HP still planning webOS tablets despite open-sourcing

After the announcement today, most people would have thought HP is done with webOS. Open-sourcing the code for the greater good, allowing developers and users alike to compile and build custom ROMs a la Android, seems to be the path of least resistance for the company who only a year ago bought Palm for $1.2 billion.

But in an interview with The Verge today Meg Whitman, the company’s new CEO, claims that HP still has consumer tablet plans with webOS at the fore. While they’re obviously going to try and avoid the mistakes of the TouchPad, there is a vibrant homebrew community that will only get bigger now that webOS is free for all.

She wouldn’t give specifics as to timelines and types of hardware, we’d imagine it would be the lower-cost variety so as to avoid the pricing issue the TouchPad had against the iPad. One thing she did stress was that HP is unlikely to ever be in the smartphone business again, at least not with webOS as its operating system.

So now that we know webOS isn’t dead, nor is it buried, we’re excited to see what kinds of things the homebrew community can do with it. Perhaps an Android phone running webOS? Maybe soon…

Source: The Verge