Hasta La Gadget!

After HP announced it would discontinue production of its TouchPad tablet last week, it looked like early HP tablet adopters spent $500 on a dud. If you’re an enterprising software hacker, however, there could be an opportunity to make your money back — and then some.

A hardware-modification web site is offering a $1,500 cash bounty for the first person to successfully port a full version of the Android operating system over to HP’s TouchPad.

Hacknmod.com offers a tiered bounty system for would-be TouchPad hackers: Just getting Android to run on the TouchPad without taking full advantage of the tablet’s hardware will win you a cool $450. But the more you’re able to integrate the system software into the device, the more cash you’ll earn. Get the Wi-Fi, multitouch capability, audio and camera up and running, and you’ll add another $1,050 to the pot.

While the bounty is characteristic of the Android-modding crowd which basically wants to slap Android onto anything with a circuit board and touch screen, it’s also an admirable effort to breathe new life into a dying piece of hardware. After reports of dismal sales and third-party retailers sitting on hundreds of thousands of unsold TouchPads, HP decided to kill production after a mere 49 days on the market.

It was bad news for current TouchPad owners. No more HP hardware gives little incentive for webOS app developers to continue producing applications for the platform. In turn, TouchPad owners miss out on the latest popular applications to come to mobile devices. And of course, it gives potential customers no incentive to buy the remaining TouchPads retailers have in stock, costing HP and retail stores hundreds of millions of dollars. Everyone loses.

But if the porting plans work, it could mean bringing a slew of Android apps over to HP’s tablet. If the TouchPad can be made capable of running thousands of Android apps, the device may not be obsolete.

This isn’t the first time the Android-modification community tried to port the operating system over to non-Android devices. Android modders have run the operating system on Barnes And Noble’s Nook Color e-reader, certain Nokia smartphones and even an iPhone.

If you don’t want to go it alone, Android-modification-enthusiast site RootzWiki created a team specifically to work on porting Android over to the TouchPad, christened the TouchDroid team. The plan is to get Android version 2.3 (Gingerbread) up and running, then install a version of CyanogenMod, the most popular modification software available for Android devices. Eventually, the team wants to get Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) onto the TouchPad, Google’s tablet-optimized version of the software. The coders will post updates to a thread on a message board devoted to Android development on the TouchPad.

All of the Android hacking mania raises the question: If all you want is an Android tablet, why not just go out and buy one?

First, you may be able to get a TouchPad for even less than you would a proper Android tablet. HP, Best Buy and some U.K. retailers slashed prices on their TouchPad inventories over the weekend, dropping the price as low as $100. Sales skyrocketed, and the TouchPad reached the top of the electronics sales charts on Amazon.com. Android tablets that boast hardware similar to the TouchPad average $400 to $500.

Second, the future of webOS is unclear. HP says it will continue to support the operating system despite discontinuing its tablet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see tablet-optimized updates to webOS in the future. And of course, HP could sell off the operating system for its patents to a competitor like Google or Apple, which would all but secure the system’s demise.

Most important, hackers hack because they can. Android was built using open source software principles, a favorite of the modification community that codes for the fun of it. If you propose the challenge of running an operating system on a piece of foreign hardware, expect the DIY community to take you up on it.

If nothing else, do it for the money.

The HP TouchPad for $99 seems too good to be true. “It is,” your nerd friend will tell you. “It’ll never get software updates. There won’t be new apps for it. It’s a dead platform. Don’t buy it.” Screw them. More »

So, you’ve done the deed. You’ve purchased an HP TouchPad, despite having no intentions whatsoever to do so just a week ago. But hey — a $400 discount can change perceptions. Now that you’ve got one (or have one en route), we’re curious to know what you plan on doing with it. We’ve heard such far-flung ideas as using it as a digital photo frame, keeping it wrapped up for eBaying in 2049 or just stashing it nearby for those late-night couch surfing sessions. The future of webOS development may be lost (at least on these consumer devices), but there’s still fun to be had with a hundred-dollar tablet. Share amongst yourselves in comments below — we could all stand to hear a tip or two!

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Poll: If you snagged a TouchPad on closeout, what are you using it for? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 21 Aug 2011 18:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hang tight just a second — let me preface all of this with a quick reminder that I’m speaking on a personal level, and I’m absolutely certain that slates have a place in this world somewhere. We could go back and forth for hours with use-case scenarios (and the same could be done with cars, time machines or your luxury good of choice), but this isn’t about proving that a tablet can do one or two things; it’s about the limitations and awkwardness of using one that no one seems to talk about.

After years of watching the masses fawn over the iPad (and every other PC maker scramble to come out with something that serves a similar purpose), I still can’t ever imagine myself investing in one, let alone actually using one in place of a smartphone or laptop. I’ve met quite a few folks in my line of work that all ask me the same thing: “Should I buy an iPad?” It’s worth noting that no one actually asks if “they should buy a tablet,” but that’s speaking more about Apple’s absurdly enviable mind (and in turn, market) share than anything else. My response is always the same: “If you can’t think of a reason you’d need it, you don’t need it.”

Tablets, for whatever reason, seem to defy logic when it comes to purchase rationalization in the consumer electronics realm. I’ve yet to meet a bloke who purchased an ultraportable without knowing full-well that they would take advantage of enhanced battery life and a highly mobile chassis. Everyone I’ve know that invested in a high-end gaming rig knew why they were shelling out on that $500 GPU (read: frames-per-second). And all of my movie cuttin’ pals knew precisely why they just had to have a Thunderbolt RAID setup. But tablets? People are just buying these things in a fit of hysteria — does anyone actually know why this “third device” is such a necessity? Let’s dive a little deeper, shall we?

Continue reading Editorial: tablets aren’t the ‘third device’ I’d hoped for… from a productivity standpoint, anyway

Editorial: tablets aren’t the ‘third device’ I’d hoped for… from a productivity standpoint, anyway originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 21 Aug 2011 12:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Those reports we heard about Best Buys in the US selling off remaining inventory of the HP TouchPad? Turns out they’re true, and the “fire sale” is taking place nationwide online and in stores. The FAQ page in the retailer’s forums has been updated to announce that it’s reversed the decision to ship everything back to HP, and we’ve also received leaked screenshots confirming the news as well. Best Buy’s online store currently shows the TouchPad as sold out and unavailable in stores, and company reps are hesitant to give official word on exactly how much inventory is left at this point. If the online status doesn’t change between now and sunrise, we have a strong feeling you should expect a Black Friday-style line waiting for you at the brick-and-mortars.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Confirmed: Best Buy US begins selling TouchPads after all, good luck finding one originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 21 Aug 2011 01:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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