Comments on: Even More WebOS Tablet Details Emerge

The rumor may be entirey off-base but it does come straight from the most reliable source for these sorts of things--Precentral:

" Related but take it with a grain of salt: we've received and unverifiable but true-seeming tip that the tablets will feature tight Amazon integration - including unbox movies, music store, and, yes, Kindle. Perhaps Jon Rubinstein joining Amazon's board wasn't just a coincidence?"

http://www.precentral.net/rumor-more-tablet-details-emerge-touchstone-size-features

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro-> Verizon Moto Droid X + Palm TX

I didn't drink the Kool-Aid marked EVO.

the Jonestown reference was meant for the Reverend.

we all know you're trapped on Satan Island ever since the ferry "incident".

Gekko, always keeping files. It's like looking into a candy store window for you, isn't it, wishing you had my life of excitement, cats, and pizza!

Maybe I'm mistaken, but if I'm going to dev, then I want to see a robust market, or the evidence that one is on the way. HP stands for Hefty Promises at this point, and Palm has burnt a lot of good devs with Palm OS neglect, the Foldeo, wimpy WebOS APIs, and collapsing what market share was there.

Robust development comes most often from those with robust wallets. Those who look to keep that wallet padded. A great phone OS, with the possibility of a great tab OS, all w/out platform market share is a non-starter IMO. HP had better have more than a cool tablet or an "iPad killer" to get devs.

It appears they are going for seamless "sync" across scalable devices. I believe that will be the "beyond" part on the 9th. It needs to be good or this could be a one and half billion hole in the ground.

All this excepts the unbelievable Homebrew devs, WebOSinternals / Preware gang. I would have been gone without them, and I've been assigned to turn out the lights 'round here.
Pat Horne

gmayhak wrote:
We're all waiting but the only thing that will get my attention is full support for legacy Palm OS apps. It's not too late for them to realize what made Palm, the hundreds of thousands man hours developing tools and apps for Palm OS. Web OS is someones guess of a cool os. No facts, just a guess!
What the hell were they thinking? Just add the flashy card stuff to a proven OS and add more processing capability to the hardware so developers can take atvantage of it and keep building on what you have. Don't throw it all away and start over. There is no room for nubees in this market!

Gary

I don't think PalmOS is going to be a help at this point. What they should've done with the release of the Pre is license Classic and have it pre-installed on the phone. That way, people could've moved their old apps over. Back when the Pre was new, and Android wasn't the behemoth that it is now, having all those Palm OS apps would've at least put them in the number 2 spot for a while. Instead, they banked on developers making new apps, and relegated Classic to a paid add-on status.

At this point, I think Classic is irrelevant. PalmOS is too ancient to stand up to the likes of Android and iOS. (Is there anything you can do on PalmOS you can't do on Android or iOS?) It's true that there isn't a lot of room for newbies in the market, but this isn't the market for old farts, either.

Releasing the full APIs for the hardware would be a good start. It's a little embarrassing that almost two years in, WebOS phones don't have apps for scanning bar codes, recognizing music played in a room, etc. I know the homebrew community is up to the challenge if they're given the tools, but HP needs to cough them up, pronto.

Gekko wrote:

giving it away free and bundling it wouldn't have done much more then or now.

I think giving it away for free at launch (as a lot of people were hoping they'd do, as I recall) would have been a way to say to the Palm faithful, "You don't have to leave your apps behind. You can take everything you love about your PalmOS device with you." The second you make someone pay for something, you're introducing a risk, however small. And some customers had significant investments tied up in these apps. (Look at apps like HandBase and the non-free version of Documents to Go.) People would've been a lot more comfortable making the jump if they knew that Classic was pre-installed from the get-go, so that they could use their old apps until substitutes came along.

Gekko wrote:

did you ever use it? it was almost as buggy as the original FrankenGarnet. i'm not sure it would have made much of a difference in the grand scheme of things especially given all of the other missteps and shortcomings. come on - a bundled free Classic would not have stopped the onslaught and ultimate demise of Palm - and i hope that's not what you're saying. we would be in the same place we are today regardless.

Do I think it would've made a huge difference? No. But regardless of how well Classic worked (and the few times I tried it, I was probably 50/50 in terms of success), the mere perception that you could take your apps with you from FrankenGarnet would've helped the Pre's adoption rate. I can't see it saving Palm from HP, because I don't think there were that many PalmOS users to save Palm. What that would've taken is a more sustained adoption rate outside of the PalmOS faithful.

The Pre's initial sales were good (not iPhone good, obviously, but good nonetheless). Where they tanked was in following-up. The ad campaign with the "creepy Pre girl" sucked, they bungled the release of the SDK, and they didn't put all their APIs on the table. And they probably didn't have the cash to follow-up on the Pre (or at least the Pixi) with a worthwhile successor. Rather than updating the phone to try and compete with the likes of Apple and Android, they just threw memory (and a slightly faster processor, in the case of the Pre 2) at the Pre and Pixi and hoped no one would notice that they were essentially the same phones.

I loved my Pre in the beginning. It's even an okay phone now. But since my contract is up in July, I'm becoming more and more convinced (unless they announce a new phone for Sprint in February) that my next phone will run Android.

poor Developer support/relations/interest is a problem. Documents To Go?

$25/Month - Unlimited Data, Text, and 300 Anytime Minutes

http://www.virginmobileusa.com/cell-phone-plans/beyond-talk-plans.jsp

Samsung Intercept

http://www.virginmobileusa.com/cell-phones/samsung-intercept-phone.jsp

and coming soon?

http://www.androidcentral.com/virgin-mobiles-lg-optimus-v-priced-149

yes - if i was you i would stay with Sprint and get the EVO. my monthly bill is $73 after all discounts, fees, and taxes. i have Unlimited Voice Mobile to Mobile to ANY carrier, Unlimited Texts, MMS, Data, GPS, 4G, Voice 7pm, Nights & Weekends, and 450 Landline Minutes. great value.

what are you waiting for?

http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/is-the-iphone-coming-to-sprint/

And I'm reallll pissed the tablet will not be on Sprint first. And apparently no 3G/4G tablet at the start either!

I wonder if HP has it in the roadmap? It's just a tiny tablet afterall.
Pat Horne

and probably a sadist and masochist too.

1) HP is hardly a "failing brand". In the printing space, they're still huge, and while HP laptops may be nothing to write home about (and I agree, since I owned one once a while back), at least HP can be said to have some competency in that space.

2) No Android tablets have gone past the demo stage? Seriously? Seriously?! Just what would you call the Galaxy Tab, a calculator? There's also the Dell Streak, which, while less popular than the Tab, has met with some success. And that's not even counting devices like the Nook Color, which can be rooted to run as an Android tablet, or the various offerings from Archos.

3) There are Android phones that can be had for < $100, but over $150-$200 (subsidized) is much more common. Less than $100 won't get you a current device. (And really, using the iPhone 3Gs to justify a $50 is pretty silly.)

4) HP couldn't possibly be stupid enough to release an unsubsidized tablet at $400. It's just not going to happen.

5) I think having multiple devices to show is a good thing. If you can use a shotgun approach, and aim at many different types of users at once, why wouldn't you? HP isn't the same cash-strapped entity that Palm was.

I can agree on some of the other things the author says (although I don't know where the fear of long-winded names comes from -- these aren't printers, after all). I'm particularly afraid that the app situation won't change, or that they won't even bother to mention top tier partners. (We've seen several companies -- including DataViz, that was announced as a partner at the damn Pre launch -- bail, and that really concerns me.)

I'm hoping for the best, but I think Android is looking much better to me than WebOS right now.

gmayhak wrote:
I'm sure Jobs is looking forward to HP's announcement so Apple can knock them out of the running with hardware specs and price point on iPad 2. We might be getting some great bargains soon ;-)

I'm more hopeful now than I was before HP bought Palm. Now, at least, there's some money to be put into development. I think the apps are going to be a much bigger hurdle than the hardware and price points.

http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/HTC-Flyer-tablets-rumored/

They'll probably send out press invites before the 9th.

Gekko wrote:

they'll sell dozens!!!

You scoff, but I think HP has as good a chance as anyone else of selling a decent tablet. The UI is actually well-liked for tablets. Have you noticed the reaction of the tech press to the UI on the RIM PlayBook? What does that UI remind you of? And Palm always got high marks for the WebOS UI. Where they're going to have an issue is with the apps. I can only assume that HP is working on apps to introduce to the tablet to take advantage of the form factor. (For example, some note-taking app you could use with a stylus.) One could also imagine, since Amazon is associated with this, some integration with Amazon Unbox, letting people download movies to their tablets. And of course, syncing between the tablet and your WebOS phone would be key.

I'm not saying I'll necessarily stick around for it (unless there's a ramp-up of apps and I can justify going to an as-yet unreleased new WebOS phone) but I certainly wouldn't write it off out of hand. It doesn't take 100,000 apps to hold on. It only takes a few really good, innovative ones. I think HP has a chance to create those apps. I'm just worried they'll try to wait for third parties to do it.

Are you nuts? Nokia's "tablet" was an outright piece of shit from its birth to its death. Good riddance!

And the RIM Playbook is nothing a but right rip-off of webOS. In that sense, seeing it is good only as a light demo for what a true webOS tablet will bring.

And I LOVE the fact the webOS tablet will have an IPS screen. I don't think others do. That's an In Your Face to Apple.

Also, HP has a big advantage in offering two sizes. A 7" tablet should not be underestimated. It's much more totable than a larger iPad.

Mike is right, though: no one is ASKING for an iPad-beater. They're simply asking for something COMPARABLE to an iPad in specs, features, usability, performance and, yes, pricing.

For me personally, here are MY tablet criteria:

-Not made by Apple (though I may give in to the lure of an iPad 2 if NOTHING else solid emerges)

-Good quality screen. At least 7" 1024x600. 800x480 or similar is a smartphone-caliber fail. I like the formfactor of the 7" screens but considering this thing will be used 90% of the time at home (on the couch, in bed or on the john), a 10" may be the way to go. It's good have good viewing angles and a glass (not plastic) capacitive screen. The Archos I have now is an unmitigated disaster as far as the responsiveness of its plastic screen. Personally, I think the current crop of 10.1" screens may be a tad too big. I'd like to see something like 1280x800 or 1366x768 on a 9" screen. Probably the perfect compromise between size and portability.

-Good battery life. User-replacable battery would be nice but I'm not gonna count on it

-At least 8gb of internal storage. A removable memory card slot would be nice since I have a handful of nice microSD cards sitting here that could go in it.

-At least a reasonable expectation of support from the manufacturer. HP will in all likelihood be better at this than the various Android clones but Apple usually takes the cake in this regard.

-Standardized ports (microUSB etc) are nice. No proprietary Samsung or Apple connectors for me, please! Charging via microUSB instead of a bulky AC connector would also be nice, as would having microHDMI output.

-Whether wi-fi or wi-fi/3G/4G, my drop-dead price limit is $499.99 and not a penny more. Apple has set the benchmark with the 16GB wi-fi iPad. Anyone venturing much beyond that is setting themselves up for disaster if it's their only tablet SKU (Xoom, Playbook). All these manufacturers need to at least come up with an entry-level model that matches or slightly undercuts the cheapest iPad SKU.

What is NOT important to me:

-3G/4G connectivity. If I want this, I'll buy a Virgin Mobile MyFi or hack or pay for wi-fi Hotspot connectivity on my Droid X. Just give me decent wi-fi reception on my tablet and I'll be happy.

-Dual-core SOC/powerful GPU. I would be fine with a "standard" Snapdrapon or OMAP 1Ghz CPU....basically, current 4.3" Android smartphone-level hardware. Besides, most of the current Android tablet performance shortcomings are due to the horrible memory management of Android 2.x
The Galaxy Tab runs fairly smoothly with its phone innards. I don't intent for this to be a 1080p playback machine or even a gaming rig (I hate these "console style" games that attempt to emulate a joystick or d-pad with an onscreen controls). If I want that kind of serious gaming, I'll get a PSP2. All I want it to do is play Angry Birds-style titles and handle HQ Youtube videos without hiccups.

-No carrier exclusivity/subsidies/contracts. Blow these things out at retail and with Amazon and let the retailers compete on price. I want a solid deal! 99% of the time I would never us the integrated WWAN connectivity, so why must I pay for the extra hardware?

-Webcam/onboard sound etc. I have plenty of cameras that can take far superior pictures. And if I want audio I'll plug in my headphones.

So with all that said, If I had to buy a tablet RIGHT NOW, it'd be a toss-up between the Nook Color, the Galaxy Tab, the Viewsonic G-Tablet or the current iPad.

The Nook is the chepaest, has a great screen and can be easily rooted/flashed to make it a poor man's Android tablet but there are still some reliability and compatibility issues.

The Galaxy Tab is as about as good as we're gonna get on a Froyo tablet, it's got official Market access and I love the formfactor (aside from the proprietary Samsung connector). Unsubsidized pricing is already down to $450 but I'd still like to see another $50 or $100 shaved off that price, since Samsung it likely never gonna release an OS update for that device. The first-gen GTab was basically DOA and intended to have something to sell for the 2010 holiday season.

The G-Tablet has a few coarse/rough edges (a bit bulky, no GPS or location finding capability, poor viewing angles, non-backlit capacitive buttons, mini USB instead of microUSB, uses a hideously bulky AC plug for charging) but there's no denying the horsepower this thing packs. 16gb internal + microsdhc slot + Tegra 2 & 10.1" 1024x600? For a good bit less than $400? And no locked bootloader and a rabid modding community? I'm tempted!

iPad....well, you all know that story. Still a bit bulky and heavy for my needs. And I still detest iTunes and the walled garden. Regardless, it's a solid device for the money and has firmly set the benchmark for the rest of the industry.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro-> Verizon Moto Droid X + Palm TX

Given the fact that the PalmPad will have things the iPad doesn't (e.g., videoconferencing, wireless printing, 4G (where available)) it could end up competing okay. It still needs an app infusion, but the hardware's right up there with the other tablets coming to market now (and HP doesn't have that anti-Flash fetish that Apple does).

Yes. Pricing will be a big factor. But IIRC, these will all be WiFi-only models first. And if they're very smart, they will attack the iPad with the 7" model coming out first and fast.

And Google has Cloud Printing. You think HP won't do likewise?! FFS, they make money with printing!

Until adobe can optimize flash to the point where it's not a battery and CPU hog, I'd rather not have flash running natively.

Flash running on my iPad drained 30% of my battery in less than an hour.

I'd rather have battery life over a resource hungry flash.