A lot of you have heard about HP’s mobile phone attempt, the Pre. Previously owned by Palm (the Palm Pre), then bought out by HP, now the Pre is done for good – HP is shutting down production of it’s mobile phones and tablets. 

The Pre ran an operating system called WebOS, which looked similar to the dumbphone interface of old. It’s biggest claim to fame was it’s unique multitasking system – something that looked like a hand of cards that you flip through, which gave a preview of the app that was running. Interestingly, HP will continue work on WebOS, licensing it out to other hardware manufacturers to use in their devices – but is it popular enough for that to work? Only time can really tell. But as far as hardware goes, the Pre ends with the upcoming release of the Pre 3.

Not only are they discontinuing the Pre, but also their solution to the tablet – the HP TouchPad. The TouchPad also ran a scaled up version of WebOS. It looked similar to the iPad in dimensions (as most tablets do – year of the copycats anyone) and released a few months ago to an underwhelming amount of sales.

The Pre was mildly successful – the first iteration, made by Palm, had a small cult following. It was widely agreed that WebOS and the Pre could be more popular if there were more hardware options available, with more frequent updates. The Pre was one of the first major smartphones to include inductive charging out of the box, considered by many it’s best feature.

The formerly-Palm Pre was never much competition to the giants of the industry like Apple and Google. However, it’s always sad to see competition disappear.