Android could hit HP’s TouchPad thanks to Touchdroid project

If you were one of the many gadget hounds to snag a $99 HP TouchPad this weekend, you may soon be able to run Android on the tablet thanks to a group of intrepid hackers.

The group’s Touchdroid project is only a few days old, but it’s notable since it’s the first concerted effort to bring Android to the TouchPad. And if it succeeds, Touchdroid would breathe new life into the tablet, which at the moment likely won’t see many future updates to its native webOS software since HP has given up on the hardware.

The group says that it’s first working on developing a port of Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Once that’s reached a stable beta, it will begin working towards an Android 3.0 Honeycomb port. The latter was built with tablets in mind, so I’d recommend you wait until that port is available.

It’s unclear if the Touchdroid project will completely replace the Touchpad’s webOS software — which admittedly is quite nice on a tablet interface. Alternatively, the developers could make it possible to dual boot the tablet into either webOS or Android.

HP on Friday slashed the 16 gigabyte TouchPad’s price to $99 in Canada, where it quickly sold out at Best Buy stores. Best Buy initially said it wouldn’t offer the discount at US stores, but some lucky customers were still able to get their hands on the tablets. Over the weekend it was also possible to snag a cheap TouchPad via HP’s own site, as well as a multitude of other retailers.

Via Business Insider

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Tags: Android, hacks, tablets, Touchdroid, TouchPad

Companies: HP

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US Best Buy stops selling TouchPad, HP gives refunds to owners

HP’s massive TouchPad fire sale won’t be hitting US Best Buy stores, as the retailer will be shipping its remaining stock back to HP, Engadget reports.

Even more intriguing, HP is apparently offering refunds to current TouchPad owners who bought the tablet on its website, either for the full price of the tablet or the difference in the discounted fire sale prices, according to WebOSroundup.

HP has also sent out memos to its retail partners to extend their refund offers on the TouchPad. We’ve dropped a line into HP to see how much of this report is true.

Best Buy just recently put up a page detailing its TouchPad return policy, saying that it will now offer returns and refunds for up to 60 days. The retailer also made it clear that it won’t be matching TouchPad prices from elsewhere.

The news is certainly going to disappoint deal hounds who were hoping for US Best Buys to offer the tablet for $100, as Canadian Best Buys did yesterday. VentureBeat’s Regina Sinsky talked to a Best Buy manager yesterday who admitted that the company never had plans to sell the tablet below $300 in the US.

Additional reporting by Regina Sinsky

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Tags: tablets, TouchPad, webOS

Companies: Best Buy, HP

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HP drops TouchPad price to $99 in Canada. Is the U.S. far behind?

After Hewlett-Packard announced it was killing its webOS devices, many of us were left wondering what the company planned to do about the numerous TouchPad tablets still sitting on retail shelves.

An answer might be right around the corner if Best Buy’s Canadian retail stores are any indication. The 16 GB and 32 GB TouchPad models will go on sale in Canada for $99 and $149, respectively, according to a memo cited by PreCentral. That’s a whopping $300 dollars off the original retail price.

Interestingly, that’s exactly what we speculated HP would do in our VentureBeat news planning meeting yesterday (see below for the video).

It’s likely that a TouchPad price drop will soon make its way to the U.S. Right now it’s unknown just how much HP will lower the price.

The company first released the TouchPad at a $499 price point last month to lukewarm reviews and lackluster sales. HP went as far as to permanently reduce the TouchPad’s price by $100 last week to spur sales, but now it seems like the company was just trying to get rid of its TouchPad stock as quickly as possible — especially for partners like Best Buy, which has over 240,000 unsold TouchPads still in stock.

The hardware might not be all that great. HP reportedly found, in internal tests, that webOS ran twice as fast on the iPad as it did on the TouchPad.

Will you be purchasing a TouchPad if the prices drop to $99-$149? Let us know in the comments.

via PreCentral.net

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Tags: liquidation, sale, tablets, TouchPad

Companies: Best Buy, Hewlett-Packard, HP

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Report: webOS ran twice as fast on an iPad 2 than on the TouchPad

One reason HP may have shuttered its webOS-based devices unit Thursday may be that its hardware was only half as fast as its major competitor.

A report from The Next Web says HP internally tested webOS on an Apple iPad 2 and found that the operating system ran over twice as fast on Apple’s hardware, suggesting HP didn’t build a good enough tablet to attract customers.

Additionally, an internal HP source reportedly said the TouchPad hardware prevented the team from innovating “beyond a certain point” because it was too slow. The team also tried deploying webOS through Apple’s mobile Safari browser as a web application and it ran several times faster there too.

No wonder demand for the HP TouchPad was nearly nonexistent: It just wasn’t powerful enough to run its own OS properly.

This raises the question that if HP had decided to produce a more powerful and better equipped TouchPad, could it have succeeded? We think so.

HP made some stunning decisions Thursday, including making a large bet on enterprise software with the $10.3 billion acquisition of Autonomy and moving away from hardware by exploring options to spin off its PC business. Killing webOS devices fits in with its goal of getting rid of the PC business. HP reportedly told its employees that it is “not walking away from webOS,” but because it killed the hardware unit that runs it, the future is not encouraging.

webOS originally came from Palm, which HP bought for $1.2 billion in 2010. HP said that it wanted Palm for more than just its smartphones, and that it had big plans to bring webOS to netbooks and tablets as well. Obviously, that didn’t turn out so well.

What do you think of the death of HP’s webOS devices?

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Tags: iPad, iPad 2, TouchPad, webOS

Companies: Apple, HP, Palm

View the original article here

US Best Buy stops selling TouchPad, HP gives refunds to owners

HP’s massive TouchPad fire sale won’t be hitting US Best Buy stores, as the retailer will be shipping its remaining stock back to HP, Engadget reports.

Even more intriguing, HP is apparently offering refunds to current TouchPad owners who bought the tablet on its website, either for the full price of the tablet or the difference in the discounted fire sale prices, according to WebOSroundup.

HP has also sent out memos to its retail partners to extend their refund offers on the TouchPad. We’ve dropped a line into HP to see how much of this report is true.

Best Buy just recently put up a page detailing its TouchPad return policy, saying that it will now offer returns and refunds for up to 60 days. The retailer also made it clear that it won’t be matching TouchPad prices from elsewhere.

The news is certainly going to disappoint deal hounds who were hoping for US Best Buys to offer the tablet for $100, as Canadian Best Buys did yesterday. VentureBeat’s Regina Sinsky talked to a Best Buy manager yesterday who admitted that the company never had plans to sell the tablet below $300 in the US.

Additional reporting by Regina Sinsky

Next Story: Google must take the offensive with Motorola patent?portfolio
Previous Story: Entrepreneur Corner: Marketing truths and a primer on?networking

Tags: tablets, TouchPad, webOS

Companies: Best Buy, HP

View the original article here

HP drops TouchPad price to $99 in Canada. Is the U.S. far behind?

After Hewlett-Packard announced it was killing its webOS devices, many of us were left wondering what the company planned to do about the numerous TouchPad tablets still sitting on retail shelves.

An answer might be right around the corner if Best Buy’s Canadian retail stores are any indication. The 16 GB and 32 GB TouchPad models will go on sale in Canada for $99 and $149, respectively, according to a memo cited by PreCentral. That’s a whopping $300 dollars off the original retail price.

Interestingly, that’s exactly what we speculated HP would do in our VentureBeat news planning meeting yesterday (see below for the video).

It’s likely that a TouchPad price drop will soon make its way to the U.S. Right now it’s unknown just how much HP will lower the price.

The company first released the TouchPad at a $499 price point last month to lukewarm reviews and lackluster sales. HP went as far as to permanently reduce the TouchPad’s price by $100 last week to spur sales, but now it seems like the company was just trying to get rid of its TouchPad stock as quickly as possible — especially for partners like Best Buy, which has over 240,000 unsold TouchPads still in stock.

The hardware might not be all that great. HP reportedly found, in internal tests, that webOS ran twice as fast on the iPad as it did on the TouchPad.

Will you be purchasing a TouchPad if the prices drop to $99-$149? Let us know in the comments.

via PreCentral.net

Next Story: Twitter unveils Bootstrap, a toolkit for lightning-fast web app?deployment
Previous Story: Stock market to HP:?WTF?

Tags: liquidation, sale, tablets, TouchPad

Companies: Best Buy, Hewlett-Packard, HP

View the original article here

Report: webOS ran twice as fast on an iPad 2 than on the TouchPad

One reason HP may have shuttered its webOS-based devices unit Thursday may be that its hardware was only half as fast as its major competitor.

A report from The Next Web says HP internally tested webOS on an Apple iPad 2 and found that the operating system ran over twice as fast on Apple’s hardware, suggesting HP didn’t build a good enough tablet to attract customers.

Additionally, an internal HP source reportedly said the TouchPad hardware prevented the team from innovating “beyond a certain point” because it was too slow. The team also tried deploying webOS through Apple’s mobile Safari browser as a web application and it ran several times faster there too.

No wonder demand for the HP TouchPad was nearly nonexistent: It just wasn’t powerful enough to run its own OS properly.

This raises the question that if HP had decided to produce a more powerful and better equipped TouchPad, could it have succeeded? We think so.

HP made some stunning decisions Thursday, including making a large bet on enterprise software with the $10.3 billion acquisition of Autonomy and moving away from hardware by exploring options to spin off its PC business. Killing webOS devices fits in with its goal of getting rid of the PC business. HP reportedly told its employees that it is “not walking away from webOS,” but because it killed the hardware unit that runs it, the future is not encouraging.

webOS originally came from Palm, which HP bought for $1.2 billion in 2010. HP said that it wanted Palm for more than just its smartphones, and that it had big plans to bring webOS to netbooks and tablets as well. Obviously, that didn’t turn out so well.

What do you think of the death of HP’s webOS devices?

Next Story: Joyent Node.js expert talks about Node in the enterprise and?more
Previous Story: Biochemical developer Aurora Algae raises?$22M

Tags: iPad, iPad 2, TouchPad, webOS

Companies: Apple, HP, Palm

View the original article here