HP TouchPad To Be Liquidated At Fire Sale Prices

Hugh Pickens writes "According to an article by Tony Bradley, news is spreading quickly online that HP is going to clear out its vast TouchPad inventory by dropping the price to an offer you can't refuse. Rumor has it that beginning Saturday the 16Gb TouchPad will be $99, and the 32Gb TouchPad will be a measly $149. 'It is actually a fairly capable tablet. It's just not an iPad 2,' writes Bradley. 'For $500 it was a joke. For $300 it was still a shady deal. For $99 it's a steal.' HP has learned the hard way, and quickly pulled the plug on its tablet, proving that HP never had a solid tablet or mobile strategy and that it was really just looking for an excuse to get out. 'The reality is that my Best Buy is swimming in unsold HP TouchPad inventory,' adds Bradley. 'I went out tonight and picked mine up at the regular $400 price to beat the rush. Situations like this are why they invented price matching. I can just go back with my receipt once the fire sale starts and get the price adjusted and the difference refunded.'"

Comments

Can't price match the tablet

[Anonymous Coward]

From their price matching FAQ:

Does the HP TouchPad tablet qualify for the Price Match policy?
No. The HP TouchPad is on clearance and we will no longer be selling the units so we will not offer any price matches. We do offer a 60-day return/exchange policy for this product.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[webmistressrachel]

Well, duh! He can walk in, ask for a refund, then go to a different store for clearance stock!

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus defeating the point of buying it before the sale for the price match later...

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[Billly Gates]

Wow, overpay then sell it 1 month after a product launch at a firesale price. Great geniuses at HP. I think they need a multi million dollar bonus for being so smart. I know neither of us could manage HP's assets so well that he deserves that price.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[webmistressrachel]

Yes, perfectly true, I was posting a solution for the idiot who already bought it at that price and was boned by the facts in the GP.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[arisvega]

Under the risk of getting troll-modded, I have to respectfully decline this generous offer- HP hardware is and has been, to the best of my knowledge and experience, a piece of crap; a fact well in accordance with their customer support and "services".

It is furthermore obvious from this recent expansion (read; migration) that they are very well versed into riding the surface tension of every new economic bubble, exiting just in time to screw their customers and maximize their profits.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[Tharsman]

There are many many reasons to not consider this purchase. In fact, I find very few reasons to buy it, and mind you: I really wanted this thing to succeed. I was looking to buy a second generation device and was praying it became true competition for the iPad.

Reasons to buy it go down to:

A) Get a disposable tablet as you would buy a disposable newspaper.
B) Own a piece of history, of one of the few decent non Google, Apple or Microsoft OS tablets to ever attempt step up to the challenge and join the race.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[artor3]

It's still a hundred dollars we're talking about, so it's far from "disposable" for the vast majority of people. Really, I can't think of many reasons to buy it, even at clearance prices. Maybe if it were $20, I'd buy it just to take it apart.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[Tharsman]

I do agree, but then again some other people do consider 99 dollars to be disposable money. Ask anyone that has been married. Not to be chauvinist but my wife will go through 3 of these in one visit to the shoe store, in stuff she may wear 3 or 5 times tops.

So under such a light, yea, it may be seen disposable, and even maybe as a "preview" for what owning an iPad may be like. Like it enough? Then hold on with it until the iPad 3 comes out and then try to get 30 bucks from the TouchPad out of eBay.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[artor3]

If you really think that "anyone who has been married" views a hundred bucks as disposable, then I suggest you broaden your horizons a bit. The sort of people you have apparently met in your life are all spoiled fat cats, and it would do your perspective a world of good to be exposed to some normal people.

Having plenty of money is fine. Not realizing that the overwhelming majority of people aren't so lucky is a serious character flaw.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[Tharsman]

No need to get aggressive, it was not meant to be taken literally. You know, a bit of hyperbole.

But also got to say, unless you doing the same, you are going for a bigger insult there. Just because you see 99 dollars as "disposable" does not mean you are a "spoiled fat cat". Budget is very relative to your living situation, cost of living in your area, among many other things. There is no such a thing as "normal people" when you are talking about economical status. The middle class in the US has a huge range, even without being close to poverty.

When you can afford going to the movie with a partner twice a month and waste 20 bucks per showing, 99 dollars is "disposable" (in the context of getting something that will last you and potentially entertain you 6 months before it goes off to eBay or the garbage bin.)

Also, even with the example I note above, its not like cartoons where that goes on every day. You can choose to extremes that example as a weekly thing if you want, or you can just imagine cases where it happens once a year without and still not forcing you into foreclosing your home. I left it ambiguous intentionally.

I say all this as some one that grew up thinking anyone that was able to afford eating in Burger King was a snobbish rich kid, and saved my 2 dollars weekly "allowance" and starve so I would be able to rent games for the used NES I was given after the SNES was in the market instead and have something to do during the weekends. I think I seen enough of the spectrum.

When we are talking about people that would had ever considered spending 500 on a tablet device, I would just assume we are talking about people in a group where 100 is not that much to begin with.

I do apologize if the comment still offended you personally, though. That was not my intention.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[artor3]

I apologize then. There are a lot of people who enjoy posting things very much like your earlier posts (talking about throwing away $300 on every trip to the shoe store), as a way of bragging. I try to cut them down to size whenever I see it, because society's deification of wealth is tremendously harmful.

But I do have to correct you on one point. There is such a thing as "normal people". The distribution of wealth in this country is not a normal distribution in which most people are near the mean income. The average income may be $40k, but the median is only around $25k. That means that half of all Americans live on less than $480 a week, and that's before taking out taxes. That is normal. The typical American is at or below the poverty line. It's an ugly truth that we tend to ignore, and one that people need to be reminded of, often and loudly.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[Tharsman]

Here is the thing, things are very depending on where you live. My brother earns 23k a year (before taxes.) He has his own house, 3 rooms, 2 bathrooms, central air, wood floors, nice planned community with home owner association, owns an Android Incredible cellphone and a pimped (mostly self improved) Toyota Car, has food, is not starving and occasionally goes to fast foods. He does have a bit of stress here and there, but he is nowhere near poverty. He would be homeless in another state, perhaps even in a different city within the same state.

Thats the problem with both: average (and even median) nation wide income reports or technology pricing. A new yorker may find buying an expensive mac computer to be a minor setback, but some one in a small Kentucky city, despite living in a comfortable middle class lifestyle, would see buying that "overpriced" device as something thats entirely out of the question if he wants to retain his lifestyle. It's also, IMO, a problem with federal taxing, applying brackets equally nation wide. There are some cities that deserve customized tax brackets.

I dont dispute that there IS poverty in the states, I have seen it first hand since my childhood, but its hard to judge what is poverty based of a nation-side median. At the same time, assuming anyone that is over the median is rich and stress free is also inaccurate for the same reason. Try to live with only 50k Baltimore or San Diego.

Anyways, think we went way far out of the topic here.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[pagedout]

Please provide a citation as I can find no information to back this up.

According to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States
or maybe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States
or how about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States

From what I can tell you have applied the poverty level (based on per household) to the income level (based on per person) to create a highly inflammatory and entirely incorrect statistic. It appears that poverty levels in the USA are 10%-15% and have been for the last 40 years (it appears to have been higher before that but stats are harder to come by).

This doesn't even take into account the poverty itself is a rather amorphous thing and as some scholars have pointed out the "poor" in America often have bigger houses and better/more things than the "middle class" in Europe.

This is not to say that there are not people who can truly use some help but given we are one of the few countries on earth that no longer track statistics on deaths due to starvation because it is so rare... I would say we have not done too bad.

But that's just my opinion,

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[shipofgold]

BestBuy's web site says:

What should I do if I purchased the HP TouchPad outside of the 14-day return policy and would like to return it?

Best Buy is extending its return/exchange policy on the HP TouchPad and all HP TouchPad accessories to 60 days. Come into a Best Buy store and we will help you find another tablet to fit your needs or issue you a refund.

So it sounds like everybody who bought a touchpad from day 1 can return it for a full refund.

I am guessing the guy's strategy will work....march up to the counter, demand a refund, and then ask to re-purchase the item at the clearance price.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[Darkness404]

No, because statistics often don't include a lot of variables. For example, is the high schooler working a part time job included in there? What about the empty-nester mom who works because she likes the job, not because she needs the money. Also, standards of living change wildly depending on where you are and what sort of lifestyle you live. For example, how much does it cost them for basic needs? The person living in a $600 a month apartment (and yes, outside of big cities, $500-700 a month apartments are quite easily found) and lives in a place with cheaper groceries is going to have a better standard of living on the same amount of money than someone who is paying $1300 a month for an apartment in a place with expensive groceries.

There is no such thing as "normal people" because prices and living standards depend on what you want to do and where you live, and lumping everyone together is inaccurate and draws false conclusions.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[synapse7]

Staples is price matching, but my local Staples was out by noon.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[Jack9]

This is a reasonable assessment. The pricing at 100-150 is not appealing. I don't care if it's a firesale. I can get a lot of food out of 100$ and I don't need another gadget to gather dust.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[History's Coming To]

This entire thing could, of course, be planned from the start. Tablets are handy, but way overpriced for what they are. $100, or £100 as it will end up on this side of the pond? That's not bad actually, I'd buy one for that, simply for the form factor. Of course they can't just offer a cheap tablet, because everyone will presume it's crap, so they cut it early, save a bunch on advertising, and sell them by the bucketload when demand shoots up because everybody thinks they're getting a bargain. This all presumes they sell enough to allow such a low price of course.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a HP 42S calculator. As far as I know, those calculators were the only hardware HP ever made that are worth a hoot...

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[colinrichardday]

I would include the HP 48GX as being worth a hoot. It was $199 back in the 90s.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[Machtyn]

true, but for what my family would use it for, I think it would be $100 well spent. We'll get an Android device on a Christmas sale, which we were planning to do anyway. My economic status is firmly middle class - not a lot of extra to spend, but some. (It's in priorities - we don't buy tobacco or alcohol, so we save over other families there.)

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[Anonymous Coward]

HP hardware is and has been, to the best of my knowledge and experience, a piece of crap; a fact well in accordance with their customer support and "services".

Your "knowledge and experience" are sadly limited. Probably to the consumer arena. I support just over a thousand users on HP desktop and mobile equipment and their business support is second to none. I open a ticket on the case management website and a replacement part is overnighted to me, often the same day depending on when I put it in. Usually with no questions asked and definitely no "diagnostics" from script reading call center drones, The old part goes back in the same box and returned prepaid. Failure rates are about the same as pre-Lenovo Thinkpads.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[jimmydevice]

HP-32, 45 and 65 were all good, gold plated devices. The 41 was a great calculator.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[petsounds]

Under the risk of getting troll-modded, I have to respectfully decline this generous offer- HP hardware is and has been, to the best of my knowledge and experience, a piece of crap; a fact well in accordance with their customer support and "services".

I can't speak for other HP hardware, but the HP ZR24w monitor I have is the best LCD monitor I've used. Great display, good features, good design.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[silly_sysiphus]

Don't forget the Voyager series (10-16C), with special focus on the 12C (still the industry standard financial calculator), 15C (best scientific/engineering calculator of its day, which still commands 200USD+ on the used market 30 years later), and 16C (notable as one of very few mainstream CS-oriented calculators). They all were built like tanks with perfect button feel, and had battery life good enough that my 15C has only had the batteries changed once since 1983, and my father's (current) 12C only twice since 1986.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[colinrichardday]

Yeah, but without being able to land the Space Shuttle anymore, what can you do with it?

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[mrchaotica]

So instead of getting it price-matched, you just return it and buy it back for $99. Same difference.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

According to iSuppli(whose accuracy is debateable; but should at least provide ballpark numbers), somebody is eating a major per unit loss to provide the $99/$150 price point. Frankly, unless those numbers are pretty pessimistic, I'm a little bit surprised that the units were retailed at all a little surprising. It'd almost be worth tearing the 16GB units down for the screen and battery in bulk...

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[ArsonSmith]

Difference between men and women:

A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.

A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item she doesn't need.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[Fjandr]

Consumer-grade services are crap from most companies and in most industries.

People who buy consumer-grade usually get what they pay for. Paying a bit (or sometimes a lot) more for commercial-grade equipment (again, irrespective of industry) will frequently net you a lot of savings over the lifetime of the product.

Companies screw consumers because consumers are frequently fools who are simply waiting to be parted from their money. Consumers who continue to engage in stupid buying get what they deserve, and prop up predatory companies (or rather, the predatory arm of a given company).

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[narcc]

The sort of people you have apparently met in your life are all spoiled fat cats

Or they're just not morons who can't manage their money. $100 should be 'disposable' to the average minimum wage earner (provided that they're single, of course).

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[cheekyboy]

You can always brew your own beer, real real cheap.

And making vodka is ultra cheap too.

Or do you not drink because of dodgy religious 'scriptures' .

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[mysidia]

Ask anyone that has been married. Not to be chauvinist but my wife will go through 3 of these in one visit to the shoe store, in stuff she may wear 3 or 5 times tops.

Just because your wife is that far out of control / into rampant consumerism, or feels the two of you are rolling in so much dough that blowing $300 doesn't matter. It's not "anyone that's married".

If you aren't also spending $300 at roughly the same frequency on toys for yourself, then I guess you have an inequitable, probably unhealthy situation; however, there are poorer people who $300 can be a month's wages, and $100 can be the difference between food on table or no.

There are also a lot of people who are divorced, because one or both partners were not willing to show the proper respect for money (Esp. money earned by the other partner), and therefore the couple's financial future.

The number of people who got themselves into a load of debt problems or ruined their retirement spending $100 at a time in "disposable" cash on toys they didn't need, are innumerable.

So yeah... don't even think about buying the HP tablet unless you carefully evaluate and find it worth that much to have a tablet, within your budget

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[Tharsman]

I would reply to your comment, but I sort of already did when I replied to the other guy. You can read the reply there.

But I think its a no brainer that anyone that would buy the thing as "disposable" would need that to be within his or her budget to do so.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[TheOldestGit]

Try this price! And I thought that prices this side of the pond used to work $1 == £1. Seems that the finances arr a bit more fooked than usual :-(

HP TouchPad 9.7" Tablet with WebOS, 16GB, and WiFi

Model: FB405UA#ABB

HP TouchPad works, plays, juggles, grooves, and syncs with every part of your life. It's designed to work like you do, with true...

More details

3 year cover Protect Portable for £189.99

Home delivery

Reserve & collect

Check in-store availability

£349.00

Compare - I've no idea where this link would go ;-)

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[AK Marc]

Most is. The HP 200 LX is still being used as a DOS computer in some industrial settings. A little palmtop computer that ran DOS with a real serial port in a tiny form factor and inexpensive-ish. It was durable, mostly rugged for not being officially "rugged," and surprisingly well supported with accessories and such (at least by HP standards). However, their attempt at ultra-portable Sojourn was a heaping pile of worthless. So "light" that it breaks often. "Docks" that are expansion slivers you snap it into that if you leave on, makes it no more portable than a regular laptop (and most would keep them with them for things like the drive, and battery expansion).

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[cayenne8]

It's still a hundred dollars we're talking about, so it's far from "disposable" for the vast majority of people. Really, I can't think of many reasons to buy it, even at clearance prices. Maybe if it were $20, I'd buy it just to take it apart.

Ouch man...unless you're a college or high school student....if $99 is too much for something like this, you might wanna start looking for a different vocation.

I'd think most anyone that is on this list, is in IT and doing decently well enough to where they're not gonna sweat $99 here and there.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[cayenne8]

Just because your wife is that far out of control / into rampant consumerism, or feels the two of you are rolling in so much dough that blowing $300 doesn't matter. It's not "anyone that's married".

It is the RARE woman that does NOT have a shoe fetish. I've rarely seen them that don't drop cash left and right for shoes...even though they have a closet full of them. And the ones that can't afford them as much...will save and/or charge them...they may get fewer pairs than the wealthier ones, but, they still have that magic draw to them.

I personally think it is somewhere on the female DNA.

Hell, women often start judging MEN by the shoes they are wearing. I was a late comer to knowing that tidbit...

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[shmlco]

Apple, with the best supply chain in the business, reportedly has around $250 worth of parts each iPad. iSuppli's BOM on the 32GB TouchPad was $318. And you can only go so low on volume.

So selling 'em for $100 each? Yeah, losing at least $218 per device could have been planned. Canceling the device from the start could have been planned. Shuttering a division on which you spent $1.2 billion could have been planned.

If you're an idiot, that is.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[ShakaUVM]

>>Try to live with only 50k Baltimore or San Diego.

I lived on 18k a year in San Diego as a grad student.

Rent: 2 bedroom apt in Mira Mesa - $1000/month, split 3 ways (later 2 ways) - $6000
Food: $20/day - $7000
Gas: $20/week - $1000
Insurance: $1000
$3000 left over to fix my car, go on trips, buy books/textbooks, etc.

I wasn't living the high life by any means, but I was certainly comfortable and happy.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[shmlco]

"The average income may be $40k, but the median is only around $25k. That means that half of all Americans live on less than $480 a week, and that's before taking out taxes. That is normal. The typical American is at or below the poverty line. It's an ugly truth that we tend to ignore, and one that people need to be reminded of, often and loudly."

Need a reference to the stats on this, as your $480 a week assertion is dependent on many, many, things. Does it include jobs for kids and students who live at home? What about married couples and people who live together whose combined income is now $50K? Those with social security income or retirement benefits? How about a woman with kids who makes $25K, but qualifies for an extra $10K in housing and food benefits? What about a student with a part-time job and who's living on a grant or scholarship?

In other words, your blanket statement that" "half" of all Americans live on less than $480 a week is misleading at best, and, at worse, totally false-to-fact.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[ShakaUVM]

>>It is the RARE woman that does NOT have a shoe fetish.

You may be hanging out with the wrong crowd of women.

My ideal woman doesn't worry about her looks - but looks good anyway - is smart as hell, will join in with my friends when gaming, and pull out a hammer to help me when I'm trying to knock a tsuba off a new sword. Well, that's why I ended up marrying my wife, anyway.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[AmiMoJo]

I could drop that much on a gadget now and then, but that is my choice. Other people decided to get a better house, rent a better flat, drive a faster car, have kids, let their partner give up work, buy the cable TV sports package, turn the thermostat up a few degrees etc.

I am lucky, no doubt about it. I have a good job. I wish that was the norm, and we should strive to make it so. We are not talking about diamond studded swimming pools or solid gold Humvees here.

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[HungWeiLo]

HP laser printers are favorites on ebay precisely because of their high quality.

HP corporate PCs (the Kayak line? back in the Pentium II days) were built like tanks.

And wasn't a HP 48G found intact and working in the World Trade Center rubble? (this may be urban legend...)

Re:Can't price match the tablet

[toxonix]

I concur. The last HP product I bought on a woot! trigger happy impulse was a laptop for $179. The first thing I found was that HP neglected to ever test the layout of the hardware with real human hands. It's impossible to type while resting your hands on the normally accepted palm rests to the south of the keyboard. The touch pad gets in the way and ends up somehow placing the cursor in strange and unexpected places while you're typing. It's like having a cat walk on your keyboard every time you start typing. Other than that and being really incredibly slow, its not so bad, but typing is kind of important.

Re:

[webmistressrachel]

As I said earlier, contact me about your stocks of the TX series. Forget TouchPad, Android and iOS. the TX series was THE tablet.

I ordered 2

[gregrah]

I bought two from the HP website last night. I figured one would make a good e-reader for myself, and the other would make a good present for a family member. At this price, you really can't go wrong.

Re:I ordered 2

[gregrah]

I applied the 80-20 rule here: It's got a web browser which means it can do 80% of what the iPad can do at 20% of the price, discontinued or not.

Before anyone brings up "apps" as the reason to go with the iPad at a 400% price premium - let me say that I own an iPhone and the overwhelming majority of time I spend with it is in the email and safari apps. Apps are nice when they are available - especially given the iPhone's small form factor that makes interacting with some websites painful - but not a necessity.

Re:I ordered 2

[Kjella]

Buying discontinued obsolete software and hardware combinations is almost always wrong, at any price. That's why no one should buyt computers on Craigslist

Well, if I've replaced it with something better then I won't be using it even if it's a working computer as such so the value proposition still makes sense. I get to unload a box I wouldn't use, they get an upgrade for their even more obsolete computer real cheap. Believe it or not, there's people that still find new "value" PCs far too expensive. And there's people that really need a lot of horsepower who'll sell their old stuff long before it's really obsolete - to a non-power user it's still more than adequate.

Re:I ordered 2

[iamhassi]

He's AC and he's obviously trolling saying something as stupid as buying "obsolete" hardware is wrong at any price. This is /., most of us probably have hardware we bought at one point that was obsolete just to tinker with.

Re:I ordered 2

[RoccamOccam]

I already own one TouchPad, but was hoping to buy a couple more for my family. WebOS is very nice. The browser is WebKit, email integration is excellent. I have Kindle, Angry Birds, Need For Speed, and I can do development for myself. At $99 it's a steal. Unfortunately, I can't find them in stock, anywhere.

Re:I ordered 2

[gregrah]

Did you check Office Depot? A friend of mine picked one up for $129 at Office Depot earlier this morning.

Re:I ordered 2

[jonbryce]

I tried one out at Carphone Warehouse today (owned by Best Buy UK). When I tried to read http://news.bbc.co.uk/ it kept refreshing the page every time I tried to scroll up or down, and it took about 15-30 seconds every time to do this, making the browsing experience so frustrating it was virtually unusable. Having tried all the tablets in there, the iPad is the only slab I would buy. I do have an Android phone, the Samsung Galaxy S which I am very happy with, but nobody seems to have an answer to the iPad yet.

I prefer apps to websites on the phone because you only have to download data when you use it, rather than user interface + data, so it is faster on slow connections, and they tend to be better designed for small screen + touch interface. On a tablet which has a bigger screen, and would mostly be used on a fast wifi connection, I'm not so sure that is important.

Re:I ordered 2

[RoccamOccam]

Right. All around this area, Office Depots and Staples were swarmed at their openings. I found out much too late (around 11 am).

Re:I ordered 2

[jimmydevice]

I picked up a 32G version from the HP business web site, After about 2000 reloads to get past the "out of memory" errors.
About an hour ago.

Re:I ordered 2

[silly_sysiphus]

Yep, my Office Depot had 5, with 9 people waiting at the doors at opening (I was #1, having gotten there 1.5hrs earlier). One per customer, or else I would have picked one up for my parents, too.

Re:I ordered 2

[MichaelSmith]

most of us probably have hardware we bought at one point that was obsolete just to tinker with.

No kidding. I have a tablet PC which I bought second hand for $50. It runs windows 3.1 and is loaded with an application for managing telecommunication systems.

Re:I ordered 2

[mysidia]

I guess i'm in the wrong for buying an old Apple II machine to turn into a fish tank....

"Only buy current supported products" with a future; sounds like a farcical mantra you hear from Enterprise IT vendors who want to sell new shiny/glossyware stuff and charge extortionate fees, not for the product itself, but for annual support or software updates to fix discovered flaws in the product.

I am suddenly reminded... how much the software industry is a racket... sell them product once, get them hooked.... then make them pay through the nose every year for basic updates :)

Re:I ordered 2

[mattack2]

Yes, you are wrong. What a sad thing to do do a (presumably working) Apple II.

Oops

[nmb3000]

Should have read a bit more closely there, buddy:

The Guarantee does not apply to: Our competitors' website prices, offers that include financing, bundling of items, free items, pricing errors, mail-in offers, competitors' service prices, items that are advertised as limited-quantity, out of stock, open-box, clearance, refurbished/used items, BestBuy.com Midnight Sale and special hour sale events, BestBuy.com Outlet Center and Marketplace items, and items for sale Thanksgiving Day through the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Emphasis mine. I'm 100% confident that the HP tablet will be marked as both "limited-quantity" and "clearance".

Oops. Oh well, at least you beat the rush!

Re:Oops

[LurkerXXX]

Best Buy stores were ordered this morning to return all unsold stock to HP. Unless you were in the store and got a price match before a
manager came around with the update, you are out of luck as far as BB.

Same deal for Staples and HHGregg.

Walmart stores had them at the sale price this morning (and ran out quickly).

Re:Oops

[poena.dare]

Office Depot employee: People were lined up before we opened. We had no idea what it was about.

All gone. :(

Re:Oops

[j33px0r]

He can still return the device for a full refund. At that point, he can make a case for the lower price.

Re:Oops

[supaneko]

There was a rush to buy these things? Yiiiiiiiikes.

To be liquidated...

[Microlith]

To be?

More like was, and in the blink of an eye. Every place around here is sold out and Best Buy took 'em all off the shelves to send them back to HP. I imagine there will be some slow firesales from HP later as they arrive.

This is a slashvertisement for Best Buy

[Anonymous Coward]

A shitty and overpriced retail store.

cheap yes, but can it be rooted?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can one remove the WebOS and replace it with Android? Otherwise this about as useful as the Apple Newton. It's neat, but if the operating system is going the way of the Dodo, then who is going to develop apps for this thing?

Re:cheap yes, but can it be rooted?

[Microlith]

You -might- be able to install a real OS like Ubuntu.

The problem that follows is hardware support, and support for the GPU is immediately out the window, let alone anything else on it that might be dependent on binary blobs. I believe webOS used glibc, so you might have luck with them, in contrast to Android.

Re:cheap yes, but can it be rooted?

[Osgeld]

there is already a large homebrew scene

Re:cheap yes, but can it be rooted?

[LurkerXXX]

Try WebOS first. It's actually a really good OS. It's linux. Rooting it is as simple as typing in the Konami Code to put it in Developer Mode (root).

There are a lot of homebrew apps for it, with their own Homebrew appstore, PreWare. Well, not an appstore really because it's all free there.

Palm's problem was they had crappy hardware for it, and insanely bad advertising. HP hasn't done anything much with it since they bought it a year ago. Sad. A very intuitive and good looking OS. The one thing you will miss out with on the TouchPad is the gesture area that is on the phones. They make task switching pretty awesome when you are multitasking a lot of things. Another bad move by HP to leave that off the TouchPad.

Re:cheap yes, but can it be rooted?

[davester666]

And buy 'large, he means that there are literally tens of people involved in it.

Re:cheap yes, but can it be rooted?

[log0n]

Agree!

I loved my Sprint Pre. While WebOS was lacking in a number of features, it was extremely refined in what it did do; went the Apple route (what it does, make it do well) rather than the MS/Android route (does almost everything, but isn't very elegant). The hardware did suck, not so much in specs, but the build quality. The slider would unhinge, touchscreens would stop responding, power button break, etc.

Messed around with a TP today at Staples.. it does have the same gesture area that the Pre had - or at least, something that functions the same way, and in both axis.

Re:cheap yes, but can it be rooted?

[LurkerXXX]

it does have the same gesture area that the Pre had - or at least, something that functions the same way, and in both axis No, it doesn't. I've got one ;) The bezel doesn't have any gesture area. All gestures are done in the screen area. Plus advanced gestures (full side swipe to change apps) is gone. Half swipe to go back doesn't work (unless you are in some small format app ment for the Pre only where you can do the blank part of the screen below the app). It's just not the same. Lots of apps have a 'back' button instead. Lame.

Re:cheap yes, but can it be rooted?

[Astronomerguy]

There are already folks working on getting Android (honeycomb) and Ubuntu on it. http://liliputing.com/2011/08/hp-touchpad-afterlife-hackers-bringing-android-ubuntu-to-hps-tablet.html

Hitler Learns HP 's Abandoning WebOS

[theodp]

"In the latest parody remix of Downfall, the classic war film that depicts Adolf Hitler's last days in Berlin. the fictional Hitler unhinges upon learning of HP's decision to abandon WebOS and the TouchPad.

Re:Hitler Learns HP 's Abandoning WebOS

[kno3]

"How can I have one of these when Stalin has an iPad!"
Brilliant.

Rumor?

[synapse7]

http://h41112.www4.hp.com/promo/webos/us/en/shopping-touchpad.html

Re:Rumor?

[DreddUK]

And, bang, HP's shopping cart goes down.

'Out of memory'

haha :)

Re:Rumor?

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Wow, if they had been willing to eat the cost and sell them at this price in the first place they might have been a contender.

Re:Rumor?

[iamhassi]

+1, insightful. They shot themselves in the foot on this one. Had they just dropped the price to $99 and said nothing about being discontinued everyone would have bought it, communities would have sprung up devoted to it, developers would flock to it and they might have been a real iPad competitor. But they didn't. Fail.

Re:Rumor?

[Alumoi]

And bang!, they're out of stock.

Re:Rumor?

[Deathlizard]

You know, the more I think about this, the more I swear this was a ploy to boost WebOS market share.

HP could have slowly dropped the price down in order to get more revenue from it, but instead drops the price way below anybody's expectations, and then proceeds to sell them out in hours in just about anywhere they were being sold.

Regardless of how much money HP lost today (and it had to be a ton considering the sales numbers) the market share they had to gain might just pay off if they decide to change their mind hardware wise.

Re:Rumor?

[Compaqt]

Yeah, self-fulfilling prophesy. Tell people it's dead and it definitely will be.

Just selling it at $99 might have been the jump start it needed. I mean, they were going to kill it anyways, what did they have to lose?

will it run ubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you install ubuntu on this thing?

Out of Stock already

[flimflammer]

Was going to buy one, but they're already out of stock.

Re:Out of Stock already

[synapse7]

Went everywhere this morning that sold tablets and all the major stores were out. Where are they? Officedepot thought they would be getting a few more shipments, but where are all the rest?

Not worth even $99

[Chemisor]

So it's a tablet with an operating system that nobody develops for (WebOS), that puts all my stuff "in the cloud", that looks as locked down as the iPad without any of the benefits of the iPad. I mean, seriously, what in the world am I going to do with this thing?

Re:Not worth even $99

[benjamindees]

Put Linux on it duh.

Re:Not worth even $99

[adisakp]

One Word: Android. I doubt it will be more than 1-2 months before someone Jailbreaks it and has an Android install. Then you will have the world's cheapest full featured Android tablet for $400 less than anyone else with a similarly featured tablet.

Re:Not worth even $99

[Jmc23]

Let's see, decent video player, web browser, ebook reader, good for reading technical pdf's, same screen as ipad2, comparable hardware with anything out there now AND you can program directly on it using html5 and their javascript framework that exposes the hardware.

What the hell are you doing on slashdot because you clearly aren't a geek! It'd be worth it just to carry around programming reference pdfs.

Re:Not worth even $99

[catmistake]

e-reader
email
web browser
address book
calendar/appointments/alarm clock

I got an iPad first week released. Love it. For all the development Apple has poured into iPad/iOS, all I have ever used it for is listed above. I'm recommending TouchPad to anyone that wants a tablet.

Re:Not worth even $99

[jedidiah]

I like customizing PCs as much as the next guy but I prefer to avoid appliances that I need to hack.

With anyone else besides Apple in the market, a franken-tablet is somewhat redundant.

Re:Not worth even $99

[Osgeld]

apparently not find your imagination

ok so the thing runs linux, has a homebrew scene and has software toolkits, what cant you do with a xga screen and a 1.2ghz cpu tablet?

Re:Not worth even $99

[LurkerXXX]

Browse the web. Play FLASH. Do your emailing. Play games. Play movies, Install a lot of free/open source apps from the mod community....

Re:Not worth even $99

[LurkerXXX]

Touchpad enables developer mode with the Konami code as well.

They made a locked down versions for corporate buyers who wanted it locked for security reasons (corporate IT could still get root, general users couldn't). Anything you buy off Amazon, Walmart, BestBuy, etc, is all unlocked.

Re:Not worth even $99

[gl4ss]

use it as extra screen, mount it on your desk, hang it on the wall as a cheap reasonably high quality photoframe, mount it in wc.. endless possibilities, really, for 99 bucks it's not bad if you can find it, even if you only use it to read some old mad magazines.

Re:Not worth even $99

[DAldredge]

http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/Portal:Accessing_Linux Very simple to get Root access.

Re:Not worth even $99

[eharvill]

This. If I could find one, I'd buy one.

Re:Not worth even $99

[RoccamOccam]

You don't need to hack it. All of the apps that were mentioned are built-in or available for free from the HP App Store.

Re:Not worth even $99

[edxwelch]

> comparable hardware with anything out there
According to engaget it preforms like a dog compared to iPad2 or Galaxy. though maybe that's WebOS rasther than the hardware

Re:Not worth even $99

[LWATCDR]

And you would be oh so very wrong. Heck at that price it is a cheap Digital Picture frame. The SDK is out so you could write what every you want for it. For nothing more than a mobile media player and web browser it is great for $99.

Re:Not worth even $99

[Astronomerguy]

Wish I had mod points for OP. Nailed it. Add apps for very specific content (Ted Talks, Khan Learning) and there's no reason not to get this at firesale prices

Re:Not worth even $99

[Compaqt]

Agreed with you on the hacking, but why go the Apple route then?

As has been mentioned before, all you have to do is enter the geeky so-called Konami code, and you're in.

It's well-known enough that it pops up as an Google auto-complete on "kon". Sort of like the movie equivalent of "OVERRRIDE".

Re:Not worth even $99

[narcc]

that looks as locked down as the iPad

Except it's not. It's one of the most developer-friendly tablets around.

WebOS is incredibly slick (it makes iOS look like ProDOS) and has a vibrant and dedicated developer community. It's a real shame that HP seems hell-bent on killing it. I would have loved to see it succeed.

Re:Not worth even $99

[Charliemopps]

Agreed, it's worthless. You couldn't PAY me to use it.

From 'Everybody On' to 'Everybody Off' in 6 Months

[theodp]

(Feb. 9, 2011) HP Launches 'Everybody On' Global Marketing Campaign: The 'Everybody On' campaign kicks off with a 60-second anthem TV spot featuring an instrumental version of Lou Reed's iconic song 'Walk on the Wild Side'...This year the GRAMMY Awards telecast will feature the new HP TouchPad, the first HP webOS tablet...

Apple isn't about product anymore.

[v(*_*)vvvv]

If you are in the industry and still think you can compete with Apple, you will end up like HP.

The lesson here is not about solid engineering, eye-catching design, or pricing. It is about how to avoid contesting something that is in a league of its own, in the zone, and has become a force of nature. They're at Exxon levels. And to do that as a tech company that actually makes something is insane.

Apple right now is Mike Tyson in his heyday. Many Tyson fans didn't follow boxing. They followed Mike. It's the same with Apple. Most people who bought an iPad don't even know the specs. The iPad commercial probably isn't what got them to buy it either. They simply don't care.

HP spent a ton of money getting celebrities to do fancy commercials, and the design and specs of their Tablet isn't bad either. But it's too bad, because no one cares.

Apple has gotten to the point where people just buy their products because everybody chants how great they are. If you dare step in the ring with them, they'll knock you the &%$# out and take everything you put into the fight.

I am not an Apple fan, but it doesn't take one to see what is going on. If you understood the phenomenon that is Apple right now, you'd think twice before picking a fight.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[andydread]

Tell that to google when it comes to smartphones. Last time i checked Android was way ahead of iApple on smartphones.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[theurge14]

Android != smartphone.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

He never said Android == smartphones... He said Android was way ahead of iOS on smartphones.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

The difference between Apple and Tyson is that Tyson did have some reasonable competitors. If you think Apple does, you probably don't really understand why the iPad is so popular.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[v(*_*)vvvv]

How many Android phone were sold to people who wanted an iPhone but couldn't get one?
How many Android phones are sold by wireless companies that want to sell iPhones but can't?
How many Android phones are built by manufacturers that want to build an Apple product but can't?

It is Apple versus the world. Android is their weapon of choice. But nothing is beating the iPhone. It just so happens that every competitor has the same OS. To say that that OS is made by Google so Google is beating Apple is like coloring an apple orange and pretending to compare oranges.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[CharlyFoxtrot]

The lesson here is not about solid engineering, eye-catching design, or pricing.

Yes it is. The iPad is a solid products and has become the touchstone. If you want to compete with something that's perceived as the tablet you have be either:
- significantly better and the same price
- at least as good at a lower price

Sadly the TouchPad was neither. To bad too, I'd have liked Palm's progeny to at least survive.

Most people who bought an iPad don't even know the specs..

The vast majority of people don't know the specs of their PC's either. The great thing is that with tablets they don't have to. Tablets are bought on the following considerations: "Can I run the popular apps?", "Does it feel responsive?", "Does the battery last me at least a whole day of use?" The iPad kills on all 3 of these criteria. And what were the most often heard complaints against the Touchpad ? That it "felt slow" and there were no apps. No one except uber geeks cares about tablet specs.

Apple has gotten to the point where people just buy their products because everybody chants how great they are.

That's a myth. Apple users are some of the most critical around. That's why you keep hearing very vocal complaints about problems with Apple systems that impact a small minority of its users. And a lot of the new iPad/iPhone users who aren't traditional Apple fans would leave at the drop of a hat if something better came along. These are just regular consumers, not geeks, they go with what works.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Yeah, most of them are probably cheap models. Are those stats international or US only?

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

No. The difference between Apple and Tyson is that Apple is the company making iPods and suchlike, and Tyson was a boxer. Duh!

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[jedidiah]

> How many Android phone were sold to people who wanted an iPhone but couldn't get one?

Probably not so many.

If you really want an iPhone, you can just switch carriers. It's not really that big of a deal. The market simply isn't that limited.

There are multiple carriers and if you really want an iPhone that bad you can just switch.

I dumped my AT&T iPhone for one of their Samsung Android devices.

The shell script was really fun and all but it got old after awhile.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[steelfood]

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. It's all about timing and opportunity.

People thought Facebook was untouchable at some point too. Google+ is proving that sentiment wrong. If Google had released their thing a year earlier, it would have certainly flopped. If Google released their thing a year later, who knows how many other players would be out there diluting the market.

To further your boxing analogy, you might not be able to get into the ring with Apple, but that's why you draw them into the octagon and fight them there (assuming you're say, GSP).

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[andydread]

How many Android phone were sold to people who wanted an iPhone but couldn't get one? How many Android phones are sold by wireless companies that want to sell iPhones but can't? How many Android phones are built by manufacturers that want to build an Apple product but can't?

It is Apple versus the world. Android is their weapon of choice. But nothing is beating the iPhone. It just so happens that every competitor has the same OS. To say that that OS is made by Google so Google is beating Apple is like coloring an apple orange and pretending to compare oranges.

I can't answer those questions and you can't either. You have provided no proof that manufacturers want to build iOS devices. No proof whatsoever. You can split hairs all you want that does not detract from the fact that when it comes to OS marketshare Android is way ahead of iOS in smartphone OS marketshare.

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1622614
I know... Facts are a bitch when they don't fit your world view.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple make 50% more in revenue just from iPhones than Google makes in total! In what world does that put Google ahead of Apple in smartphones?

Now consider the following:

Google claims to generate $1 billion a year now in mobile revenue.... Google generates about $8.66/user/year from US smartphone users through advertising.

So if we are generous and say that mobile revenue perfectly follows the 55% vs. 35% marketshare split, then Google makes about 200 million a year more on Android based revenues compared to iOS ones. This ignores the fact that in a hypothetical, sans Android universe, iOS would likely occupy a higher percentage, and thus Google total revenues wouldn't drop by the full 200 million.

Apple's estimated yearly income per iOS users is ~$150.

Google purchased Android for ~$50mil + engineering costs + the recent motorola acquisition of $12.5billion currently puts them deep, deep into the red on Android. By my estimate if all goes perfectly (Apple goes away.... ha) it'll take them years to recoup that investment through mobile search ads, or even if they start making their own hardware... meanwhile Apple keeps making nice profits on ALL their product lines... So how nice is that 55% vs. 35% looking now?

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can compete but you can't do it at the same level. The same thing happened with Microsoft Zune. You can't just copy an apple product, give it less features and expect people to pay the same amount.

The only way to get a market share is to offer something different and none of the new tablets or touch pads do that. Blackberry, HP, Acer and every other company that makes tablets now have no idea what they are doing, they just think people want touch pads now so they make tablets and expect people to buy them. If any of them really want a market share, the best thing they could have done is made a really cheep tablets that they can sell for less than half the price of Apple.
 
Think about it, if your going to drop $500.00 on a touch pad you might as well get an IPad because that is what every one else has as it's a safe investment. If my choices are $450.00, $525.00, $500.00 for each tablet, saving a few dollars means nothing when no one else has the same product.

But if I had a choice between a $500.00 IPad or a $200.00 cheap pad, casual users would buy them up. Look how fast the $99.00 pads are disappearing.

A great example of this is Nintendo. The two major choices at the time were basically XboX 360 or PS3. Each in the $600-$700 range. Nintendo could have just made another console and advertised more pixels, polygons and giga rams then the other guys, but they didn't. They made something different and cheaply. They showed that you don't need HD resolution or Blue Ray for games to be fun and with it in the $300.00 range, family's bought them up.

  You can compete with Apple, just every company did it wrong and tried to be just like Apple.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[andydread]

Sure many of them are because not everybody can afford an Apple product. And quite a few of them have better hardware that Apple's. Some are made in the same factory with the same sweatshop labor as Apple's. [foxconn] The fact remains that Android smartphone marketshare is almost triple what the iOS is worldwide and growing at a much faster rate than iOS. Back when Android was a fraction of Apple's marketshare Dear Leader Steve told his followers that there is no way that Android is going catch Apple in smartphone marketshare. 2 years later and we have this
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1622614

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[93 Escort Wagon]

How many Android phone were sold to people who wanted an iPhone but couldn't get one?

I know this statement raised a lot of Slashdotters' hackles, but there is some evidence it's true. But in reality, all those Android owners who claim to want an iPhone may or may not actually switch - people tend to be dissatisfied with what they have, no matter what it is. Really, only time will tell if it's true or not... Slashdotters' rantings aside.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[jmorris42]

> But nothing is beating the iPhone. It just so happens that every competitor has the same OS.

That is the same fanboy thinking (or lack of) that says Apple is beating the PC because they are (at times, depending on how you count...) the #1 selling brand. And if the competition is Apple vs. Dell Apple outselling Dell would make them #1, but that is a dumb way to look at the industry. It is Apple vs ALL of the Windows PC vendors and Apple is lucky to get into double digits when they only count retail sales, or just look at laptops or some other way to make Apple look bigger than they are.

Android is soundly whipping Apple in the smartphone space. Most counts still have RIM beating Apple. Apple had a brief moment but it is fading. Now they are having another moment in the tablet space while Android catches up. But Apple has a critical limitation, the urgent need to make 50 points on every sale to justify their market cap that is currently only challenged by Exxon-Mobil. They are selling cheap consumer electronics made by Chinese slave labor just like everyone else, only they expect to make fifty points. That can only happen when they can catch the rest of the consumer electronics industry with their pants down, which they have proven their ability to manage a few times now. But it never lasts long.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[notknown86]

If you understood the phenomenon that is Apple right now, you'd think twice before picking a fight.

Apple can be beaten (phones), sometimes even comprehensively (desktop operating systems).

The problem is, HP is a particularly stodgy company, and the contrast between the two companies is striking in this case.

Also, HP's reputation is pig-shit when it comes to support, but that's another story entirely...

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[shoehornjob]

Google is the 800 pound gorilla that you didn't notice in the corner of the room. He's coming at you so fast now that you can't get away. In other words; they're big and smart enough that they can do that and get away with it.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[andydread]

Get a way with what? Increased marketshare? Apple has a market cap the rivals Exxon. So we have a 800lb gorilla and 2000lb elephant. whats your point?

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[shoehornjob]

The point is; they have already chipped away at Apple's smartphone business (as stated earlier in this discussion) and before long they will own a significant share of Apple's tablet market. Market share is not the point but since you mentioned it I'm sure Apple's will go down as Google cut's into their product. That doesn't mean Apple is going away any time soon.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[v(*_*)vvvv]

Putting all Android devices in the same column opposite the iPhone is the same fanboy thinking (to borrow your fine words) of the opposition. Or is that what you meant? I am not an Apple fanboy, but I'm just against fanboy statistics, which is what I replied to.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[u38cg]

They've managed it since "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame". How many /.ers *remember* the Nomad? Apple has managed to innovate ahead of the pack for ten years now, an aeon in consumer electronics. Some of the competition is starting to get it, but I genuinely don't see any of them managing to really keep up just yet. And I certainly don't see the next piece of innovation from anyone but Apple. Sadly.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[Shadowmist]

The total number of Android phones may be higher than iPhone sales but none of them alone are greater than Apple's figures. And iPhone's popularity isn't showing signs of cresting. It's just that the market is expanding and Android phones are available from more carriers and have cheaper options like the Optimus.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

Because it and the iphone allowed non technical people to be able to carry their music and photos and stuff around with ease compared to alternatives. Apples success has very little to do with their products and more to do with their itunes/app store content.

Now you have amazon with all of the same content, and the ability to buy pretty much anything, with their marketplace, and their upcoming tablet.

And google, with their app store, music, video, book content, and their upcoming smartphone.

Its about the content, stupid. Who will have more of it, make it easier to get, and have price points that make sense to the broad consumer base.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[sjames]

Apple right now is Mike Tyson in his heyday.

Alas for the fans, Apple is now busy trying to bite Samsung's ear off. We can only hope Judge Lane calls them on it.

Then they become the regular butt of Dave Letterman's jokes and then they fade away.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[jmorris42]

> Putting all Android devices in the same column opposite the iPhone is the same fanboy thinking..

No it isn't. Retailers don't really care if the Android devices are from a multitude of OEMs, they can stack em on the shelf beside each other because customers divide into iOS and Android nicely, Android customers not caring so much whose badge is on the product they are considering so much as which version of Android is loaded on it. Carriers don't care. App authors don't care, an App that works on an HTC handset works equally well on a Motorola handset with the same version of Android and same basic hardware. And doesn't work on an iPhone.... even if Apple allows it to be sold after the porting effort.

See the PC for how this works in the real world, the hardware is abstracted away by the operating system. Hardware maker hate this of course and have been trying to differentiate their Windows and Android offerings since day one but when they actually succeed customers end up hating it if they can't easily remove it.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[jmorris42]

> They've managed it since "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame".

Yea, and I never bought into the walled garden that was the iPod either. and guess what, iPods aren't especially selling well, of course a big part of that was separate music players are basically a dead idea. Then they had the iPhone dominate the smartphone space for a couple of years because Windows Mobile blew goat and Palm was in the hands of idiots. But now they are #3 in smartphones and falling. So then they put iOS on a bigger screen and birthed the tablet craze. They are still #1 there but by Xmas I suspect they will be hard pressed to keep the crown and by next year I'd put a C note on them falling off their perch. So unless you think Steve can pull yet another rabbit out of his hat and invent yet another category defining product that can produce billions in sales, sell AAPL short. But I won't be going short on em as long as Steve is alive because he just might do it.

But as for Apple being dominant in PCs, smartphones or tablets in two years the odds are pretty much zilch. Because of their corporate DNA as a premium brand experience working against them wanting to remain a volume player in any market, especially if they can't rake in 50% profit margins and now they have their market cap demanding they produce insane profits to justify the stock price. Longterm, all consumer electronics tends to become a low margin high volume business, something Apple has never been interested in participating in. It also tends toward commodification, something else Apple doesn't believe in.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[rubycodez]

market cap isn't real money and isn't real wealth. It is only what you can get for a stock if a small number of people sell it. Exxon has real hard assets that dwarf Apple's. Exxon sells something that people *need*. When the fad is over because others can do what Apple can do at much lower cost, Apple's market cap will shrivel. Market cap is just a measure of hope and hype.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[colinrichardday]

But who will be Apple's Buster Douglas?

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[LordLimecat]

These are just regular consumers, not geeks, they go with what works.

Having just set up a boatload of both macs and pcs (owned by individuals, not companies), with macs being as-if-not-more problematic, I have a theory about this. See, there is a myth that Macs just work, when in fact they are a gigantic pain-- things that work on 10.5 (cisco VPN client) and 10.6 dont work on 10.7; and with Lions new "restart my apps" feature that everyone seems to use, the Macs now boot up as slow as can be and are often slower than Vista laptops with 1gb of ram. I could go on and on about the issues they have that seem to be brain-dead UI etc decisions, but its not the point.

My theory is that someone has a bogged down, virus-laden laptop, and theyre considering getting a new one when their friend, who has a Mac, says "go apple-- theyre SO much better". So they go and get a new SandyBridge Macbook Air, and it IS better-- its lighter, faster, and the screen is nicer. THeir belief is reinforced, and they go and tell their friends to buy mac.

But the thing is, for much less they could have gotten a very nice HP Envy, or a high end Sony, or a solid Lenovo, and been just as happy, for less-- but because of the stigma of "PCs are slow", they dont consider it if its price start to approach the Mac. So they make the purchase that costs considerably more, and of course that comes with some nice perks, and of course OSX IS a good OS (though I have scores of issues with it and think Win7 is better in the corporate world by far).

So I basically break it down for my friends like this: You can get a MacBook pro with Thunderbolt, 4gb of ram, and an i3 processor for $1600; or you can get the EXACT same laptop from HP (probook 4530s) sans the thunderbolt port and with a different case (and slightly worse multitouch) for about $450. That is, every year for the next 4 years, you can buy a new probook, and throw the old one in the trash, and youll still come out about where you would have been if youd bought the mac.

That's a myth. Apple users are some of the most critical around.

Petty might be a better word. I havent seen any complaints about how awful their UI automation is compared with, say, AutoIt, or how trying to enforce system settings with "defaults" is a bear compared with working with the registry (look up "how do i do XX on windows registry", and then compare with a similar search for apple's defaults), or how it seems to be more UI centric than even windows (with a number of System preferences being simply un-administratable from the shell). Instead, I see a number of people talk about how its enterprise ready when it very clearly is not.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[dutchwhizzman]

> How many Android phone were sold to people who wanted an iPhone but couldn't get one?

Probably not so many.

If you really want an iPhone, you can just switch carriers. It's not really that big of a deal. The market simply isn't that limited.

There are more countries on this planet than the US of A. Some of those countries are in fact bigger than the US of A, especially if you combine them. Some of these countries don't have iPhones at all. For an almost accurate map of these countries, please view http://hateusa.narod.ru/ammap.gif After viewing that, remember that only one in thirteen people on this planet is actually living in the US of A. Now tell me again how many people can get an iPhone if they want one and can actually afford it, at over twice the price of an entry level Android phone?

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[v(*_*)vvvv]

You're still pitting iOS against Android, when iOS is exclusive to Apple. You can't compare the OS market for phones, because it isn't an OS market.

The hardware may abstract the OS, but "the phone" abstracts everything. That is why we don't call an iPhone an iOS.

Fanboy perspectives aside, Google already tried to build their own phone and failed miserably. Sure, they'll be back, but to say Android = Google = Apple is Losing is completely skewed. Apple is winning winning winning. It's all about stock prices.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[Miamicanes]

If you're going to go with football analogies, Apple is scoring a touchdown with two-point bonus every hour. Google, meanwhile, is massively spoiling their plans and running up the score by intercepting the ball every time Apple tries to do something and immediately kicking successful field goals from the 90-yard line. BCS is being grumpy and giving Apple lots of extra votes because it's scoring "legitimate" points while Google is gaming the system and scoring lots of points in ways BCS doesn't necessarily agree with, but at the end of the day, Google's going to go home victorious with a score of 90-24, even if Apple ends up getting invited to the best bowl game. Team Google doesn't care, because they won, stomped all over Apple, and they're getting laid tonight anyway after the victory party.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[bingoUV]

(Only talking about phones as Android tablets suck).

From a user's perspective, all Android phones are in the same basket, only with different hardware. Switching between different Android phones is trivial, "expertise" learnt on one is applicable to another more than 90%.

From a application developer perspective, once he has made the relatively larger effort of making a generic Android software, all Android phones are his target market. To decide on whether to develop on Android, he has to look at whole Android market share - not Samsung Android market share, or HTC Android market share.

From the manufacturing company's perspective, yes, you are right. HTC can't be happy that together all Android phones are selling more than iPhone. HTC worries about its own sales only.

So, from Apple's perspective, iOS is doing the best job. From customers' and developers' perspective, Android is dong the best job.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[teh kurisu]

If you're comparing platforms instead of phones, you should really also include devices that aren't smartphones like the iPod Touch and Samsung Galaxy S WiFi. You should probably also include tablets. Otherwise, you're counting the market segments in which Android is performing well, and ignoring the market segments at which Android is doing less well.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[u38cg]

Yep - you've basically explained the other reason I wouldn't bet against Apple. They are ruthless about destroying their own product lines. Most companies would have made the iPhone unable to play music to protect the iPod. Apple made it irrelevant (though that said, the iPod still sells pretty heavily).

I would agree the stock is probably over-valued, but I firmly believe stock prices are pretty meaningless. But yes, I would consider buying an American put on them at a reasonable strike price.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[mobby_6kl]

I'm still using a Nomad, you insensitive clod! Well it's a Zen Xtra, to be precise, and it required nothing than a user-serviceable battery replacement to keep rocking.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[arkane1234]

Right, but to be way ahead of something you have to be in the same field...
Otherwise, it'd be something like 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[arkane1234]

You can also ditch your Android and use your iPhone with said provider... which I'm going to guess is the OTHER gsm provider, T-Mobile.
Your smart enough to Jailbreak without twitching violently, right?

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[arkane1234]

Dear god, listen to yourself man... you've just said in the same paragraph that iPod was a flop, and that HP is a very talented company that put out high quality PCs.

How do you sleep at night without twitching, and giggling profusely? It's like you intentionally said the EXACT opposite of the real-world truth!

The iPad was, and still is, the de facto standard of tablet technology simply because no one has come out with a viable alternative with the same quality. No fanboy'ism about it, it's actually getting kind of sad. HP is doing a very intelligent thing by leaving before they suck so badly that everyone laughs at them any more...

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[arkane1234]

Really? I thought that Apple was a boxer and Tyson was a company!

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[SvnLyrBrto]

> HP is a very talented company

Correction: HP *was* a very talented company. Then, along came a woman named Carly Fiorina. The talented people, who wanted to do something more with their lives than sell printer ink, have long since left the company for greener pastures.

> They have brilliant people working for the company

Correction: They *had* brilliant people working for the company. Then, along came a woman named Carly Fiorina. The brilliant people, who wanted to do something more with their lives than sell printer ink, have long since left the company for greener pastures.

At this point, I wouldn't touch *anything* put out by HP; not even at the $99 fire-sale price.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[toriver]

Exactly: If Apple has 30% of the market, and "Android" has 50%, then that 50% is split five-ways giving an average of 10% to each of HTC, LG, Samsung, SonyEricsson and Motorola. And 10% is less than 30%.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[u38cg]

Lightweight. I still have my Nomad and it's still a solid piece of machinery. And it runs on AA :p

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[CharlyFoxtrot]

See, there is a myth that Macs just work, when in fact they are a gigantic pain-- things that work on 10.5 (cisco VPN client) and 10.6 dont work on 10.7;

Lion's not even been out a month! Those complaints should go to software vendors, not Apple. Personally 99% of my applications worked on Lion (there was a single PPC holdout in there) but everyone who owns a mac will tell people to not upgrade yet unless they need the latest for bragging rights or some indispensable feature. Common sense.

and with Lions new "restart my apps" feature that everyone seems to use, the Macs now boot up as slow as can be and are often slower than Vista laptops with 1gb of ram.

You're comparing apples and oranges: boot vs boot + applications launch. Apple wants to move anyone onto SSD's which come as standard or as an option for every mac now, with an SSD this becomes a non-issue. If it bothers you personally you can disable it.

I could go on and on about the issues they have that seem to be brain-dead UI etc decisions, but its not the point.

"Natural" scrolling, enough said. Nobody's perfect, eh.

My theory is that someone has a bogged down, virus-laden laptop, and theyre considering getting a new one when their friend, who has a Mac, says "go apple-- theyre SO much better". So they go and get a new SandyBridge Macbook Air, and it IS better-- its lighter, faster, and the screen is nicer. THeir belief is reinforced, and they go and tell their friends to buy mac.

Sounds like a success story to me.

But the thing is, for much less they could have gotten a very nice HP Envy, or a high end Sony, or a solid Lenovo, and been just as happy, for less-- but because of the stigma of "PCs are slow", they dont consider it if its price start to approach the Mac. So they make the purchase that costs considerably more, and of course that comes with some nice perks, and of course OSX IS a good OS (though I have scores of issues with it and think Win7 is better in the corporate world by far).

So I basically break it down for my friends like this: You can get a MacBook pro with Thunderbolt, 4gb of ram, and an i3 processor for $1600; or you can get the EXACT same laptop from HP (probook 4530s) sans the thunderbolt port and with a different case (and slightly worse multitouch) for about $450. That is, every year for the next 4 years, you can buy a new probook, and throw the old one in the trash, and youll still come out about where you would have been if youd bought the mac.

First off if you need a laptop that'll be for corporate use exclusively just get a Thinkpad and be done with it, those things are everywhere.
Secondly, all current Apple laptops come with at least an i5, not an i3 like you say. When you compare the i5 HP 4530's they perform worse in nearly every benchmark, compare yourself. Then there's stuff like an aluminum enclosure, a lower profile, much better battery life. I'm not saying you have to like the Macbook they're not for everyone, but there's genuine value there for your extra bucks.

Petty might be a better word. I havent seen any complaints about how awful their UI automation is compared with, say, AutoIt, or how trying to enforce system settings with "defaults" is a bear compared with working with the registry (look up "how do i do XX on windows registry", and then compare with a similar search for apple's defaults), or how it seems to be more UI centric than even windows (with a number of System preferences being simply un-administratable from the shell). Instead, I see a number of people talk about how its enterprise ready when it very clearly is not.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[lennier]

They're at Exxon levels.

I eagerly await the Apple Valdez.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[lennier]

They've managed it since "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame". How many /.ers *remember* the Nomad?

I dunno, but I was reading ebooks on a Palm in 1999, and I'm listening to MP3 podcasts on my Blackberry today, and I still don't have an iPod. Your point?

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[LordLimecat]

Lion's not even been out a month! Those complaints should go to software vendors, not Apple.

It goes to Apple for the exact same reason driver issues in Vista went to MS. And in this case, it actually works if you boot into 32bit mode; Apples new 64bit breaks a lot of things.

The real issue is that it doesnt "just work" across 3 OS versions. 10.5? Have to use CiscoClient, since native Cisco Ipsec doesnt exist. 10.7? Have to use native client, since Cisco Client doesnt work.

Contrast that with windows, where I could run a single mass deployment disk using WPI that magically worked across every OS version, 32 and 64 bit, going back 7 years to XP SP2.

You're comparing apples and oranges: boot vs boot + applications launch. Apple wants to move anyone onto SSD's which come as standard or as an option for every mac now, with an SSD this becomes a non-issue.

Yes, and if everyone who complained about Vista had had 2GB RAM, it never would have been as scandalous as it was. Fact is, a lot of the laptops we worked on were Lion upgrades, and were dog-slow. And the problem is, Apple kind of promises that this sort of thing doesnt happen to Macs-- except now it does, and from boot, and with very few 3rd party services necessary to start the machine crawling.

"Natural" scrolling, enough said. Nobody's perfect, eh.

That is my favorite part of OSX, actually-- I love the multitouch and the new scrolling. I was referring to a lack of an easy way of telling how many instances of an application you have open-- perhaps I was missing it. I also had several other gripes (possibly related to system prefs), but cannot recall.

Secondly, all current Apple laptops come with at least an i5, not an i3 like you say. When you compare the i5 HP 4530's they perform worse in nearly every benchmark, compare [laptopmag.com] yourself [laptopmag.com]. Then there's stuff like an aluminum enclosure, a lower profile, much better battery life. I'm not saying you have to like the Macbook they're not for everyone, but there's genuine value there for your extra bucks.

Ah, when I looked i was sure I saw an i3 for $1600.
Anyways, Lenovo Ideapad, i7, 4gbram, and AMD 6570m, for about $1100 less than the equivalent Macbook. And the $200 for an extra 4GB ram that Apple wants off its store is, quite frankly, obscene.
As for aluminum enclosure, that matters very little to me-- the probook I have has a magnesium alloy cover, and regardless if I drop the thing the first things to break will be the screen and drive, not the case. And my probook has about 4.5 hrs of battery-- Im not about to drop another $1100 for a slightly better battery.

but there's genuine value there for your extra bucks.

You would be hard pressed to explain to me why a worse graphics card, a different metal in the case, and 3 hours of battery (by their estimates) are worth $1100.

I think automator and applescript are pretty damn good, and again you're comparing system built-in stuff with third party Windows software which is unfair.

Autoit uses built in functions to identify which windows are which by their handle IDs. As far as I can tell, there is no way to positively ID windows and controls in AppleScript and Automater (whose "record macro" doesnt actually work with all apps). They both seemed really cool when I saw them, but then turned into huge disappointments when it became apparent that they were half-complete, and there was no real alternative to them that filled the role of "GUI automation for arbitrary programs". With Autoit, I can use native window handles and native control handles to automate any arbitrary program you give me. It is possible that with research I could figure it out, but I pulled about 60-80 hours working on automating these deployment

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[WarlockD]

I am not an Apple fan, but it doesn't take one to see what is going on. If you understood the phenomenon that is Apple right now, you'd think twice before picking a fight.

Apple is not Mike Tyson. It CAN be struck down. We are seeing it now with Google's Android. It is yet up to snuff yet but you can be sure its making the board room nervous enough to do lawsuits.

The problem with HP is that they doomed Palm from the start. It IS a solid OS with allot of polish to it. It has potential and much easier to develop and handle than Android. The problem is that HP did NOT want to spend the money or the resources to fight apple. It was going to take YEARS. This fight was going to cost billions of dollars. It was going to go though shortfalls, failed tablets and bad manufacturing. They are going to redo the last four years of android phones in essence.

Google was willing to put the money down, get the contracts with phone company's and work with all party's combined to get android to market. It took them billions of R&D to get the android NOW to the point where its usable. All HP had to do was stick with it and they could of taken the tablet market in 2 years by being developer friendly, business friendly, and avoiding the proprietary that is Apple. Instead, Windows 8 will come out next year and take over the business community. it seems Microsoft is the only other company willing to stick to a product they believe in.

Funny though. It feels like the 80's all over again with Apple and Microsoft.

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[Uncle Warthog]

Apple has a 40% profit share in the pc market. That's clearly overpriced.

TFTFY

Re:Apple isn't about product anymore.

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

Pretty much everybody I know of who bought an Android phone did it because they didn't want to switch to AT&T at the time. (back then, the verizon iphone was just a legend)

Heck, I was given a free original iPhone, tried AT&T for 20 days, said "fuck this dropped call shit", and got myself a WinMo 6 phone on Verizon.

If carriers were that equal, yeah, then switching would be fine. But if you get more dropped calls in 1 week on AT&T than you did in 2 years of Verizon, switching is a big deal.

Price Matters

[Deathlizard]

This HP Touchpad Fire sale is the best lesson any Non Apple tablet manufacture should learn when it comes to tablet sales. The current Android tablet market is trying to command IPad pricing without being an Apple product. ICultists wont touch it with a 10 foot pole at any price because it's not made by Apple and everyone else that's on the fence is going to see the identical price and buy the Ipad because either they saw it on TV more / their ICult buddy recommended it and since they're priced the same might as well get what everyone else is talking about...

HP goes out and announces that WebOS hardware is dead, lets it sink in for a day or two, then cuts the price down from $399 and $499 to $99 and $149 respectfully and sells out in hours even though everyone knows they're discontinued and WebOS has a shaky future if any. If that doesn't scream that the tablet was overpriced than nothing on earth will.

Non Apple Tables are priced roughly $200-300 too expensive. Get them around $199-$299 and they'll sell like gangbusters just like it did for Android phones in the mobile market.

Re:Price Matters

[Kevin Burtch]

As proof of your point, just look at the Viewsonic gTablet (very similar specs to this device, but Android as the OS)... every time it comes up somewhere for $279, it sells out quickly.

Re:Price Matters

[Deathlizard]

Actually, I own one of these tablets. (and I just bought a touchpad for my cousin) it's good for the price. Biggest disappointment though is the software. but the android community got some seriously good replacements for it.

If a factory stock honeycomb or Ice cream sandwich ever happens on the G tablet, it would be a no brainier at $279. It practically a no brainier even with the lackluster TapnTap android on the device.

I can't believe that the 16gb Touchpad couldn't sell at $249 or ever $299. At $399 is was doom and at $499 someone at HP was on drugs to think it would sell.

Re:Price Matters

[laederkeps]

Non Apple Tables are priced roughly $200-300 too expensive. Get them around $199-$299 and they'll sell like gangbusters just like it did for Android phones in the mobile market.

I thought every manufacturer of every material and immaterial product in existence already did this. Because you KNOW $199 feels like a lot less than $200.

Re:Price Matters

[Baloroth]

Parsing fail. He said it was $200-$300 too expensive, and should be priced more like $200-$300 dollars absolutely (not $500-$600). I agree with him.

Re:Price Matters

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Yeah, lets forget for a second that the TouchPad was actually quite a buggy POS -- yet another unfinished product. That wouldn't have anything to do with people still going with the iPad, surely? Normal consumers just love to feel like they're special beta testers for some fancy new tech product!

If they went for $200-$300 at the moment, they'd either have to compromise on hardware, or cut their profits substantially.

Re:Price Matters

[gregrah]

The Acer Iconia has been selling at $399 with a $100 gift card or rebate at several stores recently (Best Buy, Amazon, Target, etc.) - which is effectively a $299 price point. The Iconia is pretty much a piece of shit, but I bet they were selling a lot of them at that price.

The Asus Transformer can be purchased at $349 or less right now.

The problem is that right now it is still too expensive to manufacture a decent iPad competitor and sell it at $200. Each HP TouchPad, for example, was estimated to cost about $300 to manufacture. Costs will continue to drop though, and we will see Android tablets start to each into the iPad's market share - just as we are currently seeing in the smart phone market.

Even with the loss in market share, Apple will still continue to dominate the high-end market and make huge profits - just like they do with iPhones and Macs today.

Re:Price Matters

[steelfood]

IBM had the most successful strategy against Job's Apple, and it shouldn't come as a surprise that the same strategy would still work even today. Once the other tablet players have command of a user and developer base, they can then go ahead and up their prices as well as their tech specs.

Everybody's trying to compete with Apple on its terms, without realizing that nobody can be Apple but Apple. But that doesn't mean they can't compete with Apple at all.

Re:Price Matters

[iamhassi]

Non Apple Tables are priced roughly $200-300 too expensive. Get them around $199-$299 and they'll sell like gangbusters just like it did for Android phones in the mobile market.

That's only half true. I have seen plenty of android tablets under $200, some even under $100. Problem is they're generic off brand tablets with slow CPUs and bad screens that give android a bad name. What they need is a major manufacture like HP or HTC to sell $150 tablets with decent specs. But that will never happen because no manufacture wants to devalue their brand name by selling inexpensive merchandise, they all want to say "yes we sell a tablet and it's just as good as the iPad that's why it's the same price as an iPad". Actually forget the decent specs because people don't look at tablet specs they look at brand name, all it really needs is to run as well as the original iPad (apps respond quickly, etc) and not be buggy. Any major computer brand name could do this tomorrow since they won't really be making it, they'll have some chinese company make it just like Apple does with foxxcon, they just need to oversee the project and make sure its decent before putting their brand name on it.

Re:Price Matters

[LurkerXXX]

Most of the bugs were killed by an OS update released a week or two ago. Why they didn't hold back the launch for a month until that was ready I'll never know.

Re:Price Matters

[Deathlizard]

What they need is a major manufacture like HP or HTC to sell $150 tablets with decent specs. But that will never happen because no manufacture wants to devalue their brand name by selling inexpensive merchandise

The above thinking is what's killing decent manufactures tablet hopes. All this strategy is doing is giving apple more money to build better IPads. They seriously need to throw this out and make a market first using cheap hardware, once you get the market in place then focus on competing with the Ipad. Look at what ASUS did with the Eee PC 701 if you want a good example of cheap hardware creating a market.

And I agree with you on the ultra cheap crap tablets out there, although I don't think Google is helping themselves by discouraging tablets before honeycomb was released, having honeycomb exclusive once it was released, or locking out the android market to certain devices and agreements.

Re:Price Matters

[sootman]

> ICultists wont touch it with a 10 foot pole at any price because it's
> not made by Apple and everyone else that's on the fence is going
> to see the identical price and buy the Ipad because either they saw
> it on TV more / their ICult buddy recommended it and since they're
> priced the same might as well get what everyone else is talking about

I am SO FUCKING SICK of all this "it's all because of fanboys/marketing/cultishness" shit! EVERY SINGLE MAJOR REVIEW of the TouchPad says it's barely in the same league with the iPad 1 and not even CLOSE to the iPad 2.

And because someone is bound to post a reply asking for proof, here are two major mainstream ones:

• David Pogue, New York Times
  "... the TouchPad doesn't come close to being as complete or mature as the iPad or the best Android tablets..."
• Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal
  "Bottom line: ... I can't recommend the TouchPad over the iPad 2"

And if you think the big sites are just dumb and/or Apple whores, how about some tech sites, like Ars Technica or Engadget?

• Engadget
  We all wanted the TouchPad to really compete, to give us a compelling third party to join the iOS and Android boxes on the ballot. But, alas, this isn't quite it... The shortage of apps is a problem, no doubt, but that will change with time. What won't change is the hardware, and there we're left a little disappointed. Holding this in one hand and either an iPad 2 or a Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the other leaves you wondering why you'd ever be compelled to buy the HP when you could have the thinner, lighter alternative for the same money. Meanwhile, the performance left us occasionally wanting and, well, what is there to say.
• Ars Technica
  The HP TouchPad, if it were less expensive, could be an extremely strong, if slightly less polished, alternative to the iPad. But like other recently-released high-profile Android tablets, it's determined to take on the champ. And just like those Android tablets, its hard to recommend over an iPad at the same price.

That said, I would have snapped one up for $99 but it's now Saturday afternoon and there are none to be found. (I went to bed early last night and was out of the house first thing in the morning. Dammit!)

> Non Apple Tables are priced roughly $200-300 too expensive. Get
> them around $199-$299 and they'll sell like gangbusters just like it
> did for Android phones in the mobile market.

There is not magical "make it cheap" dust that can be sprinkled on non-iOS devices. The fact that the OS is free really doesn't amtter much at all. (Remember when everyone thought Linux would take over the desktop because it was considered to be as good as Windows?) Believe it or not, Apple is being DAMN price competitive on the iPad. Do you think multibillion dollar companies are spending billions of dollars to bring tablets to the market and then watching them fail just for fun? No, they're selling them for that much because they HAVE to in order to make any profit at all, and they're failing because they just aren't as good. You CAN NOT MAKE a tablet as good as the iPad for less. It has a good looking, responsive touchscreen, the best battery life out there, and it's within 1mm of being the thinnest as well. Lightest of all the 10" tablets, too, AFAIK. Cheaper tablets have screens that are worse looking and/or less sensitive, they're thicker, they're heavier, AND they have worse battery life.

There ARE cheap Android tablets out there (especially if you include things like the Pandigital Novel and B&N Nook Color) and they ARE NOT SELLING anywhere

Re:Price Matters

[sonicmerlin]

Android phones are overpriced as well. In fact all cell phones are priced to achieve Apple margins, which is ridiculous. It will be Chinese competitors who are willing to break the collusion and accept lower margins that will bring down the prices. Already a Chinese company is planning to release a 1.5 GHz dual-core Android phone for $310, and a 1.2 GHz dual-core variant for even cheaper.

Re:Price Matters

[P00rSpy]

I agree 100% Apple fan have a long history of paying premium for their stuff. I do wonder if that sales was genuine tho... Neither the less it's still an interesting proof that price is important, especially if the seller has no history in regard to what you are buying (Again I think apple is different, they have people who would buy a suitcase sized laptop if Steve was telling them it's better this way)

Re:Price Matters

[jimicus]

Non Apple Tables are priced roughly $200-300 too expensive. Get them around $199-$299 and they'll sell like gangbusters just like it did for Android phones in the mobile market.

The thing is, nobody's done that yet. Considering the speed at which this industry normally moves, I have a sneaking suspicion that nobody's succeeded in making a tablet that they can sell for $2-300 and make a profit on.

Re:Price Matters

[Ol Olsoc]

You remark about "Ipad cultists won't touch HP or other touchpads.

There's a reason. And HP just showed the reason. Apple isn't going to suddenly stop making or selling theirs, and the iPad killers will.

Re:Price Matters

[LordLimecat]

I am SO FUCKING SICK of all this "it's all because of fanboys/marketing/cultishness" shit!

A lot of the accusations are based on Mac folks trying to justify hardware that is 3 to 4 times the price of an equivalent piece of hardware on Newegg (compare: HP Probook 4530s to a core i3 macbook pro15" off of apple.com). Its like going to Best Buy, only you actually have people recommending it.

Re:Price Matters

[jimmydevice]

The parse fail was on your wetwear, I got it, and I "assume" most got it too.

Re:Price Matters

[rastoboy29]

Totally agree, mod parent up.

Just bought my first tablet last week--a Viewsonic gtablet for $260, now that they have a newer model in the chute.  That's fine--I don't care--I was waiting for a *decent* Android tab to get well under $300.

I'm just not going to drop half a grand for a casual browsing tool...but I *love* having it on my coffee table!

Re:Price Matters

[Anonymous Coward]

What they need is a major manufacture like HP or HTC to sell $150 tablets with decent specs. But that will never happen because no manufacture wants to devalue their brand name by selling inexpensive merchandise

You guys fundamentally Don't Get It.

First, there's the delusion that you can build and sell a tablet with decent specs at $150. Sorry guys, wishing for something real hard doesn't make it come true. If it was possible those generic offbrand makers would be doing it already.

Second, it's not about devaluing the brand. It's about not wanting to be in competition with those generic offbrand guys for the race-to-the-bottom almost-no-profit segment of the market. If you try to compete with them on price, they will just undercut you. They don't have to pay much for software development, support, etc., so they can probably afford to.

Re:Price Matters

[LordLimecat]

Generally speaking, if you look at the total package, Apple's notebooks are competitive with the high end products from HP and Dell. Try comparing the HP EliteBook Mobile Workstation with Apple's models, for example

How bout I just compare the i7 probook with one of these, which has a better graphics card and costs $1100 cheaper?

How is that "competitive"? Im not even aware of HP HAVING a $1700 laptop-- their i7s generally run in the $1100s.

Re:Price Matters

[LordLimecat]

Edit:
You mention things like "memory slots" (my probook has 2, one is filled with a stock 4gb ram), and battery (my probook gets 4.5 hrs, their upper end $900-1000 laptops support massive battery expansions thru a bottom port), etc. Im not really convinced here.

Re:Price Matters

[unpopulardev]

I'm surprised so few people commented on getting Android on the TouchPad. That's the main reason most people on the xda forums are buying these devices. It has been confirmed that they are already working on a port, and so far, so good.

Sold out fast

[Guppy]

Already out this morning at all the local stores (Walmart, Staples, Best Buy, etc...), well before noon. Suppose we might start seeing these things on Ebay soon, being flipped for a quick profit.

Anyway, wondering if we'll see an Android ROM for it anytime soon. I've heard WebOS is great, but developers are going to be leaving in droves.

In the UK?

[kno3]

Anyone see a way of getting this clearance price in the UK?

Re:In the UK?

[DreddUK]

Nah, still full price over here, plus the HP Sales line is now closed. Was going to call and ask for the same pricing as the US. Maybe we'll see some movement on Monday when everyone gets back to work.

Re:In the UK?

[queazocotal]

It was reduced today!
From 349 pounds to 332.
(official hp uk store)

Oh - and the order link doesn't actually work for the touchpad anyway.

Was interested

[fafaforza]

until I realized it ran webOS. If it was Android, it would be a different story. Honestly, what made them use webOS? And price this thing the same as the iPad? Were they setting themselves up for failure purposefully?

What most of these tabled companies don't realize is that no one will pay the same price as the iPad for their tables because they are much more likely to just bail out of 2 consecutive sales reports aren't gangbusters. Apple is here to stay, so why would anyone buy a product that will likely be abandoned in a "focus realignment" meeting between some MBAs.

Re:Was interested

[Kyokugenryu]

It ran WebOS because HP bought Palm FOR WebOS. It was their shot at the mobile market, and they failed miserably.

Re:Was interested

[wavedeform]

To be fair, the ROKR was a Moto product that just tried to license some of the Apple/iTunes magic. It was a crappy phone, with pretty limited music support. It's not surprising that it failed. What is surprising is that Apple let themselves be associated with it.

Re:Was interested

[fafaforza]

webOS might have been good, but it isn't very widespread, and you're relying on one company to support it for at least a while. And as we see here, you would have been left holding the bags. What if some bug or exploit manifested itself and HP left the market. Would you be able to update your software? That type of uncertainty is what takes away from choosing webOS.

Re:Was interested

[fafaforza]

But I can still use an 8 year old iPod with iTunes, whereas many of the other players I've had in the past from larger companies like Samsung and others I can't even find download links for their media manager programs. And often without that software, music can't be loaded up onto the player.

Re:Was interested

[rakaur]

Maybe because they own webOS? And a lot of people are crazy excited over webOS because it offers opportunities that iOS and Android don't? I know a lot of Android users that were hoping to escape their nightmare by switching to a Pre3. Now they can't.

Did he open it?

[GeorgeMonroy]

So I need to know if Hugh Pickens opened the tablet. If so his only options are to either keep it at the $400 price tag or to return it at a 15%-20% restocking fee per Best Buys computers return poicy on opened items. LMAO!

Somebody please find out!

Re:Did he open it?

[LordKronos]

or to return it at a 15%-20% restocking fee per Best Buys computers return poicy on opened items.

I doubt there would be a restocking fee. The reason Best Buy would extend the return policy would be either
1) They want to remove ill will from people who just bought into a dead platform...sort of a way of saying "you won't regret buying from us" (yeah yeah, cue the jokes) Charging a restocking fee wouldn't accomplish this goal
2) HP informed retailers that the product is discontinued, and they have 60 days to get them any returns back to them. In that case, Best Buy isn't eating the cost, so why should they care.

Best Buy?

[DogDude]

So Best Buy employees hate the company, Best Buy customers hate the company, but people still shop there? Why?

Re:Best Buy?

[gregrah]

They've got a pretty liberal return policy. Sometimes I "rent" from them until I am sure I want to buy something, and then I return it to best buy and order it online from Newegg or Amazon.

Re:Best Buy?

[0123456]

They've got a pretty liberal return policy. Sometimes I "rent" from them until I am sure I want to buy something, and then I return it to best buy and order it online from Newegg or Amazon.

You were the kind of person we used to hate when I was in the hardware business; you'd 'rent' our hardware from the store, then return it and we'd then have to QA it again and sell it as a refurbished product.

Then people would complain that hardware prices were high. Well, duh.

Re:Best Buy?

[Osgeld]

then people like me walk in and see an open box doo hicky at 75% off

Re:Best Buy?

[gregrah]

It's not like I'm being dishonest here. When I return the item to Best Buy and they ask my reason for returning I tell them up front "I didn't like the product" or "I found it for $50 less online" - and they've never cared.

If they wanted to discourage this behavior they could do any number of things, like charging a restocking fee, offering to price match online retailers, or... and I know this is a stretch... just price things competitively to start with.

The reason that they don't do any of these things is that Best Buy is all about the impulse buy. They don't want their customers to research reviews or shop for the best price. Instead they offer up the guarantee that you can price match the product later or return it if you are unhappy, and bank on the fact that most people are going to be too lazy to take them up on the offer.

Don't hate me for being a rational consumer.

Re:Best Buy?

[sonicmerlin]

Ah that explains the stupid restocking fee.

Re:Best Buy?

[Just Some Guy]

You were the kind of person we used to hate when I was in the hardware business; you'd 'rent' our hardware from the store, then return it and we'd then have to QA it again and sell it as a refurbished product.

Were the subject any other retailer, I'd say it was despicable. But Best Buy? I figure they deserve pretty much whatever happens to them. Maybe I'd feel different if members of my immediate family hadn't bought expensive new-in-box electronics from them, then got them home to find that they were quite used and banged up.

As soon as Best Buy loses its reputation for shady practices, borderline-retarded and flat out lying salespeople, and treating paid customers like shoplifters by attempting [*] to search sacks of purchased goods as people leave, maybe I'll be bothered to care what scams people [**] pull off against them. Until then, meh.

[*] Boy, they get pissy when you decline their "offer" to search your stuff.

[**] No, not me. I've happily avoided them altogether for over a decade. I wouldn't do those things because it's against my principals. I don't mind if you do, though, for much the same reason I wouldn't care if a pimp beat up a pickpocket.

Ubuntu and Android

[Anonymous Coward]

See:
http://liliputing.com/2011/08/hp-touchpad-afterlife-hackers-bringing-android-ubuntu-to-hps-tablet.html

Links in the article

Don't bother competing!

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got to be kidding me. Your argument boils down to "don't bother competing with Apple, because they're on top". How exactly do you think progress is made? The same way progress has been made for our entire technological revolution: through fair competition. (Whether the market will be fair or not is entirely up to government and thier IP laws. If that market is fair, then it is inevitable that Apple will be knocked off the top, the cycle repeats, and the next top dog moves in for a while.)

Indeed, the only time "don't bother competing" makes sense is when government forcefully prevents you from competing (via IP law).

Re:Don't bother competing!

[BeerCat]

It's more like "don't bother competing with them on their terms"

When the iPod first came out ("No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame"), everyone thought it was just about the hardware, so concentrated on the technical specs. By the time it was realised that it was about the whole "Here's a way to manage your music that's easier than doing it by hand", they'd already cleaned up. The problem is, that once one company is dominant, their "new model" is now the "old model", so merely doing the same won't work.

It's not new either:
Old model: buy a computer, and then install the operating system.
New model: buy a PC, and the OS is pre-installed. (Microsoft's first big win)
Competing on their terms and losing: buy an IBM PC, and get OS/2

Old model: buy your preferred word processor (WordPerfect or WordStar). Buy your preferred spreadsheet (Lotus 1-2-3 or SuperCalc). Maybe buy a drawing / presentation program (DrawPerfect or Harvard Graphics)
New model: buy a suite, and you get the wordprocessor, spreadsheet and presentation software for just over the price of one of them. (Microsoft's second big win)
Competing on their terms and losing: WordPerfect Office, Lotus SmartSuite

So, HP needed to do more than "tablet plus apps available", as that was just competing on their terms and losing.

Re:Don't bother competing!

[geminidomino]

By the time it was realised that it was about the whole "Here's a way to manage your music that's easier than doing it by hand", they'd already cleaned up.

Shit. I wish I'd gotten in at that point, instead of waiting until after they'd unleashed iTunes on us instead...

Re:Don't bother competing!

[arkane1234]

That whole GUI thing has you pretty hung up, doesn't it?

Re:Don't bother competing!

[geminidomino]

No, the whole "shitty useless interface" thing has me hung up. People like to shit on F/OSS for not being user friendly, but when it comes to my ipod classic which has thousands of files on it, gtkpod is superior in is the most 'utilitarian' of the options, and even IT's superior to the godawful iTunes software, except for one respect: There's no goddamn Windows port.

Hell, even sharepod is better, and it really kind of sucks.

My brother has one

[spectro]

He works for HP and got one when they put them on sale for $300 a few weeks ago. I played with it last week and kinda liked it.

It's a solid piece of hardware, slick UI and really fast.

No, it doesn't run android and doesn't have data plan but after playing with it I would definitely buy it for $99 if only to browse the internet when watching tv or in a hotel.

Too bad they are sold out already :(

Re:My brother has one

[gmhowell]

No, it doesn't run android and doesn't have data plan but after playing with it I would definitely buy it for $99 if only to browse the internet when watching tv or in a hotel.

Read an article the other day and the commentariat said as much. They are also trying to coin the phrase 'shitter tablet' for tablet that are only good for web browsing while in the loo. And if you splash a little bit, you won't care about the tablet because they're so inexpensive.

Re:From 'Everybody On' to 'Everybody Off' in 6 Mon

[CharlyFoxtrot]

HP's Eric Cador said, "In the tablet world, we're going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus."

From "number one plus", to "number two, flush" in three months.

Hopefully this is strategic and not stupid on HP's

[Jmc23]

Really what company pays 1.2 billion for some software and then kills it in under 2 months?

I'm hoping that this decision was based on negotiation talks that HP was having with other manufacturers where the companies basically said ok we'll be willing to license WebOS from you as long as we don't have to compete on the hardware front with you. There's a business decision i think would be more in line with HP than automatically assuming they're idiots.

Besides, which other tablet can you program directly on the tablet and have complete control over the hardware through javascript? Javascript being a decent language if you don't use it like a script kiddie or procedural programmer, more like lisp with c syntax.

Re:Not at any price, thank-you ...

[Osgeld]

I figure I will get my 99 bucks worth of use out of it before it dries up with its homebrew scene, and I doubt it will take more than a month to get android or any other linux on it (its already running linux)

This is such a shame...

[david.emery]

I think HP is being stupidly near-sighted by not continuing to invest in this. Even if HP wants to move towards the idea of 'enterprise integration', they could do what RIM is trying to do (belatedly) with the Playbook, and come up with a tablet for enterprise/industrial/OEM integration. I thought WebOS (and the Palm legacy) had the best basis to provide innovation/alternatives to the iPad; so far most of what we're seeing from Android has not been very inspiring.

Now I fully admit to being an Apple FanBoy, but I think real competition in designs, applications, hardware, etc, is good for everyone. Apple does not have the monopoly on good ideas, but HP's actions sure seem to imply that HP is unwilling to compete with Apple. See the arguments here, particularly the (timely) discussion of the venerable HP-35 calculator as a risk that paid off: http://www.macworld.com/article/161775/2011/08/why_cant_windows_pcs_catch_up_to_the_macbook_air_.html

Re:This is such a shame...

[Shadowmist]

It was too little too late out the gate. Considering that Windows 7 tablets are having such a hard time being 3rd out the gate, the TouchPad was DOA being 4th. WebOS is the AmigaOS of 2011. they should have gone with either Android or Windows 7 (despite being a distant third place, Microsoft won't give up that easy)

Re:This is such a shame...

[david.emery]

But I have zero confidence in Microsoft's ability to really innovate, and I predict Nokia gets bought by Microsoft after their move to Win Mobile 7 drives Nokia's stock price down because of Microsoft's failures. Frankly, Ballmer is not smart enough to know when he's been beaten to market.

Re:Restocking fee is N/A, and fee was eliminated.

[flimflammer]

Even still, there's restrictions on price match that limited quantity and/or clearance items are exempt from price match, which means he's probably stuck with a $400 tablet for $400 instead of the $149 he's hoping for.

So...

[roc97007]

...can you install Android on it?

Re:So...

[arkane1234]

Buy it and find out. You're a hacker, right? ... right...?

so they didn't even try to sell it?

[gl4ss]

was their support organization for the product really _that_ expensive? I suppose it was, since palm was so expensive for them.

got mine

[avm]

I picked one of the 32gb ones this morning at a local Wal-Mart. Loving it so far....

Re:From 'Everybody On' to 'Everybody Off' in 6 Mon

[Dogtanian]

HP's Eric Cador said [time.com], "In the tablet world, we're going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus."

Even without hindsight making it look stupid... how the f*** can *anyone* utter such mindlessly silly drivel with a straight face? It sounds like a cross between something from David Brent in "The Office" and Homer Simpson.

Linux

[Coppit]

So this isn't the year of Linux on the tablet?

Re:Linux

[KZigurs]

Not since the year of BSD tablet happened.

Re:Poor eBay Suckers

[iamhassi]

Ouch, there's thousands of them.

Got mine.

[neiras]

$99.00 + tax here in Vancouver area. There was a line-up at the Best Buy when the doors opened. Everyone was saying "I don't really have a use for this, but it's too good and too cheap to pass up."

Not a bad price for a decent quality web browser for my coffee table. Looks nice enough, works great. I don't care about the lack of an app ecosystem - this is hackable, slick hardware. I'll find something to do with it.

You know, there are going to be hundreds of thousands of these things in people's hands in the next week or two, people who have never had a tablet before. HP just created a market for WebOS apps. By mistake? Hmm.

Seriously, now..

[sstamps]

OK, I LOLed at that.

Good one. :)

I'd still buy several of them for the inevitable FOSS hobbyist project to do some cool things with them.

re: availability

[kermidge]

for those interested, here's a link to an updated forum thread with prices and status at many on-line and physical stores:

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3220862

Newegg Policy

[adisakp]

Does anyone know the policy for someone who bought one at a higher price from Newegg ?

Re:Newegg Policy

[Kindgott]

According to their website, they don't seem to offer a price guarantee even on preorders which drop in price before shipping.

Just saw touchpad ad on TV

[Culture20]

Reminds me of the local radio ads I hear for events that happens the day prior.

It's a quest

[motang]

It has been a quest for me to get one...and as on 1 P.M. PST I haven't been able to. Hopefully soon! :)

Re:It's a quest

[waferhead]

I tried from 0930 central time online and around Dallas with no luck...

Well, they DID have some in Durant OK but they wanted $499 for it, and didn't care what Walmart.com said the price was.
(Tried everything, store magnager... all inbred)
I would have bought it if I had $499 free/available today, as sooner than later that idiocy would be cured.

Rumor has it

[WillyWanker]

That Best Buy isn't going to honor the lower price or price match. They're shipping all their stock back to HP, who will probably then in turn offer them at hp.com at the reduced price.

I heard another rumor that if you bought a Touchpad at the full price recently that you should call HP and they might refund you the difference. Can't hurt to try if your Best Buy shafts you (and that's pretty much a given with Best Buy).

Re:

[Guppy]

As I said earlier, contact me about your stocks of the TX series. Forget TouchPad, Android and iOS. the TX series was THE tablet.

What's your opinion of the newer TM2 series? Same form-factor, but a lot of little changes to the hardware.

Why so negative?

[vga_init]

Everyone seems all doom and gloom about the news, but I think there may be a (slight) potential opportunity in buying a $99 tablet, even if HP doesn't support it.

It seems likely that somehow, some way webOS will live on. HP might continue to develop the software and license it out to any hardware manufacturer that wants to use it, or HP might sell it off to a company that wants to develop it. Among the hacker community there seems to have been a lot of interest in webOS, and I don't see that interest declining. As long as there are users, some kind of niche market will exist, and interest in the platform may continue to grow over time. If HP/whoever-buys-webOS plays its cards right, they might be able to gain a little extra traction by squeezing a couple years out of the original Touchpad device before software development eventually exclusively supports a future hardware platform. For example, Mac OS X for a time ran on old G4 Macs; everyone wanted to upgrade to the new system, and eventually, after a time, they had to buy new hardware to stay current--and they liked it!

Because webOS is apparently so hackable, the user community could probably keep it up to date if they had access to future versions of webOS whether or not the Touchpad device is officially supported by it or not. Perhaps future versions would somehow be supported on the device, but if not I still see some opportunity. Some people out there are still using BeOS (which, ironically, belongs to the company that now owns Palm OS), and that's pretty much dead; people just love it and want to keep using it. New software still gets written for it, and there is a vibrant effort to build an open source clone. People love webOS too, and it already relies heavily on open source software to boot.

Secondly, look at Amiga. Can anyone say honestly say that Amiga is still alive? And yet, the OS was last updated in 2010. That's not bad!

HP Sales may have been a hack ?

[P00rSpy]

This sale could have been made by disgruntled employee of WebOS Seem like the website had video replaced, they could have well used this access to send the email asking to make this huge sales! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBCOLFUge_k&feature=player_embedded Precentral.net is reporting: Looks like someone was able to get one final jab in at HP before getting the boot. HP will no doubt be firing an entire division of webOS hardware engineers in the process of killing off webOS devices. As the video says, if you're looking for an excellent employee, look to the people that will be affected at HP. There will be quite a few great workers looking for a job in the near future. Either way this sales will make history, I do not remember something like this before!

Wrong tense.

[Chris Mattern]

For $99 it *would've been* a steal. Now it's an unsupported orphan that you'll have trouble giving away.

Re:Wrong tense.

[ThorGod]

I'd get one. It'll work as intended now. Once that gets outdated, there's always slapping some linux/unix on it. I bet the cheapness and sudden sell out of these will lend to OSS support/projects.

Re:From 'Everybody On' to 'Everybody Off' in 6 Mon

[Chris Mattern]

"As it turned out, we were number one, plus three or four. That didn't look all that great after we did the addition."

Well, actually... Re: Best Buy Discounts/Refunds

[the JoshMeister]

According to Engadget, Best Buy won't offer discounts in U.S. stores. However, HP is supposedly offering refunds to those who paid the full $400. From the Engadget piece:

Well, it looks like American Best Buys won't be enjoying the same liquidation sale as our neighbors to the north. A couple of tipsters have reported that the big box electronics retailer has pulled the webOS tablets from its shelves and is shipping them back to HP. The slates have also disappeared from Best Buy's website...
Don't get upset if you already plunked down $400 for 10-inches of webOS goodness -- HP will refund you the difference. Call up the company or the retail partner you purchased it from, and ask. Just be prepared to sit on hold with all the rest of the folks trying to get their cash back.

Re:I got one, but...

[ThorGod]

If nothing else:
-look up options to replace the battery
-there must be some kind of warrantee, use it once the 'take it back' option is expired (15-31 days from now)
-do nothing and just resign yourself to tethering it to some power source (external battery or outlet - wait, you can actually plug the things in, right?)

DAILY WOOT!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Had this last week at 349.

That should have put the handwriting on the wall for anyone interested, that new inventories were being dumped - and that buying one at cost was probably soon to follow for a just-released device.

I resisted the Woot! - 'cos I anticipated kicking myself about this. I bet those who did get it this route are pretty sore.

349 USD is too much for an Ubuntu experiment - which is what this would be for me. But 149? Hello, big YELLOW TAG!

Re:DAILY WOOT!

[JWSmythe]

FYI, they just updated the web site. You can order from BestBuy.com now. It appears that they have both the 16GB and 32GB versions available. We just picked up a few.

The sad part as, I was in the market for a tablet. i checked the retail stores, and then compared what they had to the Barnes and Noble Nook Color. The Nook was well worth the money. It only lasted a few hours before I wiped it and put CM7 on. I will say, the Nook is a damned nice tablet, price or otherwise. I'm getting the HP Touchpads on the assumption that I can do something with them. I saw the mention of a group intending to port Android/CM7 over to it, and there may be an Ubuntu something.

I guess worse case, I'm out a few bucks. Best case, it works, and the market isn't saturated with them in the next week or so, and I can resell them on eBay for a profit. :) Most likely, they'll be used by friends and family. They'll pay me for them. I just won't be able to turn a profit on them. I guess the only other case is if I can make them work with a real OS (not WebOS), and I don't get rid of the others, I'll have spares, should mine get broken. I suspect replacement screens and batteries will be rather impossible to get in a few months. If people really get behind it, we'll probably see lots of hard hacks for these things, to upgrade the battery and storage. :) I haven't looked around enough yet to see what they use for storage, but I'd suspect it's built in flash. I already saw that before I bought the Nook Color.

Hopefully HPs Chinese suppliers will be pissed...

[waferhead]

Hopefully HPs Chinese suppliers will be pissed enough to release this hardware for sale at a sane price, with Ubuntu/Android dual boot.

WebOS LOOKS excellent, and Debian/Ubuntu chroots are well done, and the hardware specs are top of the current heap.

Someone also supposedly has Honeycomb running on it.

Re:From 'Everybody On' to 'Everybody Off' in 6 Mon

[couchslug]

"From "number one plus", to "number two, flush" in three months."

This calls for the classic Fuckedcompany (which Pud should have resurrected) comment:

"They had a vision for something great and they tried their best to make it happen. Not every business succeeds, in fact almost many fail. They had the guts, the vision and the nerve to be great."

Still In Stock at HP

[JohnSearle]

You can still get it at their HP store here (Canada at least).

Apparently their systems are having a problem and show $499, but the IT staff are not available to fix it on the weekends. Their sales rep on the phone said it will be fixed on Monday, and they'll correct the charged prices at that point. I ordered two of them several hours ago...

Only 32GB models still in stock.

Re:Still In Stock at HP

[JohnSearle]

Advert w/ proper prices can be viewed here, which redirects you to the above link showing the incorrect price.

Re:Still In Stock at HP

[Fulg]

Thanks for the tip, managed to order a 32GB from the HP store yesterday night, long after it was sold out in local stores. Today was the run for accessories, while they still exist (charging stand, cover, etc). Cases shouldn't be a problem since the device is about the same size and depth as an iPad 1, and those are plentiful. Not sure if I'll need one or not, maybe the cover will be sufficient.

Did the sales rep mention a time frame for the overcharge correction? I tried calling to check but their phone lines are (understandably) overloaded right now. I wonder if I should worry...

Re:Still In Stock at HP

[JohnSearle]

They told me to call back Monday (today), but I didn't even bother. I read somewhere that they are looking to correct the problem in a more automated fashion, rather than on a per call basis.

I have read that it is still questionable whether they have the stock to fulfill the orders they took. My order was taken 8:30PM GMT, and it's still sitting in "processing" status. I'd hold off on accessories until you get a shipment email. I'm crossing my fingers that mine goes through...

Check out RedFlagDeals, as they have a thread going with people talking about what status their order numbers are in. You can also check your status here.

Good luck.

Re:Still In Stock at HP

[Fulg]

My order is still in the "Submitted" stage, I don't know if that comes before or after "Processing" status. It's a good thing I got the accessories I wanted on Sunday (there was still plenty left), because all of the HP Touchpad stuff was removed from the BestBuy/FutureShop shelves Monday, including the demo units which were still on display Sunday.

I've heard that HP will actually get new stock in the coming days, which I presume is the result of the "last production run" started before they canned everything.

Now I'm actually surprised HP canned it at all, because selling a $400 touchpad at $99 is the very definition of a loss-leader, and clearly there is consumer interest in the product at that price point.

Re:From 'Everybody On' to 'Everybody Off' in 6 Mon

[colinrichardday]

That's the problem. He should have called it number one plus plus.

What's going on at HP?

[rakslice]

I'm amazed at how crazy HP's PR handling has been about their transition in general (~ "we're going to jump ship a few miles from the destination to swim into uncharted waters") and this part in particular (~ "we couldn't sell it with a tiny discount off our insane pricing, so we'll just give them away instead"). It's nice to have a demonstration of the Osborne effect every once in a while.

Either HP's competence at marketing and pricing is similar to their competence at creating printer drivers, or there are some seriously perverse accounting needs and internal corporate politics at play here.

Aside, while I'm being cranky: Hey /., what was the hold-up on this story? (It's not just the next day, but in the afternoon the next day). I never would have thought back when I started reading /. in the 90's I'd ever have to say this, but you guys need to improve its story queue process so you can keep up with the turnaround time of... mainstream newspaper web sites.

Another Link

[SuperKendall]

That one is dead already, here's another source:

http://dkgadget.com/hitler-reacts-to-death-of-webos/

One of the more hilarious ones, especially the bit at the end...

Price?

[NoAkai]

That's odd, it still seems to be at full price on Amazon...

Got Mine - And it Was Down To the Wire

[Astronomerguy]

I went in to the Best Buy in the nearby city this morning. I got there at 9:20. The store didn't open until 10:00. Next door was a Staples. They were open, so I went in. A sales guy said that they had 15, and they sold within 5 minutes of opening. He also said that both Best Buy locations in town were sold out (when I left Staples, a lineup was forming at BB). Another customer overheard my conversation with Sales Guy, and said that the Source by Circuit City in the mall across the street showed 2 available on their website. I got there and there was a lineup already. Crap. Light-bulb goes off. In a town about 30km away, there is a Staples and a Source. I high-tail it there, and get to the Staples 1 minute before 10:00 opening. As I walk up, there is a crowd of 8 or so, but I just breeze in past them, ask the opener how many are left. He says 2 of the 32Gb and before he finishes, I say "I'll take one". Score! Herd mentality kept the group bunched together. I was Jonesing and came from a too-fast drive. Adrenalin was driving me. It really is not a bad unit, especially at 80% off. It's actually quite good. It's very functional, but the inevitable Android hack has me excited.

Still running ads ft 399 on my local cable

[bledri]

Methinks the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing...

Re:Still running ads ft 399 on my local cable

[arkane1234]

It's HP... 'nuff said.

Probably the most accurate description

[Anonymous Coward]

The BlackBerry PlayBook, I reckoned, was like a public school chorus rendition of “Ring Of Fire.” It was audacious and they threw themselves into it with a charm and an energy that’s hard not to like, but you wouldn’t call it professional-grade stuff.

All of the Android tablets put together were like lounge singers working their way through Frank Sinatra’s and Tony Bennett’s and Ella Fitzgerald’s hits. They could copy the notes of the original, mostly, but it’s clear that they in no way understood the music. And overall, the experience leaves you with a deeper appreciation of the sophistication and mastery of the one who made this thing famous in the first place.

I was determined to compare the TouchPad to the Sex Pistols’ version of “My Way.” Yes, I promise you I was.

HP could no more distance the TouchPad from the iPad than Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious could distance that song from Frank Sinatra. Their work would not, could not have existed without the original to serve as a template. But throughout the WebOS/TouchPad experience, I saw, in flourish after flourish, places where an engineer looked at some element of the iPad and thought “That’s great, but what if we did it like this instead?”

Gonna get one (hopefully)

[Nyder]

I'm glad they are going to be cheap. I'm going to get one if possible (i'm disabled on disablity, don't get much money a month) because no one else is hitting the $100 tablet niche, which I think would sell like crazy.

I don't want it to do everything, i have a computer for that. But it would let me read comics/magazines on the go.

and seriously, that's all i really care about.

While I'd use it as an ebook reader, I'm waiting to pick up a kindle for really cheap for that. I like the screen for reading on it and the battery life it has.

Re:

[webmistressrachel]

Haven't played with it, but If I remember correctly the digitiser isn't a Wacom in that model, and most (but not all) came with integrated Intel graphics.

Also, shame about the choice to switch Intel CPUs, you got less bang for the buck than with the Turions. The reason for those changes was battery life, which wasn't worth it for me because the 6-cell extended battery stuck out in such a way as to make a great handle for cradling it on my right arm whilst out working in the field (ideal scenario: hospital consulting)

Re:

[webmistressrachel]

Still a gorgeous design though, and those with integrated / dedicated ATI graphics gave much bigger laptops a run for their money in Oblivion terms. Why, do you have some for me? xD

Plus, they had multi-touch (but admittedly not as well implemented as the pinch-zoom-and-pan-at-the-same-time in iOS.

"to be"?

[AdamWill]

they went on sale Friday afternoon in Canada and were sold out everywhere about half an hour later...

this was far byond a firesale

[luther349]

the touchpad has gone insane at the 99$ price, everyone is sold out. hp sold out every retailer that did not send them back to hp and price matched soled out. geeks are all over the net searching for them. lucky for me i found one of the very last people who had a stock of 7k from a major retailer. he said he was selling them at a rate of 4 a minut. hes sold out now. so i managed to snag one. hp is going to have to respond to this they have literately sold off every touch-pad they got and monday the stock from there recalls goes up again for another insane fire sale. if they leave there sudden large user base out in the cold this will kill there company.

Re:From 'Everybody On' to 'Everybody Off' in 6 Mon

[toriver]

That would be number two then.

For the Love of Allah

[Chicken_Kickers]

People! We are talking about a cheap gee-gaw here, be it Apple, Android or HP. They are toys and made in China. I find it puzzling that grown men will go ballistics justifying their decision to buy a piece of cheap plastic to play Angry Birds all day. So, Apple is the poster boy of Pads, Pods and what not. So what? Do you own Apple stocks? If you do, congratulations! You made a wise decision. If not, then you have no reason to be a self-appointed salesperson for Apple. What is popular and unassailable today will not be tomorrow. Sony Walkman, anyone?

Continue WebOS?

[MichaelSmith]

Makes me wonder if somebody will try to market a $99 WebOS tablet with cheap hardware.

Bought one, was Apple going to sue?

[DrTime]

I picked up a 32GB HP Touchpad at Walmart first thing Saturday morning. They had two in stock and had not sold a single one since getting them. If they were both the 16GB I was going to buy both and in retrospect, I should have anyway. One was going to be used as a $100 Kindle reader with color and then some. The other for hacking. The darn thing fits perfectly in my iPad 2 cases. It is bit thicker, but all the controls and even the camera match up to one case. Could it be that HP was also afraid of an Apple lawsuit? I played with WebOS and found it a decent tablet OS. It does not come with all the capabilities of the iPad, but it did include QuickOffice which I use on the iPad. Startup is slow and the initial setup is restricting, I had to disable my routers MAC address filtering to get it started as there is no way to find the MAC address without setting up WiFi and creating the WebOS account. Still,once going it is pretty nice. If HP wanted to make a go of selling them, the product was good enough, even if not great. There was no marketing and no promotion. I suspect the plan to doom it and the PC division was long in planning. The biggest shame in the whole HP saga is Agilent should have gotten the HP name and the other company could have been named dumb jerks with no plan.

unix tablets

[unixisc]

So Android & WebOS are Linux tablets, while iPads are BSD tablets? So in terms of OSs, it's a Linux vs BSD war? No Windoze really there, and no (ROFL) SVR4 or SVR5 tablets around? Maybe UNXIS/SCO should get into that business (LOL)

Product Merit Isn't Bound by Price

[stewbacca]

The goodness (or in this case, sucky-ness) of a device is independent of its price. If these things are $500 or $99, their quality isn't any better or worse just because you change the price.

What an ignorant statement

[Zen Punk]

Perhaps the inherent quality of the product doesn't change, but the value proposition certainly changes significantly with price. As Honda Civic for 20 dollars is a much greater value than a Rolls-Royce phantom for 200 thousand dollars.

Re:What an ignorant statement

[stewbacca]

Yes, but the article infers that the product isn't very good, so it doesn't merit the $500 price. My contention is that if it sucks at $500, it still sucks at $99 because, well, it sucks. Now if it were pretty good, but slightly expensive at $500, it would be a great value at $99. But this thing isn't good to begin with, regardless of the price. Maybe for $99 the value is that you could see it to someone else for a profit?

Damn Amazon

[Peet42]

When the "fire sale" hit the UK I dashed around the web looking for somebody that would supply me with two. Amazon dropped their prices and at the same time set the status to "Temporarily out of stock, but place your order anyway and we'll fulfil it as soon as possible." (I paraphrase)

I ordered two and waited. Today they emailed me to say they had cancelled my order because "no stock was available". Except they are *in stock* on the very page I ordered from, just with the price bumped back up to £200+. And because I stopped looking when Amazon accepted my order, I missed out on getting them anywhere else.

Damn Amazon.