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HP Unveils WebOS Tablet, Plans WebOS Computer
jfruhlinger writes "As had been expected, Hewlett-Packard unveiled new webOS-based smartphones and a webOS tablet today. But in a bit of a shock, the company also announced that webOS would be coming to HP PCs. Whether this is happening in specialized products only or HP plans a wholesale repudiation of Windows, it's definitely a bold move."
"HP! Wasn't it clear? You were our bitch!"
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Nobody will buy these. Here's their current lineup:
TouchPad: Nobody will buy these in 6 months time, when there's competition from the iPad 2 and half a dozen comparable Android devices.
What's particularly galling about the above, is that they're mistakes which Palm and HP have failed to learn from in the past:
If the price is right, I'll probably end up getting either the Veer or the Pre 3. Both of these look like really nice devices, and the OS is the nicest of the recent-generation ones I've used.
I think the long-term success of the platform really depends on how soon HP gets these out the door - "early spring" and "summer" are vague terms. If they wait until August for the Pre 3 and the TouchPad, I think they really lose an opportunity. If the Veer is out in March and the Pre 3 and TouchPad follow in June, HP's in good shape. The hardware's looking great and the OS is superior to almost anything out there right now; they just have to make it happen.
February - HP to dump Windows for Linux-based WebOS on their PCs
March - HP's WebOS to be a Splashtop-esque minimal system to compliment Windows on their PCs
April - HP drops Splashtop-esque WebOS minimal system from their PCs
The products aren't finished, the OS isn't ready, and announcing now does absolutely nothing to slow down the iPad. The Moto Xoom is overpriced, which will self limit it's sales. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is notably smaller, different market segment. And no one else is actually shipping a competitor. A pointless pre-announcement with no pricing, insufficient product info, and no product for an unspecified number or months. Way to kill off sales of current WebOS phones and have essentially no impact on the competition.
Is HP trying to kill WebOS before it has a chance to succeed, or are they just clueless?
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No video-out (at least no talk of it). If they wanted to do business, the ability to do video-out to project might have been a nice bonus, not to mention set-top application.
Pre 3's resolution is lower than the Atrix and iPhone 4. RAM lower than the Atrix.
There may be a chance that between the reduced ram and screen size/resolution, they can out-battery the Atrix, which may be the reason for going light on those specs relative to the cutting edge.
No LTE or WiMax radio capability mentioned. This is a very strange omission.
WebOS on a regular 'computer' seems disinteresting. I'm a fan of WebOS as an excellent compromise for multitasking management given a small form factor, but I'd much rather have traditional window management on my desktop/laptop.
On the good news, they *finally* got an auto-focus camera (that was one hardware feature that was needed to do all sorts of things along the lines of barcode recognition). The screen resolution is a nice bump and is at least in the ball-park of Atrix and iPhone 4. The 1.4 GHz snapdragon seems pretty good. The 'tap to share' seemed a decent enough story on owning the 'family' of products, but I still can't be bothered to care about any tablet.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
They'll probably implement webOS similarly to ASUS's Express Gate and not dump windows.
They announced all this happy goodness for a SUMMER release.
By the time it's available, it'll look old and stale, we'll all be familiar with the NEXT version of Android, and Apple will have sold another 10 million units.
Tablets have been the 'next big thing' for a good 18 months, when will they actually be DELIVERING these things?
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
This is a revolutionary moment in computing, Larry.
That is an awfully astounding column you've posted.Thanks a lot for that a fantastically amazing post!
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An iPad is not a tablet in the late 90s/early 00s sense. It has defined a niche removed from that paradigm - which by the way was an utter failure. Good luck to the 'me too' companies trying to emulate it - especially to HP, with its long-term vision (that can see all the way to the end of the sofa) they will surely be able to avoid the black hole of the original tablet, which Steve Jobs and co so deftly maneuvered around riding the success of the iPhone and the App Store.
On a computer I can see why you would scream about the specs. On a smart phone though, quit being a twit. It is about ease of use and what you like. The Pre was released with specs that were right on par with the iphone 3g when it dropped. Palm did drop the ball by not bringing the Pre Plus out when the iphone 3gs was dropped. The Pre 2 has a 1 gig proc and 5 meg camera and all the other buzz word Apple and Android fans are throwing around. It seems to be VZW fault that it is not launched. I think the biggest knock is they do not make the candy bar style phones that the look at me fashion idiots want. I personally like the fact that my Pre looks like a phone. That is what it is after all. I have never had a problem finding "an app for that". Which is a stupid argument for the quality of a phone OS. Palm gave you the way to root your phone and a hell of a way to save your hind end if ya messed it up. So if you are really as geek as you say you are just build your own apps. I have only had one time I recall that I could not find an app for what I wanted. That is OK though because it still has a nice webkit browser and access to the internet. It is a phone with a data plan after all. The webOS UI is a dream. It is the only reason I bought a Pre +. I also believe if the 800 pound gorilla that is HP really wants to become its own Apple like company then they made one heck of a buy with Palms webOS. HP is already integrating webOS into home servers after dropping WHS. There are many features that are new or on par with phones that are out there already. Most of the talk for desktop is either small netbook like laptops or virtual machines on the desktop to connect all your devices together. Think of it as itunes without the other Apple tech being pushed on you. Like quicktime, does any non-Mac need quicktime anymore?
I used to work for Palm. They were idiots then and they're idiots now. Much like RadioShack they are a fixture that remains in business despite a business model should have driven them out of business decades ago. Every time I walk by an empty RadioShack in the mall with half a dozen "Salesmen" standing around bored, I think to myself "WTF?!?" Same goes for the empty Palm display at BestBuy.
I understand the need to build up hype but as others have said, doing it 6 months ahead of time will just kill your momentum. Announce things when they're ready.
http://www.businessinsider.com/hps-webos-pcs-will-run-on-windows-not-replace-it-2011-2 :
HP's acquisition of HyperSpace Linux last year, combined with today's webOS on PC announcement, makes me suspect that they will be using it as a fast boot option on their computers similar to ASUS's Express Gate.
I browse Slashdot at +3, Funny
OMG! I'm not buying it if it doesn't have 8 USB ports!!! What are they smoking?!?!?
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Every iDevice costs quite a bit of money and isn't unlocked to work wherever.
How U.S. centric is that? In other markets the iPhone is sold unlocked. And they generally do not cost much more than other similar smartphones - yes there are cheaper Android phones but they are around equal with the cheaper prev-gen iPhones.
Not everyone is on AT&T or Verizon
But realistically everyone could be, those two cover everything.
The iPhone will never have a full hardware keyboard
A small folding Bluetooth keyboard is vastly superior to any tiny chicklet keypad, and the on-screen keyboard is also superior to the chicklet because it can tailor the configuration to the task at hand (like getting rid of the space bar when entering URL's).
The iPad is ridiculously overpriced.
I can't even imagine what you think of the Xoom then at $200 more! It's only overpriced if you ignore every other tablet and even then you still have to pretend.
I can get a decent laptop for $350 that will do more than a $500 iPad will do
What if what you want to do is gaming with light office stuff and some drawing? Your laptop sucks.
The point is, there are a ton of people who iDevices don't fit and Apple is never going to make them fit. So they are going to get their devices running Android/WebOS/etc.
The first part is correct, but those people are not going to be better served by any other tablet, since tablets all do the same kinds of things really well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
HP is trying to be a slightly better (if at all) Android (Honeycomb).
WebOS - a Linux based OS with JavaScript and HTML5 as its software model, with "true" multitasking, with an AppStore (whatever they call it) + bells and whistles.
Android (Honeycomb) - a Linux based OS with Java (which is different from JavaScript, it's also a lot faster and more powerful), with "true" multitasking, with an AppStore (whatever they call it) + bells and whistles.
Given it's not really better and both Android and Apple pretty much rule the world already by having in place all the infrastructure that is (very) hard to setup (market share, devs, users, publicity, hype, devices, resellers, supply chains) HP has no chances to gain serious traction and ultimately win, sorry.
HP is simply in denial that it already lost the war which it's trying to start waging despite not having the proper muscle and it obviously can't accept this reality, just as Microsoft with its phone 7 strategy where its doomed to fail for many reasons, but primarily because it can't leverage its desktop windows "advantage" (which is the only strategy MS has) in mobile phones because users don't expect nor require having a windows like OS on a smartphone, and it's already proven, in the last (4th) quarter Microsoft continued losing mobile market share at quite an alarming pace.
The "long term success" (as you put it) of the HP WebOS platform will not be greatly influenced by "how soon HP gets these out the door". Their timing is already "not optimal" as others here have pointed out. If they make their vague ship dates, they're competing with iOS 4, iPhone 5 and iPad 2. HP's offering might be reasonable compared to other products in the phone and tablet market, but is unlikely to provide a compelling alternative to iOS. The problem will be that HP will have a difficult time keeping up.
I think it was the keynote when the iPhone was first announced when Steve Jobs mentioned that he thought Apple had about a three year lead in the area of the smart phone. The competition seems to think (with a few exceptions including recent comments from the head of Nokia) that they're catching up, but in fact Apple is extending their lead over most of the competitors. The sole exception appears to be Google/Android, which gained quite a bit of market traction with offerings on US cell networks where the iPhone didn't compete. The Android lead might be on a foundation of sand, however. Nearly every Android user I meet likes their 'droid, a few dislike it, and none love it. This is a distinct contrast with Blackberry and Apple, most of whose customers profess to love their phone (with the notable exception of folks using Blackberry touch screen devices). Worse for Google, about half of the Verizon 'droid users I've chatted with tell me that their next phone will be an iPhone.
In this market, HP must play a long game, in order to succeed at all. They seem to have already failed to grasp that. Others in this discussion have listed the earlier HP WebOS devices which apparently won't be getting software updates, thus annoying their user base.
I strongly suspect that, like all the other players in this game except Apple, HP does not understand that this is a software game, not a hardware game. HP, like everybody else except Apple, envisions a cool bit of hardware, and then scrambles to make software for it. Then they do it again for another type of device. Apple by contrast does it backwards. Features are substantially software driven, though they may be limited by hardware availability. Hardware is a way to package and sell software features. In the Apple world, the operating system and developer tools are every bit as important as the applications built on top of them, because Apple knows those tools let them bootstrap new features.
If HP has the resources to stay in this game long enough, and if they steadily begin to acquire clue that, at present, isn't entirely obvious, then it won't matter if they ship this generation of devices in four months, six months, or ten months, so long as they do ship. What will matter to their success is grasping the importance of the force multiplier of their development tool chain, operating system, and libraries. That's Apple's secret, and that's the thing that most of the other players in this industry don't understand. Ironically Microsoft, the player competing least effectively at the moment, sorta kinda does almost grok this point, or at least they once did. Microsoft's problem isn't failing to grasp the importance of the developer tool chain, OS, and libraries, it's being utterly unable to recognize elegant architecture and utterly unwilling to enforce common sense in their development process (exactly how many forks of Windows should be shipping on mobile devices at once?) HP will need to overcome these issues that have thus far thwarted Microsoft, Nokia, and most of the rest of their competition.
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Thinking about Minority Report and how the computers/storage devices shown in the movie scaled so cleanly. Maybe this is the opportunity for HP to write a UI like that around WebOS. Make it so all three devices use the same desktop and allow you to seamlessly move data and applications between them.
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Whether this is happening in specialized products only or HP plans a wholesale repudiation of Windows, it's definitely a bold move.
Does anyone aside from the submitter *actually* think there is even a remote chance that this is going to be more than a few specific machines? The very idea that HP would start replacing Windows with WebOS is hilarious at best, delusional at worst.
not WebOS as a main OS.
but WebOS could be successful on laptop as an alternate fast boot environment (like SplashTop) to quickly get to web,mail and chat.
WebOS could also be used as a power saving OS running on a separate low power chip (like Dell's full Lattitude ON in E4x00 running on an ARM chip)
i could definitely imagine such usage.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Consideing that Windows is the only mainstream OS which is not Unix-like, it is rather Microsoft who contributes to world operating system diversity.
HP not being a software powerhouse with years of success can at best seem to imply it might drop Windows on its PCs. That is, if it is not given a cash gift from some outside benefactor.
Even if it does not work it has lost nothing by allowing sales of its OS on a small fraction of the PCs it still sells, i.e. to those that do not insist on having those must have MS applications and games that run only on its OS. So, at worse, for MS it is bled a bit more than it might otherwise, however, if they buy off HP their cash flow from one of their few cash cows has been lessened.
For HP the risks are minimal either way, if their OS sells into the corporate market they lessen the clout of MS. Or if they are bought off, they never promised anything to their customers other than a tablet and some phones. However, their cash flow is enhanced or they can undersell some of the competition. Either way they gain.
Hmmm. Looks like this might be the year of the BeOS desktop.
No video-out (at least no talk of it). If they wanted to do business, the ability to do video-out to project might have been a nice bonus, not to mention set-top application.
On the other hand, most business-grade projectors nowadays feature network support (sending video feed over TCP/IP).
As the devices are all networked and really rely 100% on a cloud approach (they don't even have memory card slot, they rely on saving the data to servers), that would probably the preferred route for video too.
Now the biggest challenge isn't the video-out port itself, but the ability to send screen feed, And sadly most WebOS application don't use the regular X-Window interface, but the proprietary Luna, so no pre-existing software can be leveraged.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Hey, if HP offers a touch screen "PC" with WebOS that includes a 5250 emulator (old IBM terminal) then they'll sell well to a lot of big companies.
Now, if you add the ability to use NFC to detect my badge and switch to my session, you've got a winner.
I know companies that will buy pallets of these things. We need less than a PC, easier than a keyboard/mouse interface, and totally locked down. HP has a lot of experience with thin clients and this could be a wonderful option.
Place nail here >+
HP hired the guy from Nokia that was the driving force behind Maemo. He's really good. Really. I get the feeling that there have been dirty tricks going on at Nokia for a while, like destroying Maemo for the non existent and basically useless on the ARM MeeGo. I think it was a Microsoft plot leading to what is about to happen, but then I wear Tinfoil.
In any case, WebOS is now something to watch.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Five years ago, this would have been a hot topic with flames about Linux, OS/2, Bill Gates, DOS, etc. Now, no one cares what the OS is as long as they can accomplish what they want to do with the device.
This thing does not ship until the summer at the earliest.
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is this computer releted product? and which OS use on this , how much price