 This is Dieter Boneth-Werge at CES 2014 where, apparently, virtually dead operating systems can get a second life. It's no understatement to say that WebOS has had a weird history. It started as a way for Palm to save itself, struggled in the market, got sold to HP, and then HP killed its devices and sold the software to LG. The next step in this crazy ride? LG's WebOS Smart TVs. On the eve of LG's CES press conference, we had a chance to sit down with WebOS's head of product management and design, Itai Vonchak, to find out more about this strange new chapter. One of the main things we were trying to achieve is simplicity. There's nothing simpler than understanding a line. You have your past things, you have your present and the future. That really is the simplest thing that you can do. This is how WebOS works on a TV by completely reimagining it for the big screen. Using LG's Motion Remote, you can point it at what you want to watch and it's all put on a single line of content instead of a grid. All of your inputs simply become cards and are all the same, a single line of apps, TV, consoles and cable boxes. Apps are on the right and get big splashy intro screens, while your most recent cards are available on the left. We wanted Unity. Everything is the same, be it your Xbox, your source or some apps. They're all the same. If you're watching Netflix and you want to switch to see what's happening in a game, then go back to YouTube, it should be all the same thing. There's no difference. LG is also painfully aware that too many users don't set up their smart TVs, so it created a cartoon bean bird to encourage people to finish the process. The bird might be overly cute, but the overall interface is not at all. It's refined, snappy and there are animations to help you understand what's going on. A lot of the challenge that comes with one of the flat designs is that it gets really boring. We're trying to look for something that makes our design always dynamic. You'll see that we have a lot of tension between different parts of the design. There's strong lines and then they move sort of like jelly or in an unexpected way. Smart TVs typically have terrible interfaces. Grids of icons and mismatched UI abound. So LG decided it wanted something that felt immediate and simple instead of flashy and overbearing. The inspiration for the interface, the functionality comes from our perception that TVs used to be simple and we wanted to make TVs simple again. It's not just the functionality or the information architecture, it's also the visuals. And you can see the strong colors and the lines really come from old TVs and how even the no signal used to look. Smart TVs need apps and LG has the key ones. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and YouTube. There's also a store coming to add more, but LG isn't hanging its hopes on building a massive ecosystem yet. TV right now is not about apps, it's about content. We want to make sure we have all the content that people want to see. I don't think that it's about competing about the app catalog. And also WebOS is about the web. At the end we want everything to be accessible to everybody on the web and we're just going to be the best TV flow of the web. Becoming just another smart TV interface isn't what WebOS could have been, but it is what it is. Fortunately for LG, it looks like it's a relatively good interface and given the sad state of most of the competition, relatively good actually feels pretty great. Can WebOS be more than that? At this point it probably can't be and that's just going to have to be enough.
 This is Dieter Boneth-Werge at CES 2014 where, apparently, virtually dead operating systems
 can get a second life.
 It's no understatement to say that WebOS has had a weird history.
 It started as a way for Palm to save itself, struggled in the market, got sold to HP, and
 then HP killed its devices and sold the software to LG.
 The next step in this crazy ride?
 LG's WebOS Smart TVs.
 On the eve of LG's CES press conference, we had a chance to sit down with WebOS's head
 of product management and design, Itai Vonchak, to find out more about this strange new chapter.
 One of the main things we were trying to achieve is simplicity.
 There's nothing simpler than understanding a line.
 You have your past things, you have your present and the future.
 That really is the simplest thing that you can do.
 This is how WebOS works on a TV by completely reimagining it for the big screen.
 Using LG's Motion Remote, you can point it at what you want to watch and it's all put
 on a single line of content instead of a grid.
 All of your inputs simply become cards and are all the same, a single line of apps, TV,
 consoles and cable boxes.
 Apps are on the right and get big splashy intro screens, while your most recent cards
 are available on the left.
 We wanted Unity.
 Everything is the same, be it your Xbox, your source or some apps.
 They're all the same.
 If you're watching Netflix and you want to switch to see what's happening in a game,
 then go back to YouTube, it should be all the same thing.
 There's no difference.
 LG is also painfully aware that too many users don't set up their smart TVs, so it created
 a cartoon bean bird to encourage people to finish the process.
 The bird might be overly cute, but the overall interface is not at all.
 It's refined, snappy and there are animations to help you understand what's going on.
 A lot of the challenge that comes with one of the flat designs is that it gets really
 boring.
 We're trying to look for something that makes our design always dynamic.
 You'll see that we have a lot of tension between different parts of the design.
 There's strong lines and then they move sort of like jelly or in an unexpected way.
 Smart TVs typically have terrible interfaces.
 Grids of icons and mismatched UI abound.
 So LG decided it wanted something that felt immediate and simple instead of flashy and
 overbearing.
 The inspiration for the interface, the functionality comes from our perception that TVs used to
 be simple and we wanted to make TVs simple again.
 It's not just the functionality or the information architecture, it's also the visuals.
 And you can see the strong colors and the lines really come from old TVs and how even
 the no signal used to look.
 Smart TVs need apps and LG has the key ones.
 Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and YouTube.
 There's also a store coming to add more, but LG isn't hanging its hopes on building a massive
 ecosystem yet.
 TV right now is not about apps, it's about content.
 We want to make sure we have all the content that people want to see.
 I don't think that it's about competing about the app catalog.
 And also WebOS is about the web.
 At the end we want everything to be accessible to everybody on the web and we're just going
 to be the best TV flow of the web.
 Becoming just another smart TV interface isn't what WebOS could have been, but it is what
 it is.
 Fortunately for LG, it looks like it's a relatively good interface and given the sad state of
 most of the competition, relatively good actually feels pretty great.
 Can WebOS be more than that?
 At this point it probably can't be and that's just going to have to be enough.