The MMO market is moving to F2P, leaving just WOW and EVE as the only two successful subscription MMOs out there.
Final Fantasy XIV? Granted, the first release crashed and burned specacularly, but the relaunch was almost two years ago and it is going strong now - first expansion is due in about two weeks.
The letters do wear off, though how quickly depends on your use. My current Natural 4000 at work has been in use for about four years, and the e, s, d, c, v, m, and l keys are all entirely worn off, and the a, x, b, and k keys are on the way out.
But considering these keyboards are only $40 in general, if the letter decals wearing out bug you, it's not a huge investment to buy a new one every few years.
I know that technically the CyanogenMod 7 Android for Touchpad is Alpha 3.5, but it's been rock solid for me the last few days. And worst case, the instructions you can find to set it all up include a very easy to use uninstaller that will wipe Android off of the device entirely. It also uses a bootloader so you can choose to use WebOS or Android, and Android won't mess with the WebOS partition at all. Since you've already loaded Preware on the thing, you're already set to do all of this stuff anyway, and the single longest part of the process is waiting for the slow download of CyanogenMod.
Give it a try. I was incredibly suprised at how well it worked.
I love WebOS. Between the excellent multitasking implementation, unobtrusive notifications, ease of rooting, excellent homebrew support, it's great. To me it just feels like a refined, excellent operating system for phones and tablets. That being said, as soon as I unboxed the pair of TouchPads I purchased for my wife and I, the first thing I did was install CyanogenMod on the pair, despite it being an alpha build.
Why?
Apps.
Nook app? Android has it, WebOS doesn't. Netflix? Android has it, WebOS doesn't. Amazon MP3 (for cloud player access)? Android has it, WebOS doesn't. Musicnotes (digital copies of sheet music we've purchased online)? Android has it, WebOS doesn't.
And so on. Nobody is going to spend a lot of time developing or porting apps to WebOS since at this point, it's pretty much dead to the average consumer. Even companies that do want to develop on it like Astraware are waiting to see if enough people buy the apps they've put out for WebOS before they bother to port more - it has to make financial sense. So I end up spending most of my time on my TouchPad in Android, and I doubt my wife will ever bother to boot WebOS again.
Now, if someone were to set WebOS up so that it could run Android apps and the Android Marketplace, I'd happily wipe the Android partition off my TouchPad and never leave WebOS land again. Here's to hoping someone can do that.
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The MMO market is moving to F2P, leaving just WOW and EVE as the only two successful subscription MMOs out there.
Final Fantasy XIV? Granted, the first release crashed and burned specacularly, but the relaunch was almost two years ago and it is going strong now - first expansion is due in about two weeks.
The letters do wear off, though how quickly depends on your use. My current Natural 4000 at work has been in use for about four years, and the e, s, d, c, v, m, and l keys are all entirely worn off, and the a, x, b, and k keys are on the way out.
But considering these keyboards are only $40 in general, if the letter decals wearing out bug you, it's not a huge investment to buy a new one every few years.
I know that technically the CyanogenMod 7 Android for Touchpad is Alpha 3.5, but it's been rock solid for me the last few days. And worst case, the instructions you can find to set it all up include a very easy to use uninstaller that will wipe Android off of the device entirely. It also uses a bootloader so you can choose to use WebOS or Android, and Android won't mess with the WebOS partition at all. Since you've already loaded Preware on the thing, you're already set to do all of this stuff anyway, and the single longest part of the process is waiting for the slow download of CyanogenMod.
Give it a try. I was incredibly suprised at how well it worked.
I love WebOS. Between the excellent multitasking implementation, unobtrusive notifications, ease of rooting, excellent homebrew support, it's great. To me it just feels like a refined, excellent operating system for phones and tablets. That being said, as soon as I unboxed the pair of TouchPads I purchased for my wife and I, the first thing I did was install CyanogenMod on the pair, despite it being an alpha build.
Why?
Apps.
Nook app? Android has it, WebOS doesn't.
Netflix? Android has it, WebOS doesn't.
Amazon MP3 (for cloud player access)? Android has it, WebOS doesn't.
Musicnotes (digital copies of sheet music we've purchased online)? Android has it, WebOS doesn't.
And so on. Nobody is going to spend a lot of time developing or porting apps to WebOS since at this point, it's pretty much dead to the average consumer. Even companies that do want to develop on it like Astraware are waiting to see if enough people buy the apps they've put out for WebOS before they bother to port more - it has to make financial sense. So I end up spending most of my time on my TouchPad in Android, and I doubt my wife will ever bother to boot WebOS again.
Now, if someone were to set WebOS up so that it could run Android apps and the Android Marketplace, I'd happily wipe the Android partition off my TouchPad and never leave WebOS land again. Here's to hoping someone can do that.