Bringing Palm's webOS back, with an AI that never leaves the device.
webOS Phoenix rebuilds the card-based multitasking, gestures and “Just Type” search that made Palm's webOS loved, on top of the modern webOS Open Source Edition, and adds a private AI assistant that runs locally.
- Type
- Open-source operating system interface & apps
- Status
- Milestone 0 — runs in a desktop phone/tablet simulator; device integration written, not yet run on hardware
- Stack
- Qt 6 / QML, C++, React + TypeScript, Node.js services, Yocto
- AI
- Qwen3 0.6B language model, Kitten TTS, whisper.cpp
- Services
- App development, AI integration
The idea
Palm's webOS introduced ideas phones still borrow: cards you flick away, gesture navigation, and a single search box that does everything. The original platform was shelved, but LG's open-source edition kept the foundation alive.
Phoenix asks what that experience looks like rebuilt for today, open-source and with an assistant that respects your privacy.
What we built
A Qt 6 / QML system shell that recreates the card view, gestures and Just Type, plus more than 25 new React and TypeScript apps, including Settings, Phone, Messaging, Camera, Photos, Music, Files, Tasks, Voice Memos, QR Scanner, Weather, Maps, Passwords and an Authenticator.
Contacts and calendars sync over CardDAV and CalDAV. Messaging accounts are tested against XMPP, Matrix, Delta Chat and Telegram demo servers.
AI that runs on the device
The assistant runs a small language model (Qwen3 0.6B) with Kitten TTS for speech, entirely on-device. Voice Memos and Voice Dial transcribe with whisper.cpp. No audio or text is sent to a cloud API.
It's the same approach we take for clients whose data can't leave the building: pick the smallest model that does the job, and run it where the data already lives.
Engineering discipline
One command, ./phoenix run, installs dependencies, builds everything and starts an adaptive phone and tablet simulator on macOS or Ubuntu.
Shell and app behaviour is covered by Playwright and Qt test suites. More than 1,100 commits landed in the first three weeks, all in public.
Real screens, real software.
Keep exploring.
Want something like webOS Phoenix?
Tell us what you're trying to build. You'll hear back within one business day with questions, a suggested approach and a ballpark.