The first webOS device was the original Palm Pre, released by Sprint in June 2009.

Later, webOS was described by new HP CEO Leo Apotheker as a key asset and motivation for the purchase.

HP indicated its intention to develop the webOS platform for use in multiple new products, including smartphones, tablets, and printers.

[citation needed] In August 2011, HP announced that it was interested in selling its Personal Systems Group, responsible for all of its consumer PC products, including webOS, and that webOS device development and production lines would be halted.

[13] The HP Pre 3 was launched in select areas of Europe, and US-based units were available only through unofficial channels (both AT&T and Verizon canceled their orders just prior to delivery after Apotheker's (HP's CEO at the time) announcement.

[14] Notably, these US Pre 3 units, having been released through unofficial channels, lacked both warranties and carried no support obligation from HP; as a result parts are nearly impossible to come by.

HP announced that it would continue to issue updates for the HP Veer and HP TouchPad, but these updates have failed to materialize for the former, and the latter saw a final, unofficial release called "webOS CE" that contained only open-sourced components of webOS meant for what remained of the developer community rather than a conventional, user-centric update to the operating system.

[18][19] In February 2012, HP released Isis, a new web browser for Open webOS.

The number of functional apps remaining at that time is unknown but was probably much lower due to the imminent abandonment of the project.

[27] On February 25, 2013, HP announced that it was selling webOS to LG Electronics for use on its web-enabled smart TVs, replacing its previous NetCast platform.

[28][29] Under the agreement LG Electronics owns the documentation, source code, developers and all related websites.

[34] This edition would allow developers to download the source code for free as well as take advantage of related tools, guides, and forums on its new open source website to become more familiar with webOS and its inherent benefits as a smart device's platform.

Users can sign into multiple email accounts from different providers and integrate all of these sources into a single list.

If software problems do occur after installing homebrew programs, "webOS Doctor" (provided by HP) can restore a phone back to factory settings and remove changes made by homebrew apps and patches.

Once in developer mode, data on the system partition can be accessed freely, even if the device was locked.

Underneath the graphical user interface, webOS has much in common with mainstream Linux distributions.

In 2011, Enyo replaced Mojo, released in June 2009, as the software development kit (SDK).