Wrong. The product is a month old. HP is continuing to develop and support Web OS. Even if they dont, people just got a $327 dollar in materials alone tablet that can surf, email, movie, music, etc. That's all most want their tablet for.
Just like the iPad1, it will be a dead product soon because Apple wont support it..just the iPad2 and 3. It doesn't mean it wont be usable for years to people who only need what's on the iPad1. My folks have an iPad1 and that is all they will EVER need because it's the perfect device for them. They don't need a new one each year and they don't need the bells and whistles. the same goes for a lot of these TouchPad buyers. Most I talked to in the stores said they just wanted a tablet to consume and browse the web and surf.
If it serves its purpose for everyone that got one, which is mostly consumption, then it's not obsolete or dead. Most said the same thing like you said..once the novelty wears off, they'll return their iPads. Your's is the same argument that holds no water.
Betamax was superior in every way to VHS. Thats why it became the Video Editing standard. Your comparison there just shows what you don't know about some stuff. HD-DVD was superior to Blu-Ray. I work in post and we use all of these. So I guess using your analogy...everyone just got the superior product even though it's not widely used.
Again, if they are continuing to support it, which they said they are, just no hardware, then the people will continue to get stuff for it. Plus, the user market just exploded and again, if people love it, then they are happy with their $500 tablet for $99.
You act like the iPad is the only choice. I'm pro Apple but your response to this is just stupid. This is a steal of a dead with the hardware alone and it does what most people want a tablet to do. Browse, Surf, Social Network, Email, Movie, Music and simple games.
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http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/19/the-engadget-interview-hps-stephen-dewitt-discusses-the-state/
Also, many reviewers of the HPTouchPad didn't realize that the newest build is much more fluid and also if you allow it to synch up in the background after some time...then supposedly it really starts moving..lots of the UI lag supposedly is from synching.
Who knows. It's a great tablet for the price. You can't even get a color nook at that price.
And in terms of performance...someone just posted a fix to make the tablet haul @$$
Unfortunately there is still enough debugging going on in the background that it still impacts the TouchPad’s performance. The homebrew community of webOS developers recognized this and created three software patches that address the remaining event logging happening all the time in the background. Once these three homebrew patches are applied, and no problem is created when you do, the TouchPad becomes as fast as any tablet on the market based on my real-world experience.
I am not against facilitating debugging systems to understand what happened when things go wrong, but it is obvious through the performance gains observed by disabling it that HP went too far overboard.
This may seem like a big effort but the truth is it is a very simple process once you get going. You can complete it all in just a few minutes and the benefits you will observe will be noticeable. HP really shot itself in the foot by enabling all of this performance-clogging background activity by default. Now you can enjoy your speedy new TouchPad, or even better enter the world of overclocking if you want to take it to another level.