Hasta La Gadget!

The official TouchPad launch date isn’t even a date per se, but a season: summer. So we’re surprised to see DigiTimes reporting that HP will take delivery of shipments in March with the TouchPad going on sale in April with plans to ship 4 – 5 million units from the TouchPad “series” in 2011. Based on what we know, both from using the software-incomplete pre-production tablet and from our detailed discussions with Jon Rubinstein, an April retail date would be extremely aggressive to say the least. And DigiTimes‘ accuracy with regard to rumors for companies located outside of its home country of Taiwan is spotty at best. Nevertheless, HP’s new CEO Leo Apotheker did say originally, that products announced at the February 9th event would be on sale just a few weeks later. Unfortunately, only the wee Veer handset got an early spring promise with the Pre 3 joining the TouchPad for a summer launch. Perhaps this will be a case of HP under promising and over delivering? We can’t say for sure. But with any luck, HP could bring some clarity to the matter on March 14th — a day Apotheker had promised a big reveal regarding a “secret answer” and “vision of what HP is capable of in the future… the starting point.” Why so mysterious, Leo?

HP TouchPad on sale in April? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 01:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If HP wants webOS to be a competitive mobile ecosystem, the platform’s app store has an awful lot of catching up to do — but in terms of raw features, it sounds like the company plans to get with the program soon. PreCentral attended a developer presentation at MWC 2011 where HP showed off a brand new version of the App Catalog specifically designed for the tablet-friendly webOS 3.0, and found it will come with a handful of features that should make it eminently more useful. As you can see in the image above, there are presently four tabs, but two of them are worth calling out: the “Browser” is said to be a magazine-like interface for browsing through apps, while the “Saved” tab lets you bookmark apps you’re interested in to consider for purchase or download later on. Perhaps more importantly, the process of actually paying for programs should be streamlined quite soon: HP told attendees that carrier billing and promo codes would find their way into the webOS App Catalog by summer at the very latest, in time for a webOS 3.0 launch, which suggests that it could possibly hit smartphones even a mite sooner.

HP revamping webOS App Catalog for tablet use, adding carrier billing and magazine-like view originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 20:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP told us to watch for a special new campaign during the Grammys, so watch we did — only to find this commercial and occasional on-stage pimping of the HP TouchPad. The latter is standard business practice, to be sure, but the former? Well, words (nearly) escape us. You really have to watch it for yourself, but just imagine a butchering of Lou Reed’s classic (though far, far overused) “Walk On The Wild Side,” where tales of doping and cross dressing have been replaced with tales of… Tweeting. And Digging. And other really trite stuff. The cinematography and general message of the commercial is actually spot on, but it all gets crushed under the weight of this bad musical decision. HP played this same video at the event on Wednesday, but little did we know it would be the kick-off of the company’s marketing onslaught.

We’re honestly taken aback by how off key (no pun intended) this ad is. You would think after all the bad press Palm got on its previous big ad campaign (and even after some not-so-gentle advice) the folks in charge would think twice about something this potentially polarizing. We won’t lie — we’re disappointed. Both by HP / Palm, and Lou Reed. All of you guys… back to the drawing board.

Look on the bright side, though — at least you’ve got about six months to wash this out of people’s brains.

HP’s ‘Everybody On’ ad goes to the Grammys, causes nationwide cringing originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 Feb 2011 21:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s not exactly full disclosure — you won’t get to see a user’s manual, for instance, or those gritty FCC lab external photos that we always love — but a new device passed by Palm through the feds’ systems in the past 24 hours is pretty clearly the Veer judging by the mentions of a sliding mechanism, the lack of CDMA, and the fact that we know the Veer is the next webOS phone to hit the market. Now, here’s where it gets a little interesting: this filing was definitely made by Palm, not HP, which leads you to wonder just how far into the process the company got on its next-gen handsets before HP decided to effectively kill off the Palm brand altogether. In case you’re wondering, the filing refers to an internal model number is P160UNA, indicating a model P160 in the North American UMTS configuration (for the record, the North American unlocked Pre 2 is the P102UNA). If you ever see a P160EWW in the system, that’d likely mean that a CDMA Veer were in the works — but seriously, we wouldn’t get our hopes up.

HP Veer shows its cute little face in FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 12 Feb 2011 13:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ah, fiddlesticks! It was bound to happen sooner or later with phones becoming increasingly anorexic, but we can’t say that HP’s solution to not having room for a 3.5mm headphone jack or a microUSB port is… um, awesome. Just as consumers had their voices heard when HTC decided to require an ExtUSB adapter to use standard headphones with the T-Mobile G1, we’re guessing that quite a few potential Veer buyers will be soured by the idea of carrying around yet another dongle just to have access to a very basic port. After all, what’s the point in toting around the world’s smallest webOS device if you’re also forced to lug around one (or two) of the world’s most annoying adapters? According to Pre Central, the Veer will ship with a pair of these clips — one of ’em attaches a USB cable for charging, while the other adds a headphone jack. Of course, Bluetooth listeners needn’t worry over the latter, but those who’d rather not mess with a Touchstone will need to be extra cautious when it comes to packing your charging cable and USB nub. We’d obviously prefer the oxygen we breathe to simply recharge our gizmos in a feat of perpetual engineering, but till then, it looks like Veer owners will be tied tight to at least a couple of accessories.

HP Veer too small for 3.5mm headphone jack and microUSB port, gets magnetic connectors instead originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Feb 2011 18:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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