Yesterday, Aug. 20th, 2011 was a fire sale day. HP announced he will no longer be an Auror…wait. No, that’s not it.
HP announced it will be kick flipping its way out the hardware biz (of which they’re probably the largest when it comes to makin’ PCs) and focusing on what will most likely be boring stuff you can’t physically play with.
Out of this announcement sprang forth the news that HP’s tablet, the TouchPad would be discontinued (along with support for its operating system WebOS) and would be sold for hundreds of dollars of the retail price.
Pause.
I’ve been reluctant to enter the tablet market. I do not believe the tablet computer as we know it has been fully realized. The iPad is definitely a cool device, but as I weighed the reasons to get one, several lacking features kept me from doing so. The iPad won’t run Adobe Flash, which means I couldn’t read Marvel Digital Unlimited Comics, nor could I watch videos on Hulu.com (this was in the days before I had Hulu Plus). Another lacking feature was an affordable price of entry. I don’t have $600 just lying around, and if I did I would probably pay down that American Express debt, you gnaw’d I’m sayin’ wookie? For this same reason I didn’t purchase any tablet computer as they are all above $400 and something I don’t necessarily need.
Plus, my five-year-old HP laptop runs like a frickin’ champ, so what do I need a tablet for?
Unpause. I mean play. Hit play.
The 32gig HP TouchPad went from $599 to $149 in one night. This begs the question: “Why would you not buy one?”
I saw the news on Twitter at about 8 o’clock that evening. Android Police was having various conversations with people about it. This was before the frenzy really picked up. Or after they were sold out everywhere online. Or somewhere in between the two.
By midnight CST, everyone was scouring the nebberwebs searching for this elusive $149-but-really-more-expensive tablet. Yet, they could not be found. Touchpads were harder to find than a power steering fluid reservoir cap for a 2000 Nissan Maxima. I know this for a fact.
The ol’ Captain had a trick up his sleeve though: Early arrival at a boring Office Depot store in a part of town where people don’t usually care about this sort of thing. I arrived 30 minutes prior to opening. Stood at the door and waited. Alone. I could hear the phone ringing constantly inside. While yall haters hatin, I’m Office Depot waitin.
I picked up the 32 gig version and a 2-year protection plan (as HP was no longer supporting the device I thought it was a wise decision).
Pause. Time travel back to 2009 Consumer Electronic Show (CES).
The Palm Pre is unveiled running Palm’s new mobile operating system WebOS. It’s the darling of the show. It’s all anyone can talk about. It was “hotter than hot, it was hot hot hot!”
I see this device. I want this device. I’ve been looking for an excuse to jump off AT&T’s humpback for a while now and this is just the chance. I get the Pre.
Fast forward a little bit.
The Pre hardware is too slow for me and big ol’ phones are starting to come out. I jump off WebOS like Jar Jar Binks jumping off a Kaadu and go with Android (on a HTC Evo 4g).
I dig Android (still do), but I really miss some innovative features WebOS had. Features like the Cards system of managing apps running in the background. The Cards are better than anything Apple or Android currently utilizes. Way better. The HP TouchPad has the Cards and it’s like butter. So intuitive, so fluid. It just makes sense.
But WebOS isn’t supported like Android and Apple. It doesn’t have the app catalog biceps like they do. And we be likin’ them biceps.
SOLUTION:
License WebOS out and integrate it into systems like Android. All the customization and support native to Android, except with the Cards. Call it Android Cardigan. It will be better. It’ll be a boss.
