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HP Announces WebOS-Based TouchPad Tablet, Pre 3 and Veer Smartphones

Is it me?...

Is it me or this picture looks like OS X...?

The blue background, the status bar at the top, the iChat-like icon, iPhoto-like icon, and iCal-like icon... And from the back it looks like an iPhone 3GS... So this is the best knockoff of an Apple product so far.

Don't get me wrong. It looks great and has some great features, but the resemblance is undeniable. Like many people have said, though, App Store is the killer feature of the iPad.
 

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sigma8 said:
The first real competitor! The price will be key. I want to know the price.
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And battery life. They'll fall short on both.

1) Price: Because Apple buys first, and in unbeatable quantities, they get the King's Discount. Then they price aggressively to burn the competition.

2) Price: Apple also expects to SELL iPads in unbeatable quantities. They have enormous sales channels and unmatchable brand recognition. They can sell iPads cheaper than anyone and yet still make more money than anyone.

3) Battery: Because they design their own chips, they can make their systems more compact. That means more room for a bigger battery. (Look at a disassembled iPhone - it's MOSTLY battery!)

4) Battery: Apple has an edge over HP (and most anyone else) in software engineers, especially in the area of battery management. (Years of making laptops and all.)

HP's up against Goliath, and I have a feeling they ain't David.
 
pika2000 said:
Here's the problem: when are these going to ship? Spring and summer?
Spring: Post MWC, we will see a flurry of Android phones, some with dual core and 4G, in addition to Honeycomb tablet (Moto Xoom). Oh, and don't forget iPad 2.
Summer: iPhone 5.

Do you see the problem? Palm/HP has almost no chance other than today to get media exposure. Releasing the products way later after the announcement is not going to do you much good if you're trying to compete with the headline grabbers like Apple and Google.
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I completely agree with you! And this is always going to be the case. Some of this company needs to get into same product release and secrecy mode as Apple to get some real traction - Of course, the product has to be real game changer. Secondly, as the Nokia's CEO mentioned other day and what I keep telling my friends also - It is not just the hardware, but the complete ecosystem, which HP is going to hard to beat. This is the problem, Microsoft and other wannabes are facing.
 
PlipPlop said:
Its meant to be really good but was on fairly rubbish hardware.
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This. My entry into smartphones was with the original Sprint Pre. I loved WebOS but the hardware was the biggest POS I've ever used. My wife and I went through two each and eventually paid money to get the EVO just to get rid of them. (Pivoting screens, paint scratching off the keys area, batteries that lost connection etc, random reboots)

I've grown to appreciate Android but I really miss the unified messaging (text and IM), card system and notifications. I still own my 3G IPT and love it but I still think I enjoyed WebOS the most overall.
 
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery....

I think HP just paid Apple the nicest compliment possible..;)

That said, my hat's off to HP for moving the bar in the right direction. On a certain level, I think competition will be good for Apple in the tablet marketplace. Apple will be better off owning 50% of a 100 million unit market than 90% of one thats stuck at 20 million.

Why so cagey on pricing? My thoughts: See where Apple prices it's next iPad model. (Its not like the HP execs can't figure out how much the thing is gonna cost them to make.) I think HP will end up pricing the TouchPad to be at least competitive.

The really big unknown, of course, is going to be whether or not HP can get developers on board for this device. All things being equal - from a specs point of view - people are going to go with the device with 20,000 Apps, rather than one with a handful.

Last note: Kudos to HP's engineers for packing this device with useful sensors. ONE camera, gyroscope, compass etc. Any tablet that comes with "3D" capability and barometers was engineered by idiots.
 
Damn, finally. WebOS is simply the best smartphone OS I've ever used (my girlfriend has a pre plus on sprint thanks to some modding I did) and seeing it on a tablet is amazing. The notification system is perfect, the multitasking is easy (I think the buzzword is "intuitive") and it overall the OS just needs some TLC.
 
After a year, all they could come up with is an exact copy of the iPad?

Well, what a striking vision of the future. Such exciting innovation...

A company with all the resources of HP and this is all they could muster? Embarrassing. Hope somebody gets fired.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Macrumors not palmhprumors
 
LaDirection said:
*******, not only do they copy the device, they can't even come up with their own keynote fonts and background...
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I know, I know, don't feed the trolls, but I felt compelled to reply before anyone else gets misled by this post.

Look at the font - it's completely different to the one Apple uses in their presentations. It's also the same font HP uses on much of their corporate branding - you'll also find it used on HP.com.
 
I think that this is a major competitor for Apples iPad 2. Sure they didnt mention anything about battery or price, but WebOS to me looks way more up to date than anything of iOS, and the hardware is better...

I'm gonna be considering this tablet :D
 
poloponies said:
Yes, but Apple was marking out new territory. They could afford to announce before the products were ready (and they did ballpark release dates). HP's just hoping to get some PlayBook, Xoom, iPad 2 buyers to hold off until "mid-2011", which is a hard sell.
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Apple only pre-announces products by several months if they do not compete with existing products. The same applies here for the TouchPad. Palm/HP does not loose any sales of existing products with this. RIM's PlayBook was also announced months before it goes on sale.
 
I like this more than the android devices and some features I wish apple would have them too, the only thing that HP now need to do is to sell it at a very low price, then they will really have a good chance to compete.
 
Torresangel88 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Macrumors not palmhprumors
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Then don't read the article? Plus iPhones aren't Macs so technically they shouldn't be on this site either.
 
'Beats' is the last product endorsement that is going to get me to buy anything.

Monster sells overpriced garbage in a pretty package which means that HP spent way too much money to put the Beats logo on their tablet.

Other than that it appears to be an iPad clone.

The expected battery life is conspicuously missing and there is still no mention of an App store.
 
Bosep said:
I would ditch iPad any day if android 3.0 or WebOS had 1% of the good apps that's on the ipad, Appstore is just too good to compete with, because that's what matter.
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Really? You must be rich to ditch not only devices at the drop of a hat but also any apps that you might have purchased.

Can I have some money?
 
They are just trying to distract people from the imminent iPad 2 release.

I wonder if this product will ever come to market.
 
LaDirection said:
*******, not only do they copy the device, they can't even come up with their own keynote fonts and background...
Click to expand...

Cool. Somebody beside me caught that. Guess nobody at HP knew how to use Impress. Besides Apple products, just work.

Having my contacts and other information follow me from phone to tablet is pretty cool. Good show, HP.
 
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