HP webOS tablet rumored for this Fall

An insider at HP tells us that a webOS tablet under the code name HP Hurricane could be released the third quarter of this year.

via examiner.com

I thought it would be nearly a year before HP could get a webOS tablet on the market. This rumor may be BS, but if true could mean a few things:

• They’re rushing something to market because of Apple’s huge lead, and won’t let Apple have the holiday season to themselves. This would be a huge mistake, and one I think HP is smart enough to avoid.
• They’re dreaming, and the date is half prayer, half vapor. They won’t make the date, but some people may hang on and wait to see what HP’s “iPad killer” can do.
• They’ve had an ARM-based tablet in the works for a while (for Android?), and they’re simply shifting it to a webOS machine.

HP had talked of various tablets, so the last item is not out of the realm of possibility. I hope for HP’s sake that’s what it is. A device rushed to market would be a disaster, and the public is not likely to give them a second chance.

iPad killers take a time-out

Looking back, I guess I gave the competition too much credit. It was a silly thing to do, and I promise it won’t happen again.

via kensegall.com

I haven’t seen HP confirm that the Slate is dead, but it makes no difference for this article. A decade of failure means the Slate will be dead out of the gate anyway.

I’m impressed that HP is taking action to truly get in the tablet game. Now that they have webOS, they should definitely kill the Slate. They need to focus on getting a tablet with webOS ready, and that’s likely to take a year. They don’t need the distraction of a failure in the marketplace to slow them down and tarnish their webOS offering.

HP wants an OS to call their own

[HP bought Palm] For a number of very good reasons… but one above all: H-P wants its own operating system. And by acquiring Palm that’s exactly what it’s getting. The steady refrain during my conversation with HP execs this afternoon, “We’re very excited about webOS … We see great potential in webOS … We’re going to double down on webOS.”

via digitaldaily.allthingsd.com

HP spent this decade racing Dell to the bottom on pricing and squeezing margins. They “won”, but at a cost of not making anything like the quality hardware they used to. This is what comes from everyone using the same OS, so you can only differentiate on price. Now mobile platforms are the new frontier, yet there’s HP’s upcoming slate, running an “optimized” Windows 7, like everyone else. And, like everyone else, it will fail.

I really think HP wanted a differentiator in the mobile space more than anything else. Android isn’t it, that’s what everyone else will run to, so they’ll have to differentiate on price. It’s déjà vu, and HP wants no part of that.

I like the idea, applaud HP’s effort, and wish them luck. Whether they can pull it of remains to be seen. They’ll need to adopt webOS for a tablet ASAP. I don’t think they can make holiday season this year, next Spring seems more realistic. A year is a long time in this business, but when you’ve got nothing…

Meanwhile, Microsoft can’t be happy. They want their desktop-OS-shoehorned-with-a-few-touch-features on everyone’s tablet and slate devices. HP clearly doesn’t want to play that game. Not on mobile devices anyway. Make no mistake, this purchase hurts Microsoft. Windows 7 is no good for tablets, and Windows Phone 7 is just too far off. Once WP7 is available, why would HP use it? They have their own OS now, and I think that was their plan all along.

HP Slate is ‘meh’

[Conecti.ca’s] conclusion? “The official verdict is meh.” Yeah, ouch. Apparently the Slate’s biggest strength is also its greatest weakness — it’s essentially a touchscreen netbook, and that means that while it can run everything including Flash, it can be “slow and annoying.

via engadget.com

Can this possibly be a surprise to anyone not in denial? These doofus Windows tablet devices are netbooks with the keyboard snapped off. Using a desktop OS not only too bloated to run well on their relatively slow processors, but unable to fully realize the experience of a touch UI.

The old ones sucked. The new ones suck. Future ones are gonna suck.

Bill Gates said you can’t just build a new OS for tablets, but he was wrong. It was wrong about tablets eight years ago, and it’s still wrong today. It’s actually sad to see a company like HP follow a path that a decade of devices has proved time and again is… wrong.

Adobe: For a Great Flash Experience on Tablets, Get One That Doesn’t Exist

Mind you, not one of those companies is (as yet) selling a competing tablet, and it’s not like there’s some magical formula that will make 720p Flash video run smoothly on a bare Atom CPU (remember, Ion GPU acceleration is not yet available for the Linux-based JooJoo), but who are we to stand in the way of a carefully worded damage limitation statement?

via engadget.com

As if Adobe’s management hasn’t been misguided enough — putting the survival of Flash above all other priorities — their PR group has lost it, too.

Netbook Sales Growth Sagging: What Took So Long?

The sales growth of netbooks, priced from $200 to $500 and resembling shrunk-down laptops, slowed markedly in the first quarter, according to market researcher IDC.

via businessweek.com

This should come as a shock to no one, but of course it will. The netbook is a cheap cheap laptop, OK? That’s all it’s ever been. Nothing more, nothing less. Laptops went from well over $1K, to cheap laptops in the $600 range, and netbooks brought them down to $300.

Those lower divisions brought cheaper components, lower quality, weak processors, etc. They had to. For some that might be good enough, but it doesn’t change the fact that netbooks are a significant compromise to the laptop they emulate. For many, the netbook brought disappointment when they found out there really is no such thing as a $300 laptop.

As for manufacturers, they found out that, while they could brag about sales in terms of number of units, there’s little profit. No wonder the big names are scaling back.

The Windows XP, Vista, or 7 UI Is the Tablet PC’s Biggest Weakness

more specifically, the problems of taking a cursor-based desktop OS user interface (UI) and expecting the Windows paradigms, complete with little icons, small click areas, scrollbars and so on, to work well without a mouse.

via blogs.zdnet.com

The article targets the HP Slate and Windows 7, but anyone who’s seen the tablet PC fail for a decade knows a big reason why. An OS written for a keyboard/mouse cannot simply be “optimized” for a stylus or finger.

You don’t even have to look at PCs to see this. Check out the Blackberry Storm to see that an OS written for a trackball cannot be “optimized” for touch either.

Touch devices need that input method close to their core, and an API to back it up. That’s why the iPad will be an incredible hit while tablet PCs will continue to fail, no matter what flavor of Windows you slap on them.

IDC Idiocy: Apple iPad is Not a Tablet PC

Although Apple’s iPad could find success, its shipments won’t count in IDC’s Tablet PC numbers since it doesn’t run a full operating system.

via macdailynews.com

Remember when the iPhone hit the scene, and attempts were made to define “smartphone” so it wouldn’t be included? Well, now “tablet PC” is being defined as well.

This is nonsense. Aside from varying definitions on what a “full” operating system is, I’d argue that, as a touch device, a “real” tablet PC must have an OS designed for touch from Day 1. Therefore, “optimized” Windows machines need not apply.

Whatever. The only way for PC makers to avoid being embarrassed by Apple’s runaway success is to try defining Apple out of the picture.