The Palm Pre and webOS represented one of mobile’s most elegant interfaces and tragic failures—innovative software that arrived at the wrong time with inadequate hardware and marketing.
The Last Great Hope
Announced at CES 2009, the Palm Pre running webOS was hailed as the “iPhone killer” with revolutionary multitasking cards, universal search, and wireless charging Touchstone dock. The gesture-based navigation and synergy contact aggregation were years ahead of iOS. #PalmPreWebOS became a rallying cry for tech enthusiasts rooting for the underdog.
But Palm was already dying. The Pre’s slider keyboard felt cheap, the plastic body lacked premium appeal, and Sprint exclusivity limited reach. Most critically, Palm lacked resources to build an app ecosystem to compete with Apple’s 100,000+ App Store offerings by mid-2009. Despite critical acclaim, the Pre sold just 1 million units in 2009 versus iPhone’s 25 million.
From HP Disaster to LG TVs
HP acquired Palm for $1.2 billion in 2010, promising a webOS tablet and integration across products. The 2011 TouchPad tablet launched to poor reviews and abysmal sales. Six weeks later, HP killed all webOS hardware, selling TouchPads for $99 in a fire sale that saw the tablets sell out instantly—proof webOS had value at the right price.
HP open-sourced webOS in 2012, then sold it to LG in 2013 for use in smart TVs, where it lives on today. The Palm Pre is remembered fondly by tech enthusiasts as a “what if” story—brilliant ideas (multitasking cards later copied by iOS, Android, and Windows) executed too late with too little capital. Former users post nostalgic photos with #PalmPreWebOS, mourning mobile’s most elegant failure.
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