate brings it to additional webOS phones — but not all Pre 2 phones will get the update.

PreCentral reports the update appears to be available for unlocked European GSM phones, but not unlocked US phones or Verizon phones.

Have you ever wondered how many webOS devices Palm and HP sold before unceremoniously cancelling the latest webOS phones and tablets this summer? About 4.2 million.

The folks at webOS Internals have put together an estimate of the number of webOS devices activated over time, and since 2009 it looks like that’s about how many people have created webOS profiles.

Unfortunately the number is far from official since it doesn’t come from HP — and there’s no way to tell how many people are actively using webOS phones or tablets today. But here’s how the figure was calculated.

When you fire up a webOS device for the first time it will ask you to create a profile. Each profile gets a unique number, and every new user gets a number that’s one higher than the last person to register.

While webOS Internals hasn’t looked at everyone’s numbers, they’ve asked users who have installed a homebrew app called Impostah to report their registration dates and numbers — and they’ve created a pretty nifty chart that shows the highest numbers they could find for each date, giving us an idea of how the platform grew over time.

WebOS may not have grown as fast as HP would have liked, but it’s interesting to see that in 2009 and 2010 there was a pretty steady growth in the number of people registering webOS devices. It started to taper off a bit in 2011, but there was a pretty healthy spike (or unhealthy, depending on how you look at it) this summer when the HP TouchPad tablet was sold off at fire-sale pricing.

The number might not get much higher. HP hasn’t yet completely killed off webOS, but the company won’t be producing any more hardware running the mobile operating system. Unless HP finds someone to license or buy webOS, it’s likely that the platform’s days are numbered.

It’s also possible that some (or many) of the folks represented by this chart may have stopped using those devices though, and moved onto Android, iOS, paper, or other platforms.

via The Verge and Geek News Central

The future of HP’s webOS operating system remains uncertain. While the company canceled all current webOS smartphones and tablets this summer, HP has continued to push out software updates for the million or so HP TouchPads that had been sold. But it looks like the company won’t be offering any updates for the Palm Pre3 smartphone.

A member of the HP developer relations team posted a message on the webOS Developer Center forums suggesting that there are no plans to offer any software updates for the Pre3.

That’s not a huge surprise. There aren’t many Pre3 phones in the wild. It was launched in the UK on August 17th, just a day before HP canceled the phone.

Still, for the handful of Pre3 owners out there, the fact that there won’t be any more updates comes as bad news. After all, the news only came out in response to a question about a bug affecting the Pre3 which had already been fixed for the TouchPad tablet. It looks like the smartphone version of that bug may never be fixed.

via PreCentral

Officially HP hasn’t yet decided whether to kill off its webOS division. Unofficially, The Guardian reports it’s probably going to happen.

During a conference call discussing the decision not to spin off HP’s PC business as a separate company, HP executives yesterday said that a decision on webOS would be made in the coming months.

But the Guardian has been interviewing folks off the record, and members of HP’s webOS group say that it’s practically a done deal. Top level members of the webOS team have been jumping ship recently and if HP does decide to kill the operating system, it could affect hundreds of jobs.

It would also mean the end of the line for future webOS phones and tablets.

This summer HP canceled production of webOS hardware including the Pre and Veer smartphones and the HP TouchPad tablet. But the company has reportedly been looking at licensing the software to other hardware companies looking for an alternative to Android or Windows Phone. So far there haven’t been any takers.

There’s an active community of homebrew developers for webOS, so I suspect existing products will have a cult following for years to come. Heck, some people still walk around with Apple Newton handheld devices, even though Apple hasn’t made a Newton since 1998. But if The Guardian’s information is correct, the future for official support for webOS products could be pretty slim.

Members of the CyanogenMod team have already started porting Google Android to run on the TouchPad, which could help keep the tablet usable long after webOS support ends. We’ve also seen some efforts to port Android to run on the Pre smartphone — but the project doesn’t seem to have gotten very far.

HP is killing off its webOS hardware division, which means pretty soon there will be no more HP TouchPad, Pre or Veer devices. But the company still has high hopes fro the webOS software. HP may still install webOS on future PCs, printers, and other devices, and the company has been seeking a partner willing to license webOS for their own phones or tablets.

Clearly that partner isn’t going to be Motorola. That company has been building Google Android-only devices for a few years and recently Google announced plans to acquire Motorola for $12.5 billion.

Nokia, meanwhile, has struck a deal with Microsoft that will bring Windows Phone 7 to future Nokia smartphones.

Among the big phone players that leaves HTC and Samsung… but now it looks like we can probably scratch Samsung off the list as well. There’s been a rumor floating around that Samsung could flat out buy the webOS operating system from HP, but speaking at the IFA trade show in Berlin, Samsung CEO Choi Gee Sung poured cold water on that idea.

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Following HP’s announcement that it would discontinue all webOS hardware including smartphones and tablets, Microsoft’s Brandon Walsh reached out to webOS developers, promising free phones and other tools if they were interested in developing for Windows Phone 7. So far he’s received over 200 replies.

For its part, HP is trying to convince webOS developers not to jump ship. While the company will no longer make devices that run webOS, HP hasn’t yet put the operating system to bed. Instead, officials are hoping to get other companies to license the software for use on their own devices, much the way Microsoft and Google already do with their smartphone operating systems.

The problem is that it’s hard to see a future for webOS at the moment. Less than two months ago HP was gung ho about the TouchPad tablet. Today the company is liquidating its inventory by selling the tablet for just $99. Since there currently aren’t any other companies using webOS, who’s to say that a month from now HP might not just pull the plug on the software division as well?

HP is trying to persuade developers to stick around, and promises to keep supporting webOS. But all HP has to offer at the moment are words and a user base that won’t be growing for a while (at least not once this weekend’s HP TouchPad fire sale is over). Microsoft, on the other hand, is giving developers free phones.

HP announced today that the company would discontinue its webOS hardware products in the fourth quarter of 2011. That means we can say goodbye to the HP TouchPad tablet and the HP Pre, Veer, and other webOS phones. But the company isn’t killing webOS software… at least not yet.

During a conference call with reporters today HP executives said that the company is exploring its options for webOS. The software has been well received by users and developers, according to CEO Leo Apotheker — but the company’s phones and tablets haven’t had much traction in the market.

So HP is looking at a variety of options for squeezing some value out of the webOS software that it paid $1.2 billion to acquire last year.

Here are some of the possibilities that are still on the table:

• Licensing webOS to other companies to install on their phones, tablets, and other hardware.
• Using the software on HP’s own devices (presumably this could include computers or printers)
• Selling the webOS assets to another company (Apotheker didn’t specially state this, but it’s clearly a possibility at this point.

Right now it looks like HP’s primary goal will be to find hardware partners willing to license the software. But given HP and Palm’s difficulty getting consumers to buy webOS products, I have to wonder why any other companies would want to adopt the platform.