Poor marketing. The Touchpad could have found a niche as the tablet for business. A practical no training required OS and better multitasking. As Nissan used to say, everything you need, and nothing you don't. That is Web OS 2.0.
I'm bummed, I really hoped HP could make Web OS a successful platform on some level.
Considering how well the 1.2 Billion dollars was spent on Palm?
Anyhow, lets be real for a moment. If not for the variety of applications available on the Iphone and Android OS, what really sets it apart from Web OS? I find the Iphone really bland, the inability to multitask and utilize flash are dealbreakers for me. Android is so fragmented, its a sloppy free for all right now, and we all know, its buggy.
The iPhone can multitask, stop using 2-year-old arguments. And as for "as we all know, Android is buggy," I'm going to have to go ahead and ask you to stop using generalizations as well. Can you go ahead and list several known bugs in Android that have no current fixes?
Perhaps I can break the direction of this thread as an apple vs android argument.
My opinion on the topic is that all OEMs are going to hit this wall and HP has been trying to do something about because they have foresight. As everything goes cloud, even gaming, we will all end up with simple dumb consoles and all the real money is going to be made in software / licensing /advertising.
Meanwhile, it really did seem like a marketing fail. Tabs have been around forever. Apple, with its dominating marketing force that is the only thing that differentiates it from other companies, is the one who breathed life in to the tab segment. Other companies were literally waiting for them to do it because they knew they didn't have the marketing ability to create the segment on their own.
Once the segment was created, other OEMs had the choice of Android, WebOS, Microsoft Windows, or otherwise to power their tabs. Google was already proven in the mobile world, and the success of a platform(os) depends on it's third party support. I hate to quote you know who, but "Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers."
HP didn't stand a chance, but could they really afford not to try?
I wouldn't be surprised if you see a lot of large software company acquisitions by the big techies in the next few years as they try and get their piece of the cloud pie and watch their oem branches go straight to market maturity and die off. The stars and the cash cows are in the software / service models.
Interesting fact, folks. Guess what the #2 tablet in the world by mindshare and desire is? If you said anyone but HP, you don't get a cookie. Yes, that's right. HP's TouchPad was second only to iPad.
The problem was several things. One, their sales force was BestBuy et. al. Untrained kids at BestBuy. Who more often than not had NO clue how to use or operate the demo TouchPads, didn't realize the demo unit was not the same as the sold units, and so on. It's been this way with the webOS based phones, too. That's pretty much guaranteed to cripple your sales, when the kid selling it goes "you don't want this, you want an iPad" purely because they actually know NOTHING about the TouchPad.
Two, they sat on a good thing far too long. webOS has a LOT of unique features that were exceptional, that neither Android nor Apple have nor are they likely to EVER have. Stuff that only comes when you concentrate on building an OS for a phone first, communications platform next, and then a tablet. (As opposed to "hey this phone sells well let's slap the OS on a tablet.") The hardware product release gap was absolutely massive, and the marketing of other webOS products was subpar. When TouchPad came along, people had virtually no familiarity with what webOS was or was capable of. Which sends us back to point one.
HP absolutely could've taken a very solid second place - third through last place in tablets is every single Android device. All of them. And none of them even has a fraction of the sales, market share, or mind share of the TouchPad. (Yeah, you heard me right. Apple and HP have double digits, and the best selling Android tablet only has single digit percentage. Fragment much there? Though even combined they're still in third.)
How close was HP to releasing updated TouchPad hardware? They leaked the 10" Gen 2 in Europe a few days ago, accidentally. A slight processor speed bump and a jump to 64GB of internal storage. There was a 7" 1.5GHz 1024x768 64GB TouchPad with 4G connectivity confirmed last month for release this month. The Pre3 phone was coming just in time for back to school.
There's no question that HP pulled the plug on the TouchPad way too soon and way too aggressively. Apotheker made some critical errors. One, he just flat out made too many TouchPads - estimates are the initial run was 300,000 units. Two, he set the goals too high - he only wanted an "iPad killer," and that's not happening, period. Three, he let the platform sit too long - Pre3 should've been here sooner, Veer should've released sooner, and so on.
The Palm sale introduced a huge gap that cost them dearly, and they needed ramp time. The TouchPad is not niche, but you can't achieve 25% market share overnight. (TouchPad's market share is estimated at about 11-14% IIRC. Best selling Android tablet? About 2%.) What it did achieve in 6 weeks, is nothing short of phenomenal, when you consider the competition. It crushed everyone but the overwhelmingly dominant player, utterly and completely. Given time and the planned hardware updates, TouchPad would have been a solid and reliable second place. Dell's forthcoming products don't stand a chance - stuck waiting on Windows 8 and Streak pretty much fell flat. And Dell's the only one who can seriously make a go at Apple besides HP.
Interesting fact, folks. Guess what the #2 tablet in the world by mindshare and desire is? If you said anyone but HP, you don't get a cookie. Yes, that's right. HP's TouchPad was second only to iPad.
The problem was several things. One, their sales force was BestBuy et. al. Untrained kids at BestBuy. Who more often than not had NO clue how to use or operate the demo TouchPads, didn't realize the demo unit was not the same as the sold units, and so on. ....
There are some numbers from a third party industry analysis company that show sales. I realize sales and demand are different...but they are related. I'm having a hard time finding any market surveys reporting HP as the number two most wanted tablet.
The iPhone can multitask, stop using 2-year-old arguments. And as for "as we all know, Android is buggy," I'm going to have to go ahead and ask you to stop using generalizations as well. Can you go ahead and list several known bugs in Android that have no current fixes?
Thanks.
Snark, actively switching between two applications, and combining them in the UI are two totally different things. What the Iphone 4 does is not true multitasking. It's typical Apple marketing. "Look, that application re launches where you left off, whoa, that's just phenomenal!" Come on man, Web OS multitasking is leaps and bounds ahead of the iPhone in that category. What the Iphone 4 does is not useful multitasking in any real sense, its a marketing trick.
I'll let the Press get my back on Android bugs, and fragmentation. Android is a security disaster waiting to happen. Google is not in control of the platform in any meaningful way, it's become this rampaging runaway gorilla, it's out of control, there is a new version every few months, maybe your hardware will run the new stuff, maybe it won't. If your a developer, maybe you optimize for 2.2 today because that's 50% of the market, maybe you optimize for 3.1 and hope it catches on soon, who really knows. It's a mess, and its confusing to potential consumers.
Seriously Snark, picking between the Iphone and an Android device is an option between the lesser of two evil's. Neither is that appealing. Let's hope RIM can gain some traction with the 7th iteration of the Blackberry OS. At the rate they are loosing share though, I'm afraid we are going to be stuck with two really lousy software platforms for smartphone. Brute force development of apps does not make for a great experience. The UI, stability and security of the platform are central to the experience. I feel like Web OS had them all beat, but because HP is shit at marketing, most people will never know what they are missing.
Google spokesman Jay Nancarrow said Android security experts had discussed the research with Hassell and did not believe he had uncovered problems with Android.
"The identified bugs are not present in Android," he said, declining to elaborate.
Your third link isn't a problem with Android aside from the "problem" that there's no centralized app repository, and not everything needs to be scanned before release. This is the "problem" with all major software platforms - at a large enough percentage, people will try to get information out of it.
Your fourth link... options are bad? Choices = fragmentation now? There's also 10 or 20 different task killers for Android, and you should NEVER USE ANY OF THEM. Your argument that Android is fragmented is that idiots make lots of applications?
And your last link is being somewhat addressed with the 18-month program announced in May - locking in partner companies to releasing Android updates within 18 months. On the other hand, Android is an open platform. You want to stop people from innovating? How un-Cliff-like.
I know that you like to be a contrarian, Cliff, but neither iOS or Android are bad platforms. If you want to stick with your Nokia, OK, but don't trash things that you've never used and have no experience with.
I've used Android 1.6, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and 3.1. I have also used the Iphone OS. I'm the family nerd Snark, everyone comes to me when something is not working correctly. Android phones are my biggest headache, I see them at least weekly at this point. Google should be paying me for tech support for their lousy phone OS. I get more Android phones that are frozen, infected, or just plain slow and unresponsive than I get PC's that are infected now. I can call it a junk OS because I just spent an hour the other day trying to recover all the music off my Niece's HTC phone, a week ago I had to reset a Motorola Droid that just plain froze on the boot screen, and yes, I've had to do a hard reset on another HTC phone due to malware. In the past six months I have lost more free time fixing and instructing people how to use their Android phones than anything else. It sucks. I'm not saying that for the sake of being contrary, I'm saying that because I have to constantly fix the stupid things.
I see issues with the Iphone OS far less frequently, but like I said, it's really bland, if it was not for its lead in share leading to it's lead in app development, what could you really say for it? Seriously, other than, "OMG massive App catalog!" What does it have going for it?
This is on topic by the way. HP is the worlds largest tech company and they basically threw in the towel on a major software platform that they spent 1.2 Billion to acquire basically telling us what we kinda already knew, if your not Apple, or licensing Android, your smart phone or tablet is pretty much screwed. I don't think that's a healthy market. If HP can't come up with something to compete in that space, then it is what it is for now, you have Apple, you have Android, and I don't find either that appealing.
By the way, HP is fire selling the Touchpad's, they were going for $99 on their site, they are sold out. I understand they authorized retailers to do the same. If you can get one for $99, even if development is dead for it, it will still browse the web, play video and read well enough for that price.
It's funny because not a single piece of Android malware exists that can criple a phone or can't be removed by uninstalling an app that that should never have been installed in the first place. I am an Android fan, true, but this egregious exaggeration makes me question everything else you have said.
In fact, there has NEVER been Android malware that does or must be removed as you have described. In this case, you are flat wrong about what you posted.
IN FACT, there have been only 20 infected apps In Android history, all of which were pulled from the market in less than 24 hours with less than a few hundred downloads.
Please Cliff, just once. Just ONCE. Try to compose an argument without half-cocked exaggeration.
Lets just admit, off topic. I'm lamenting the loss of Web OS and nerd raging a bit, but....
Thrax your count is way off. On the "droid dream" malware alone Google removed 60 apps from the store. I believe in March they had a specific trojan horse that caused them to remove 21 apps all at one time. 20 apps is an underestimate of the problem. Android is not as secure as it could be.
Snark raised a really good question. Why are my expectations different for mobile apps than on PC? I believe the mobile platforms have a central repository that the users feel like they are able to trust. It's actually really amazing to people that they can get a virus from Googles own repository.
I reset an HTC Hero that was running 2.1. It was exhibiting a behavior where he would get spam text, and it was sending it out according to the user his friends would complain, "what is this?" I figured a hard reset was the best thing to do, it eliminated the issue. Yes, he is a lovable knucklehead, and yes, he downloads crap no security conscious user would. Does it make it entirely his fault? Maybe, maybe not. I have a limited amount of time to ask why when people come to me with their tech problems daily. Sometimes I find the simplest, fastest solution and implement. If I thought you would use it as an opportunity to question my integrity I may have explored it further.
I think it would be extremely beneficial to these forums and life if people stated their sources when they make statements which are supported by data or evidence, the same way it is done in academia.
Regardless of what is better, etc etc ... hell I have no idea I'm on a damn BlackBerry ... there is at least A fact. Now let's find some more, and maybe we can make this a friendly fact finding mission to really decide what is going on in the world.
There are people attempting to port Android to the TouchPad hardware, so even if you grab one and get tired of webOS (I can't imagine I would, but hey), you'll probably be able to put Android on it in short order.
RootWyrm
Icrontian
Comments
I'm bummed, I really hoped HP could make Web OS a successful platform on some level.
Anyhow, lets be real for a moment. If not for the variety of applications available on the Iphone and Android OS, what really sets it apart from Web OS? I find the Iphone really bland, the inability to multitask and utilize flash are dealbreakers for me. Android is so fragmented, its a sloppy free for all right now, and we all know, its buggy.
HP took too long, now we will forever be stuck with these two really lousy options. I guess, we still have windows phones, LOL..... but seriously, this is horrible for everyone. I could fly to wherever LĂ©o Apotheker is and shake him!
Thanks.
My opinion on the topic is that all OEMs are going to hit this wall and HP has been trying to do something about because they have foresight. As everything goes cloud, even gaming, we will all end up with simple dumb consoles and all the real money is going to be made in software / licensing /advertising.
Meanwhile, it really did seem like a marketing fail. Tabs have been around forever. Apple, with its dominating marketing force that is the only thing that differentiates it from other companies, is the one who breathed life in to the tab segment. Other companies were literally waiting for them to do it because they knew they didn't have the marketing ability to create the segment on their own.
Once the segment was created, other OEMs had the choice of Android, WebOS, Microsoft Windows, or otherwise to power their tabs. Google was already proven in the mobile world, and the success of a platform(os) depends on it's third party support. I hate to quote you know who, but "Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers."
HP didn't stand a chance, but could they really afford not to try?
I wouldn't be surprised if you see a lot of large software company acquisitions by the big techies in the next few years as they try and get their piece of the cloud pie and watch their oem branches go straight to market maturity and die off. The stars and the cash cows are in the software / service models.
The problem was several things. One, their sales force was BestBuy et. al. Untrained kids at BestBuy. Who more often than not had NO clue how to use or operate the demo TouchPads, didn't realize the demo unit was not the same as the sold units, and so on. It's been this way with the webOS based phones, too. That's pretty much guaranteed to cripple your sales, when the kid selling it goes "you don't want this, you want an iPad" purely because they actually know NOTHING about the TouchPad.
Two, they sat on a good thing far too long. webOS has a LOT of unique features that were exceptional, that neither Android nor Apple have nor are they likely to EVER have. Stuff that only comes when you concentrate on building an OS for a phone first, communications platform next, and then a tablet. (As opposed to "hey this phone sells well let's slap the OS on a tablet.") The hardware product release gap was absolutely massive, and the marketing of other webOS products was subpar. When TouchPad came along, people had virtually no familiarity with what webOS was or was capable of. Which sends us back to point one.
HP absolutely could've taken a very solid second place - third through last place in tablets is every single Android device. All of them. And none of them even has a fraction of the sales, market share, or mind share of the TouchPad. (Yeah, you heard me right. Apple and HP have double digits, and the best selling Android tablet only has single digit percentage. Fragment much there? Though even combined they're still in third.)
How close was HP to releasing updated TouchPad hardware? They leaked the 10" Gen 2 in Europe a few days ago, accidentally. A slight processor speed bump and a jump to 64GB of internal storage. There was a 7" 1.5GHz 1024x768 64GB TouchPad with 4G connectivity confirmed last month for release this month. The Pre3 phone was coming just in time for back to school.
There's no question that HP pulled the plug on the TouchPad way too soon and way too aggressively. Apotheker made some critical errors. One, he just flat out made too many TouchPads - estimates are the initial run was 300,000 units. Two, he set the goals too high - he only wanted an "iPad killer," and that's not happening, period. Three, he let the platform sit too long - Pre3 should've been here sooner, Veer should've released sooner, and so on.
The Palm sale introduced a huge gap that cost them dearly, and they needed ramp time. The TouchPad is not niche, but you can't achieve 25% market share overnight. (TouchPad's market share is estimated at about 11-14% IIRC. Best selling Android tablet? About 2%.) What it did achieve in 6 weeks, is nothing short of phenomenal, when you consider the competition. It crushed everyone but the overwhelmingly dominant player, utterly and completely. Given time and the planned hardware updates, TouchPad would have been a solid and reliable second place. Dell's forthcoming products don't stand a chance - stuck waiting on Windows 8 and Streak pretty much fell flat. And Dell's the only one who can seriously make a go at Apple besides HP.
What is your source for his information?
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110721005317/en/Strategy-Analytics-Apple-iOS-Captures-61-Percent
There are some numbers from a third party industry analysis company that show sales. I realize sales and demand are different...but they are related. I'm having a hard time finding any market surveys reporting HP as the number two most wanted tablet.
Snark, actively switching between two applications, and combining them in the UI are two totally different things. What the Iphone 4 does is not true multitasking. It's typical Apple marketing. "Look, that application re launches where you left off, whoa, that's just phenomenal!" Come on man, Web OS multitasking is leaps and bounds ahead of the iPhone in that category. What the Iphone 4 does is not useful multitasking in any real sense, its a marketing trick.
I'll let the Press get my back on Android bugs, and fragmentation. Android is a security disaster waiting to happen. Google is not in control of the platform in any meaningful way, it's become this rampaging runaway gorilla, it's out of control, there is a new version every few months, maybe your hardware will run the new stuff, maybe it won't. If your a developer, maybe you optimize for 2.2 today because that's 50% of the market, maybe you optimize for 3.1 and hope it catches on soon, who really knows. It's a mess, and its confusing to potential consumers.
Security expert on Android bugs.
Android phones can't even text properly.
Android Malware!
Seriously, if this does not tell you what an insecure mess Android is, I don't know how I'll ever prove my point.
Fragmentation is bad.
Seriously Snark, picking between the Iphone and an Android device is an option between the lesser of two evil's. Neither is that appealing. Let's hope RIM can gain some traction with the 7th iteration of the Blackberry OS. At the rate they are loosing share though, I'm afraid we are going to be stuck with two really lousy software platforms for smartphone. Brute force development of apps does not make for a great experience. The UI, stability and security of the platform are central to the experience. I feel like Web OS had them all beat, but because HP is shit at marketing, most people will never know what they are missing.
Your second bug was corrected in 2.2.
Your third link isn't a problem with Android aside from the "problem" that there's no centralized app repository, and not everything needs to be scanned before release. This is the "problem" with all major software platforms - at a large enough percentage, people will try to get information out of it.
Your fourth link... options are bad? Choices = fragmentation now? There's also 10 or 20 different task killers for Android, and you should NEVER USE ANY OF THEM. Your argument that Android is fragmented is that idiots make lots of applications?
And your last link is being somewhat addressed with the 18-month program announced in May - locking in partner companies to releasing Android updates within 18 months. On the other hand, Android is an open platform. You want to stop people from innovating? How un-Cliff-like.
I know that you like to be a contrarian, Cliff, but neither iOS or Android are bad platforms. If you want to stick with your Nokia, OK, but don't trash things that you've never used and have no experience with.
I see issues with the Iphone OS far less frequently, but like I said, it's really bland, if it was not for its lead in share leading to it's lead in app development, what could you really say for it? Seriously, other than, "OMG massive App catalog!" What does it have going for it?
This is on topic by the way. HP is the worlds largest tech company and they basically threw in the towel on a major software platform that they spent 1.2 Billion to acquire basically telling us what we kinda already knew, if your not Apple, or licensing Android, your smart phone or tablet is pretty much screwed. I don't think that's a healthy market. If HP can't come up with something to compete in that space, then it is what it is for now, you have Apple, you have Android, and I don't find either that appealing.
By the way, HP is fire selling the Touchpad's, they were going for $99 on their site, they are sold out. I understand they authorized retailers to do the same. If you can get one for $99, even if development is dead for it, it will still browse the web, play video and read well enough for that price.
In fact, there has NEVER been Android malware that does or must be removed as you have described. In this case, you are flat wrong about what you posted.
IN FACT, there have been only 20 infected apps In Android history, all of which were pulled from the market in less than 24 hours with less than a few hundred downloads.
Please Cliff, just once. Just ONCE. Try to compose an argument without half-cocked exaggeration.
Thrax your count is way off. On the "droid dream" malware alone Google removed 60 apps from the store. I believe in March they had a specific trojan horse that caused them to remove 21 apps all at one time. 20 apps is an underestimate of the problem. Android is not as secure as it could be.
Snark raised a really good question. Why are my expectations different for mobile apps than on PC? I believe the mobile platforms have a central repository that the users feel like they are able to trust. It's actually really amazing to people that they can get a virus from Googles own repository.
I reset an HTC Hero that was running 2.1. It was exhibiting a behavior where he would get spam text, and it was sending it out according to the user his friends would complain, "what is this?" I figured a hard reset was the best thing to do, it eliminated the issue. Yes, he is a lovable knucklehead, and yes, he downloads crap no security conscious user would. Does it make it entirely his fault? Maybe, maybe not. I have a limited amount of time to ask why when people come to me with their tech problems daily. Sometimes I find the simplest, fastest solution and implement. If I thought you would use it as an opportunity to question my integrity I may have explored it further.
Here:
http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/20106/android-malware-levels-steadily-increasing-/
If I'm reading the data provided by ESET correctly, that is mentioned in the article above, there are 400+ known malware apps that made it through to Android for at least some period of time before being pulled.
Regardless of what is better, etc etc ... hell I have no idea I'm on a damn BlackBerry ... there is at least A fact. Now let's find some more, and maybe we can make this a friendly fact finding mission to really decide what is going on in the world.
Sucks, because it would be nice to have a cheap tab that I could experiment with and browse the internets with.
yfw
That's fantastic