The other day it was reported that Best Buy has sold through less then 10% of the HP Touchpads they have in their warehouse and wants HP to take them back. They can't even sell the things at a $100 discount and a recent $120 off deal on Woot only sold 612 units. Ouch! http://allthingsd.com/20110816/ouchpad-best-buy-sitting-on-a-pile-of-unsold-hp-tablets/ Today HP announced plans to "discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones." http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/18/hp-will-discontinue-operations-for-webos-devices/ I can't say I'm totally surprised by this situation, HP simply does not have the type of brand recognition to support an OS entirely on their own. I feel sorry for anyone that made the mistake of purchasing one thinking it would be a good deal. I feel even sorrier for HP as they've wasted a ton of cash having celebrities hock the thing. I wonder how the Blackberry Playbook is doing. Blegh!
.........f***! I loved webOS. I think that was the best mobile OS ever made, and was hoping it would force Apple to advance webOS even faster. Hopefully the software itself stays around but it doesn't look good.
It's kind of hard to force Apple to do anything when the product was never competitive. I blame HP for killing off the Palm brand, keeping the same cheapy product lines and not licensing the OS out to other companies. I can't say I have a whole lot of experience with WebOS but the Pre always felt incredibly cheap and light to me the few times I used one which is not a good thing. Also, who wants an HP branded OS anyways? They aren't exactly Apple or Dell, they might be huge but they aren't known for producing high quality computers. They should have kept the Palm brand, started producing much higher quality phones with larger displays and not jumped into the tablet market using a proprietary OS. I think they'll have much better luck selling Windows 8 tablets in a few years. All the Andriod tablets combined are barely making a dent in the market right now, they had no chance with the Touchpad.
WebOS was fantastic and in many ways the Pre is a better phone than the iPhone. Unfortunately, it's all about apps and WebOS just can't compete.
They just took 20% of the market from Apple in the last year-and with the new quad core tablets coming out, it'll take more. I'd say that's more than a dent. As for WebOS, the problem wasn't apps or lack of them, it was outdated hardware, slow updates, and handsets that were...less than thrilling. The way it handled multi tasking was awesome, and something that Apple and Android, should learn from. With luck, it will be made open source, as I've been hearing, and some form of WebOS may make it into other handsets.
HP Touchpad is officially dropping to $100 starting tomorrow. I'm considering picking one up at that price if there's a comic book reader app available. Can't hurt to have another tablet to play around with and who knows what the hacking community will wind up doing with it. Price might be directly from HP's website only, I'm not sure. Still, I wouldn't be shocked if Sams Club had them for $80 in a few weeks.
