HP TouchPad news

[thewayne]

A couple of things in the news about the HP TouchPad, the WebOS tablet device that was blown-out in August for $99. The OS and the tablet got pretty good reviews, up until the point that HP decided to abandon all WebOS development at a cost to them of a billion dollars or so. It's the operating system that they acquired when they bought out Palm Pilot, and it powered their Palm smart phones.

The first piece of news is that HP is having a mondo big sale on eBay tomorrow, Sunday, 11 December, at 6pm Central Standard Time, and will be blowing out "an unspecified quantity" of factory refurbished units at the $99+ price. An accessory pack will be available, and the units will have a 90 day warranty.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/07/hp-touchpad-ebay/

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/12/08/1545236/hp-reviving-the-99-touch-pad-on-december-11th

The other piece of news is that HP is releasing the WebOS to the open source community. It was speculated that RIM, the makers of Blackberry, would buy it. I think it would have been a good fit for RIM, but I guess it didn't happen. HP claims that they will be an active participant in the project, but I tend to question that since they've bought in to Windows Mobile OS for cell phones. No one is making hardware for this OS, and the Android community have been very active in porting to it, so I'm not sure how useful WebOS going open source will be.

I think you're going to see two things. The highest amount of activity will be the Android TouchPad community as they'll be trying to get their apps already in the various Android app stores working on the TouchPad. You'll see some WebOS activity for the newness of it, people will study it to see how they did things and what other interesting things they can adapt in to other open source projects. Some people will write some bug fixes and new interconnectedness link software, but I don't think this will be a huge group. I think the least activity will be people doing new development in WebOS. There's no growing hardware base: all of the hardware has been made, and that number will suffer a steady decline over the years as it fails and is with increasing rapidity eclipsed by newfangledness. I don't think that you'll see any manufacturers building hardware for the WebOS, it's too easy to just make it for Android, which has a growing and vibrant community.

So you've got two camps (IMO): the hackers who want an inexpensive tablet to root, port Android to it, and enjoy the heck out of it, and the people who don't pry beneath the covers and buy an inexpensive tablet and use it until it gets glitchy, then they'll bitch that they can't get it repaired and dump it for an iPad or Android tablet or eBook reader.

That's what I think, but what do I know.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/12/hp-webos-open-source/

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/HP-to-make-webOS-an-open-source-project-1393262.html

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11/12/09/1857254/hp-making-webos-open-source


This puts me in a bit of a conflicted bind. I was planning on buying a Nook Tablet from Barnes & Noble, if you're a member you can get them for $225. It would be brand-spanking new and have all sorts of wonderful support available through a major corporation that, as far as I'm hearing, is doing a very good job of keeping customers happy with it. Or I might be able to drop less than half that for a unit that has no company support, only a 90 day warranty, and to expand it's capability I'd have to install a new operating system on it that would be dependent on varying quality levels of community support.

I'm probably going to go with the Nook. I'm tired of having to wrestle with software, I don't want to think about the number of systems that I've had to patch, bring back from the dead, and sacrifice brindled calves to in the pale moonlight over the last 20+ years as an IT person. I just want to have confidence that my shit will work when I hit the power button, and that it won't be difficult to find good resources to fix it if it glitches or dies.

Comments

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

I got an iPad. I say this not to suggest you should get one, but to let you know I have experience with them.

IMCO (in my crackpot opinion) the point of a tablet or netbook is to be an adjunct to your real computer, although a netbook could be your real computer if you only wanted, or could only afford, limited performance. They serve best as the digital briefcase you toss a few files into when you hit the road, leaving the bulk of your hardware, software, and content back home.

Traditionally, the way to do this is to get a laptop that can do everything your real computer can. The netbook and, to even greater extent the tablet are a recognition that most of the time, when you are on the road, you don't NEED everything your real computer has.

Ideally, these should be your portable data appliance that you haul around with you, toss in your briefcase or backpack and don't think about very much. It shouldn't have anything on it you can't afford to lose; ideally, only copies of stuff that's kept on your main machine. (Dropbox is your friend here.) You're taking it with you wherever you go, so it is exposed to theft, loss, or accident more than any other hardware you own. Ideally it should be robust enough to resist a few knocks and cheap enough that you won't be utterly heartbroken when it is lost or destroyed. (The iPad doesn't qualify here due to price, in my opinion, although in other ways it's a decent unit.)

You're likely to have to replace it in a couple-three years. Even if you don't, they're changing enough that whatever work you put into tweaking the software won't carry over to the next unit.

So yeah, my crackpot advice would be that more than any other computer you might own, a tablet should be a data appliance that you just use and don't fiddle with. Consider getting something you don't have to think about, since in the end any thinking you do about it is going to be wasted.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much the same as my opinion regarding tablets. I've been using an iPod Touch for 2 1/2 years as a PDA, I used a Palm Pilot for probably over 15 years. I became an iPhone user last week. My wife was going to buy me an iPad for my birthday next week, but my laptop needs replacing, so instead I'm getting a MacBook Air. I think our main use for it will be eBook reader and querying IMDB while watching TV and movies, and some entertainment while driving.