Smart TV’s have become the latest craze, especially since Samsung has been advertising the heck out of them, which helps all Smart TV manufacturers, including their arch rival in South Korea, LG. Smart TV’s have their own “Operating System” built-in, processor, memory, menus, etc. and operates like a large tablet, without the touchscreen, but via the remote control. You can download apps, such as Netflix, Pandora, Hulu, Redbox, and even social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, etc. This method is certainly easier and less cumbersome than using, than say Google’s Chromecast, which has to plug-in and stick out the side or back of the TV – a feature that many flat screen TV owners do not care for.
LG has been selling Smart TVs for quite a while, but has always powered theirs with Google TV – but they are set to unveil a new Smart TV powered by webOS at CES next week. This will be LG’s first webOS product since they acquired it from Hewlett-Packard back in February. WebOS, was first used by Palm as their proprietary system on their smartphones until HP bought them in 2010. Although it was highly loved by many, the developers did not give the OS the attention that they gave iOS or Android…a much larger audience of buyers.
HP was determined to jump into selling tablets and smartphones, so they developed webOS for its own gadgets. It had a few innovative features, such as card-style multitasking display of apps, much like the one recently being used on iOS – but overall it was just not compelling enough for people to jump from their existing platforms, so HP stopped producing the TouchPad less than two months after its launch.
LG has not yet revealed how the touch-oriented webOS will be adapted to TV use, but our guess is it will have something to do with a touchpad as part of the remote. We also do not know if LG will change its entire Smart TV line to webOS or possibly just the high-end models; only that it was drawn to webOS and that they wanted their own operating system. Sources told the WSJ that it would retain the “cards” system or stack of pop-ups for navigation to multiple applications. The person also said that it may eventually be developed for other LG products, including smartphones.
The Smart TVs are not dominated by any one operating system, as are smartphones with Android and iOS, so each manufacturer is trying to come up with their own system. Samsung has been working with Intel on their own Tizen OS and, for now, LG has chosen webOS. LG is second only to Samsung in the TV market, and both are planning to highlight a huge 105-inch curved TV at CES.
Please let us know on our Google+ Page if you own a Smart TV, which brand, and if you like it and what apps you use on your device.