The TouchPad stories just keep coming and coming this week. Sure, there’s an open source Android TouchPad project, but it looks like HP may have got there first — or did it? Check out the video after the jump.
Liliputing reports on a HP TouchPad that arrived with a difference. A big, green, Android shaped difference. They’re skeptical about the whole thing, noting that it’s promised to be delivered to the Android porting community shortly to prove its validity — which presumably means we’ll find out sooner rather than later if it’s the real thing.
Personally, there’s a heck of a lot about this video that screams “fake” to me — just a few too many wobbles away from the screen, and it’s never terribly clear if the hand in shot is actually touching the screen or not. But if it is real, then Android on TouchPad could be exceptionally close to actually happening.
[Liliputing]
Ash
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 8:35 AMYeah I’m with you, I call shananigans
olearymo
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 8:44 AMPutting Android on a Touchpad?
Way to remove the only good thing about the Touchpad.
That’s kinda like getting a Mac just to put Ubuntu on it. Like… why?
Simon
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 8:54 AMBecause, olearymo, HP is ditching its retail hardware business. The Touchpad has been selling like hotcakes due to Harvey Norman placing a $98 price tag on them. There will be no OS updates provided by HP for them which is why the online community is looking for an alternative OS that has a future.
soupiejr
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 9:47 AMActually, HP is still going to be supporting WebOS, and the hope is that the fire sale of this tablet will actually spur more development of applications. Some analysts are actually thinking this maybe how HP is going to make itself relevant to the tablet market, by buying (at what is undoubtedly a monstrous cost) into the developers’ hearts.
But all in all, it still can’t be denied that there are heaps more Android apps out there than there are WebOS apps. The apps extends the usefulness of the tablet tremendously and many people would love to have all that function, in a $98 dual-core wifi tablet like this.
@ klaw81: For a much MUCH faster performance, do everything this site tells you to: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news/how-to-improve-the-performance-of-your-new-hp-touchpad/3866
olearymo
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 4:57 PMHP is ditching it Simon? Oh thankyou for pointing that out.
No webOS updates? Despite HP saying they’re not dropping the actual OS, and going so far as to say there will be updates?
My, aren’t you informed.
klaw81
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 9:35 AM@olearymo: Enough with the spam. Either explain what’s so good about WebOS, or shut up.
In my 12+ hours of use so far, WebOS is OK, but certainly not anything to shout about.
My complaints so far: It’s slow despite the great processor and the patches, it’s buggy in places, the app selection is very limited, there’s no “back” button in a lot of places where there should be, the browser has no tabs, the homescreen is annoyingly empty and pointless, and the dock at the bottom can only take 5 icons so it should be scrollable or something.
In short, it’s a long way from perfect, and it could use quite a few tweaks. HP aren’t going to be improving it, so people are looking for a more future-proof OS.
Mike
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 10:17 AMYou can speedup the touchpad by decreasing the logging that the touchpad is set to on high to minimal.
Also you can install preware after enabling developer mode. Have the kernel patched and you can run the cpu at 1.5ghz.
olearymo
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 4:56 PMWahhh Wahhh Wahhhhhhhhhhh.
If you need someone to explain what’s so good about webOS it’s pretty obvious you havent’ spent much time hanging around tech blogs and have never even heard of the Pre.
Why did you buy it if you dislike it so much?
Do some freaking research and stop whinging.
olearymo
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 5:47 PM@klaw81 sorry man I flew off the handle. but calling me spam is a little over the top.
I just can’t stand seeing people toss such a great os away, especially HP tossing it after ruining it.
But for 98 bucks I guess if u prefer android it makes sense. People just don’t take the time to appreciate things is all.
anyway sorry for overreacting. ill for easy on the ‘spam’
Ftruck
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 4:42 PMThe only good thing about Macs is their design.so buying one and putting ubuntu on it makes perfect sense.a better comparison would be buying a PC and hackintoshing it.
Ftruck
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 5:02 PMto clarify i was agreeing that it’s a ridiculous concept. considering any current port would have to be of 2.3.5 since that’s the latest open source version of android available which isn’t optimized for tablets. and with the way Google’s going these days i wouldn’t be surprised if no further source code was released for future OS’s.
Rowan
Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 2:07 AMYour half right, More like installing windows on your mac. A mac is some very decent hardware wrapped in a pretty box that is sadly let down by is sub par operating system. The Touchpad on the other head is a very cheap piece hardware that is doomed by its OS which will be ridden with bugs with no chance of an update. In both situations installing a higher class of OS(Windows or Android) is the most logical step to take so you can take advantage of the Decent/Cheap hardware with out the draw backs of running an OS that will never compete with the front runners.
Paul
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 1:17 PMWhy is it the cameraman can’t just focus on the 1 god damn thing that he’s meant to! I call bullcr– when they goto show you the version, perahps they switched to a photo.
Gerald de la Pascua
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 7:59 PMRecently at Gatwick Airport, I stopped by dixons to look at the tablets, the touchpad was being advertised as an Android tablet, which was odd as it was clearly running webos, I asked the sales man, but I think he mis heard me and thought I had said he had tiny tackle, because he got all uptight and started telling me that they were dual bootable with Android. The bloke acted like a jobsworth idiot, I should have asked him to show me the dual boot, but he was so obnoxious, and I wasn’t about to buy one, for the price of an ipad 2, so I just left. I wonder if they really did have dual bootable touchpads ?
olearymo
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 8:35 PMNo, they didn’t.