The history of Palm, as Holwerda tells it, begins before the company was created. Back when one of the several co-founders Jeff Hawkins learned about handwriting recognition and studied it well before the birth of the first Palm Pilot. He even goes back to the 1960s to see the RAND Corporation’s showing of the GRAIL Project and the creation of the RAND tablet. Have a peek at a demonstration video of the Rand tablet with Alan Kay from back in those fabulously exciting times here:

From there – and from several other sources, of course – handwriting recognition was born into the public conscious. From there, 6,000 words later, Holwerda begins what ends up speaking one of several times about the reader. It’s interesting how – since this text is based online in a blog-centric environment – Holwerda makes it clear that the article is long. Extremely, massively long. He makes guide points throughout the body of the text to make sure the reader understands where they are – what a world we live in!

Holwerda goes on to speak on how the Palm V came to be, how the hardware in the Palm collection came to influence the smartphone world and how Palm’s webOS mobile operating system was eventually pushed to the Smartphone. It becomes clear how Palm went down a road where they could have been great – a chart included above shows what his view was and is on how Palm’s approach with mobile could have taken on iOS and Apple in the sweet spot between too few features and too many features – Android going down that tunnel, too.

And There’s the death of Palm and webOS, complete with the “wallowing” promised in the title of the piece. Truly astounding is the read that’ll have you either gripping your kneecaps in anticipation of a new page or crashing and falling asleep at every turn. Do you want to know everything there is to know about Palm? You’re in luck – it’s just been written.

[via OSnews]

The CtW Investment Group is affiliated with the labor group, Change to Win, and is an adviser to union pension funds that total around $200 billion in assets. There are 5.5 million members in the Change to Win labor group, and they all represent workers in various sectors like health care, hotels, and ports.

Pryce-Jones will attempt to get investors to vote against Thompson and Hammergren’s re-election. He also wants to stop the renewal of HP’s auditing firm, Ernest & Young. Pryce-Jones wasn’t able to discuss the reasons behind this, but he says that the CtW group has been questioning Ernst & Young’s responsibilities with HP. Aside from the Autonomy deal, CtW is also upset with HP’s acquisition of both the Electronic Data Systems Corp, as well as Palm’s WebOS, who we’ve just recently learn has been sold to LG.

The meeting today was held between HP’s Raymond Lane and 20 investors. HP stated that it regularly meets with investors before its annual shareholder meeting. They had discussions about the company’s future and the investors’ concerns. The discussions are then continued at the annual shareholder meeting, which will be held this year on March 20th in Mountain View, California. It looks like investors are getting a bit antsy with HP’s direction. Pryce-Jones stated, however, that Lane was credible on HP’s turnaround, and that Lane “laid his reputation” on it.

[via Reuters]

“In 2007, I received a call from Steve Jobs, the Chief Executive Officer of Apple. In the months before the call, several employees had moved between the two companies. On the call, Mr. Jobs expressed concern about employees being hired away from Apple by Palm. As a solution, Mr. Jobs proposed an arrangement between Palm and Apple by which neither company would hire the other’s employees, including high tech employees. Mr. Jobs also suggested that if Palm did not agree to such an arrangement, Palm could face lawsuits alleging infringements of Apple’s many patents” Edward Colligan, ex-CEO, Palm

The threat was detailed as part of a civil lawsuit by five in the technology industry, who claim Apple, Intel, Google, and a number of other firms all secretly collaborated to keep wages down. According to emails sent from Colligan to Jobs, the Palm CEO refused to agree to the pact, describing it as “not only wrong” but “likely illegal”; he also counter-threatened with patent lawsuits of his own.

That didn’t apparently worry Steve Jobs, who in reply made reference to the difference in legal budgets between Apple and Palm – writing “I’m sure you realize the asymmetry in the financial resources of our respective companies” to counter Colligan’s argument that the only outcome of a patent fight would be richer lawyers – as well as belittling Palm’s patent strength itself. “My advice is to take a look at our patent portfolio before you make a final decision here” Jobs concluded in his email.

Elsewhere in the case, Google’s Eric Schmidt will be questioned by lawyers in February, after supposedly telling the company’s human resources director to keep no-hire agreements off the books so as to avoid legal headaches down the line. Asked about whether Google should share details of the agreements with others in the industry, “Schmidt responded that he preferred it be shared ‘verbally, since I don’t want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?’” according to a filing.

Today, Google maintains that it has “always actively and aggressively recruited top talent,” while Apple has not yet commented on the claims. Palm owner HP is also yet to comment.

[via CNET; via Apple Insider; via Reuters]

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek said that he thinks HP will “aggressively attack” the smartphone and tablet markets in a research note to investors yesterday. Misek noted that it would be a risky investment for HP, though, which isn’t too surprising since the company only has a brief history of maintaining a smartphone and tablet lineup, thanks to their acquisition of Palm.

Misek noted that “to date almost all PC OEMs have failed to gain significant traction in consumer tablets/smartphones,” with exception to a few obvious companies of course. Then again, HP will most likely have to make a move like this at some point. With the world slowly moving toward a post-PC era, HP will eventually have to hop on the train and get going.

Whitman even said herself that the company will need to offer a smartphone and tablet, which can only point to signs that we’ll definitely see more mobile products from HP soon. And it’ll be interesting to see what the company comes with. Will they model their new devices after their previous webOS-based models, or will they completely start from the ground up?

[via ZDNet]

The phone is condemned WindsorNot, showing a design that’s not too far off the HP Pre 3 or the Veer. webOS Nations notes that the back is flat, and would most likely have been constructed from glass. A microUSB port, volume, power, and ringer switch are also found on the device. The screen is said to be around 3.6-inches, and the home button looks to be physical like on the HP TouchPad.

Most notably, it would have been the first webOS device to work purely with an onscreen keyboard, although the details about how HP would implement that aren’t clear. The video showing off the WindsorKnot has been pulled from Vimeo by Transparent House, but you can check out the pictures above for a taste of what could have been.

[via Engadget]

“Isis Browser is a core application of HP’s webOS platform written using the Enyo framework. As of today, it is a work in progress aiming to incorporate the latest open source technologies, such as QtWebKit and JavaScriptCore, into the webOS platform. The source code of the Isis Browser stack, QtWebKit, and Qt 4.8 is available on GitHub where we will continue our development” Isis Project

Isis is based on the QtWebKit engine, itself released into open-source by Nokia, and the webOS teams have apparently been working some time to bring the platform over to it. The promise is boosted performance and broader compatibility with sites in general; however, there’ll also be “enhanced support” for legacy products, including Flash.

“We’ve benchmarked the new Isis webOS browser and have found it to be extremely responsive compared to other browsers made for general consumption. It has a fast render pipeline and JavaScript execution profile, which is critical to Enyo and other web technologies. It is extensively supportive of HTML5 and CSS3. Standards-compliance is important to developers because they can use technologies like Enyo to develop cross-platform web applications that already work well on webOS” Fred Patton, webOS team

As for the Open webOS Governance Model, that’s been based on the Apache way and laid out as follows:

• Open webOS will made available under the Apache license, Version 2.0.
• Open webOS will use the contributor committal model in use on most open source projects.
• Open webOS will be segmented into multiple projects to give developers ample opportunity to join and remain active in the development effort.
• The Open webOS project website will host a wiki, a source code repository, a mailing list, and a bug tracking system.
• We will use Github or an equivalent tool to as the code repository.
• We will use JIRA or an equivalent tool to track issues.
• Our plan is to allow multiple committers to branch and merge code in the open to allow multiple development branches to occur at once.

These latest releases keep pace with HP’s schedule of open-sourcing webOS, which has been broken down into a series of monthly milestones. Together with Enyo, released last month, today’s tools supposedly allow for ”an immersive user environment that can be built on any web platform”, something we think Mozilla might be pleased about. Iris is compatible with HP TouchPad devices running webOS 3.0.5, meanwhile.

HP subsequently decided to release webOS as an open-source package, turning its focus back to PCs, laptops and Windows-based tablets.

However, while many have blamed HP for mishandling the webOS acquisition and the few devices the company launched running the software, Rubinstein himself has also been fingered for some of the blame. Sources within the company claim he selected WebKit for the underlying engine for webOS with little understanding of the technical challenges that would involve.

“We just weren’t able to execute such an ambitious and breakthrough design” Paul Mercer, former senior director of software at Palm claims, insisting that Rubinstein’s decision meant webOS phones and tablets would never be as slick in their performance as, say, Apple’s celebrated iPhone.

Rubinstein has “no immediate plans” according to the sources. Before his tenure at Palm, the exec worked at Apple, where he was instrumental in the company’s first generation iPod project.

Enyo will allow developers to create Open webOS applications that work browser independent, this meaning that WebKit will not be necessary, browsers like Google Chrome, Firefox, and more working in this environment. This will allow webOS move beyond the hardware it’s been reliant on thus far and allow it to work natively in any browser. This should, if HP has aimed correctly, allow the ecosystem to be built, rebuilt, and grow.

HP has stated that they expect a major release of new software every one of the next six or seven months at least, these changes blowing the lid off of webOS with each iteration – in a good way! The whole project will be moving to the Apache 2.0 license wherever an yes, the rumors are true, switching to the standard Linux kernel. TouchPad owners can expect a new full webOS build by the end of Summer while hack-friendly folks will certainly be able to move forward sooner than that.

You can download Enyo right now from the brand new EnoJS.com, and expect webOS in the coming months – but none too soon. You can also follow Enyo specifically on Twitter if you wish: @enyojs

HP has also mentioned that all webOS devices out there today may very well be updated to a new version this year, they “looking” to see how viable they are in the short term. What you’re seeing above is a calendar showing off the different upgrades and releases that will happen throughout the year ending in September where we’re sure more additions will be made when the time is ripe. This all seem fabulous to you, webOS lovers?

[via HP Palm]

WebKit’s shortcomings, and an accelerated development timescale that forced each app to be initially built from scratch, then subsequently rebuilt by Palm and again for the second time by HP as the webOS framework took shape, resulted in significant returns. Palm saw “extremely high return rates” of the original Pre, a former apps employee claims, as early-adopters discovered it was sluggish and unstable.

webOS also suffered significantly from the loss of Matias Duarte, who jumped ship to Google in May 2010. Known as the architect of the webOS user experience, Duarte’s departure opened the door to in-fighting and power grabbing as HP got to grips with the newly-acquired platform.

“[Matias Duarte] was WebOS … When he left, the vacuum was just palpable. What you’re seeing is frankly a bunch of fourth- and fifth-stringers jumping onto WebOS in the wake of Duarte’s leaving” Unnamed former webOS team member

Since then, HP has been through a number of CEOs and has decided to make webOS open-source. HP has left the door open for potential future hardware running the platform, though that is believed to be heavily dependent on whether webOS finds favor among third-party hardware and software producers. That, Mercer suggests, is still unlikely, as the root performance issues of WebKit remain.

With this move webOS is moving into Android territory, with availability of the code now open to the world to use on a wide variety of devices as well as developers hoping to get in on the relative ground level of what now appears to be a very viable option for mobile devices. This after having seen a near complete collapse after HP deciding they’d no longer produce webOS-based hardware and selling their TouchPad stock out in a fire sale that saw the world clamoring for cheap slates. Now HP will make the underlying code of webOS available to the open source community under an open source license — HP president and chief executive officer Meg Whitman noted the following at the announcement:

“webOS is the only platform designed from the ground up to be mobile, cloud-connected and scalable. By contributing this innovation, HP unleashes the creativity of the open source community to advance a new generation of applications and devices.” – Whitman

With this move, HP plans on hitting four key points for the future of webOS:

• The goal of the project is to accelerate the open development of the webOS platform
• HP will be an active participant and investor in the project
• Good, transparent and inclusive governance to avoid fragmentation
• Software will be provided as a pure open source project

In addition to the underlying code, HP will contribute ENYO, the application framework for webOS, to the open source community in the near future. Those of you interested in getting in on this project by providing input and suggestions can do so at http://developer.palm.com/blog/ or right here in this post, of course. Looking bright for webOS!

HP has been wedded to the idea of webOS in printers since the early days of its Palm acquisition, though we’re yet to see the platform actually show up in a paper cruncher. The OS would presumable replacing Android in models similar to the HP eStation C510, shown above, which used Google’s open-source platform – along with a reskin from HP’s own software engineers – on a removable control tablet with social networking integration and other multimedia tools.

The guess is that HP has already been working on its webOS printer line-up, and is keen not to scrap those new models in the pipeline while still washing its hands of webOS responsibility. Also up for grabs are Palm’s patents, themselves potentially a money-spinner in this age of high-profile litigation.

Previous potential buyers cited in earlier leaks include Oracle and Samsung, though most companies publicly named have been quick to distance themselves from rumors.

This tablet, for those of you that don’t know, became rather undeniably well priced once HP decided it would no longer produce it or any other webOS mobile operating system devices earlier in the year (note that they’re still considering the sale of webOS as recently as November 8th). Once the announcement was made, HP quickly reduced the price down to $150 and promptly sold the devices like they were giving them away. The situation quickly escalated once it was shown to be possible to load Android onto the tablets, and now they’re downright hard to find for a good price unless you’re an official webOS developer.

So here we go, the last of the TouchPads, maybe. You never know when more might show up, of course, and there’s always the possibility that HP has some more hidden up their sleeves, but a 10-inch dual-core Wi-fi tablet for $150 is hard to find no matter how you bend it, and there’s certainly not enough wrong with it to deny that this is a good deal. Have at it over at TigerDirect and have a look at our original review of the device if you dare as well:

There may be fanbois hyping Siri, but its ads just show what she can do (when the server is up). I’ve been calling Apple’s iPhone ads “30 second tutorials,” and they’re fantastic. They not only show you what the iPhone can do for you, but how easy it would be for you to do those things yourself if you only had an iPhone. In contrast, Verizon Wireless’ ads are ridiculous, and most of the time have nothing to do with the products they purportedly are selling.

The DROID ads may be bad at highlighting individual phones – and do nothing for the merits of Android overall – but they have been effective at getting consumers’ attention and serve as useful indicators that this is a product line consumers should be aware of. The DROID line has been extremely successful because of, not despite the ads. DROID-branded phones sell better than the non-DROID-labeled Android phones sitting right next to them on the shelf. Verizon Wireless measures its advertising effectiveness regularly and has found that it has done such a good job promoting the DROID brand that people walk into AT&T and Sprint stores and ask for a DROID phone, not an “Android” phone. Now, I don’t like these ads, either, but Verizon Wireless isn’t stupid, and it keeps running them because they work.

It’s easy to extend the criticism of Verizon Wireless’ ads to all of Apple’s competitors – there certainly have been some doozies. Palm did itself no favors with its ads for a vampire movie (supposedly an ad for the original Pre). The ad for HTC’s Rhyme is downright creepy, but even that pales next to Sony Ericsson’s 2011 Super Bowl ad, which featured a severed thumb. Microsoft’s first Windows Phone ads were memorable, but conveyed the wrong message: they implied that you can get stuff done quickly with a Windows Phone, but you’ll never love it as much as an iPhone.

But not all mobile advertising is bad. Samsung’s Galaxy S II TV spot is pretty good; it can be summed up as, “our phones have better specs because we’re perfectionist geeks.” The ad does a good job of humanizing Samsung’s brand while highlighting its phone’s screen technology, a key product differentiator, and one of the few specifications where consumers easily understand its benefits. HTC’s “You” ads were terrific, particularly its original “Anthem” ad, which showed people both happy and upset by things they do and associations they have with their phones – it’s rare you see a vendor use negative emotion well. Finally, Nokia’s Amazing Everyday campaign (currently running in Europe) is good – the Finns seem to understand how to advertise Windows Phone better than Microsoft itself.

Speaking of platform vendors, Google should be the one promoting its own platform capabilities, but it isn’t. (Ironically, given how it makes a living, Google doesn’t believe in advertising itself much.) Android licensees have shied away from promoting individual Android features for fear of enriching rivals. Instead, they have focused mainly on their own small hardware differences, which ends up appealing only to the small segment of the market that cares about such things.

However, in a vacuum, whoever is first with a strong message can own that message in consumers’ minds. Android has great features: rich home screen customization with glance-able information, persistent mapping across your phone and the web, the best Gmail implementation, and more. If a vendor highlighted those abilities, it is quite possible that consumers would not just want to buy any Android phone, but the Android phone from the vendor that they know has those features. They might not even realize that other Android phones can do those things, too.

So why hasn’t anyone run ads like that? Partly because they have not been bold enough to do so, fearing that it will not give them meaningful separation from their Android rivals. Some have resisted because, deep down, they don’t want to tie their brand indelibly to Google. But that is part of a bigger problem – many device vendors do not have a strong, independent brand identity. That is one of the key reasons Apple can run 30 second tutorials: everybody already knows what Apple’s brand stands for. Motorola? All Motorola used to stand for was fashion. That’s Ed Zander’s fault, and Motorola in the Sanjay Jha era has been too busy trying to survive to effectively redefine the brand.

But Motorola is hardly alone. RIM can’t seem to decide if it is primarily a business or consumer brand. What does LG stand for? Pantech? Huawei? To an extent, Apple’s rivals need to try to stand out because they need consumers to notice them in the first place. I don’t suggest doing that with creepy vampire girls, creepy four-armed women, or Tron refugees battling cyborgs. But I do understand the impulse.

HP obtained the WebOS platform through the acquisition of Palm for $1.2 billion last year. But now that HP is clearly not interested in further investing the capital needed to make WebOS competitive with Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android, RIM’s BlackBerry OS, and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7, it would have to decide whether to sell, spinoff, or license the platform.

It’s believed that HP has already finished the initial bidding process for its WebOS unit and that the all-hands meeting tomorrow will determine which path to follow, be it selling or spinning off the unit. So far, it’s looking more likely that HP will opt to sell the platform. Amazon has recently been rumored to be a top contender, but neither company has commented on the reports and Amazon also just launched the Kindle Fire with a customized Android build.

[via AppleInsider]

VB’s interpretation, however, is that both hardware and software are up for grabs, with HP looking to wash its hands of the whole failed endeavor. That’s despite the company’s talk shortly after axing the HP TouchPad - and canceling its upcoming smartphone release plans – that it was looking to license rather than sell webOS, and still had collaborative hopes for the software.

Those hopes, according to ex-Palm CEO, current HP “Product Innovation” chief and Amazon board member Jon Rubinstein, already tipped Amazon as a possible partner. “We’d like a partner that would allow us to expand the webOS ecosystem” he told This is my next back in July:

“There’s a variety of different sets of a characteristics to qualify as a good partner. I would say Amazon would certainly make a great partner, because they have a lot of characteristics that would help them expand the webOS ecosystem. As to whether there’s been discussions or not… that’s obviously not something I’m going to comment about.”

Whether Amazon would be interested in webOS in return, though, is less clear. The company launched its first tablet, the Kindle Fire, earlier this week, and much has been made of its heavily-reskinned Android 2.3 OS and how that could allow the retailer to in effect swap the underlying platform with little visible UI change to users. However, part of Amazon’s value proposition with the Kindle Fire is the Amazon Appstore for Android, something it could not carry across to webOS.

Instead, it seems possible that Amazon could be more keen on the Palm hardware business. Palm is known to have had several phone and tablet designs – including a 7-inch slate and a TouchPad-replacing 10-inch slate – on the roadmap, which could give Amazon a head start on its own product plans. We’ve already seen the retailer reportedly use the BlackBerry PlayBook as a template for the Kindle Fire; a bigger tablet is apparently in development for launch in early 2012.

HP has declined to comment on “rumors and speculation” while Amazon is yet to respond.

“As communicated on August 18, HP will discontinue the development of webOs devices within the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2011, which ends Oct 31 2011. As part of this decision, the webOS GBU is undergoing a reduction in workforce. Today’s actions are part of this initiative. During this time, we stand by our commitment to our webOS customers and will work to ensure that support and service for customers are not adversely affected. HP is exploring ways to leverage webOS software” HP statement

Those mysterious ways could include licensing webOS to a third-party, something HP is apparently exploring as the preferred alternative to selling on the platform, or resurrecting it after spinning off the company’s computing hardware business altogether. HP is rumored to be splitting software and hardware in two, keeping the webOS software team as it distances itself from the device side.

Underwhelming sales of the HP TouchPad led the company to axe the tablet, as well as the imminent Pre3 smartphone, back in August. A subsequent firesale saw the remaining TouchPad stocks cut to $100, with demand unsurprisingly exceeding supply and forcing HP to schedule a final production run to meet orders.

“Earlier this month, I told you about our difficult but necessary decision to discontinue the development of our webOS hardware devices” PSG EVP Todd Bradley said in his email to staff. “However, the webOS platform that powers these devices continues to demonstrate its ability to improve how our customers look up information, access entertainment and stay connected on the go.”

In a second memo from Shane Robison, EVP, Chief Strategy and Technology Officer of the Office of Strategy and Technology at HP, the company’s intention to refocus its investment into webOS as a software platform, rather than as a software/hardware partnership, is reiterated:

“The webOS software employees join HP Cloud Services, Vertica, and Business Solutions as an incubating business group. However, while these teams will be joining OS&T we have decided not to initiate any integration activities. These teams will continue to operate under their current systems and processes until further notice”

Whether HP can convert that investment into a platform users – and licensees – want remains to be seen. The company restarted TouchPad production after surprise customer demand following the tablet’s cancellation, though whether that is through some latent desire for the hardware itself or a direct result of the sub-$100 fire sale pricing is debatable.

What you’ll be doing here, assuming you’ve got a TouchPad in your possession now or that one is heading your way soon, is head over to the games listed below and enter their special promotional codes to grab them completely free. You’ll be looking at a range of apps including an odd birdwatching app that’s normally $15, a Camera app for $1, and a rather awesome looking game by the name of “Big Boss” that would normally cost you $2. Grab em all!

Glimpse: $5, made for TouchPad multitasking – split screen action! Code: injoj55410gavxv

Kung Fu Panda 2 Storybook: $2.99, an audio book sort of situation with pictures and all sorts of good stuff for kids. Code: eotss76676jjzqr

Big Boss [pictured above]: $1.99, enter WackyLands and create a monster to defeat all the good guys. Murder them all! Code: vfimk09918lngoz

SparkleHD: $4.99, save Crowberry Woods from attack. Nuff said. Code: pweuq32135vrbhx

Camera for TouchPad: $0.99, manage your photos and use them with other TouchPad apps. Code: rijon62171nhvtu.

Audubon Birds: $14.99, a digital birdwatching guide for North America. Code: jjiox66488ddnik.

If you’re able to find a TouchPad for sale still but aren’t sure if it’s worth the $100, head on over to our HP TouchPad review. You can also head to our big TouchPad portal for all your current, past, and future TouchPad needs as well. Finally, note that HP has written that this is only the first of a long line of monthly free apps, the next list coming in September. Win!

[via HPPalm]

Interestingly, Kerris later suggested that HP would “increase our investment in Enyo,” the webOS development framework, further indication that the company has no intention of selling the platform. Instead, it seems licensing is the strategy of choice; as HP execs said on the financial call yesterday, the company needed to stop “trying to force non-competitive products into the market.”

Samsung is an obvious option, especially given the state of play in the Android ecosystem after Google announced it was acquiring Motorola. Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee reportedly told a hurriedly-called meeting of company execs that they “must pay attention to the fact that IT power is moving away from hardware companies such as Samsung to software companies”; spokespeople denied there were any immediate purchase plans of software firms, but Kun-hee’s specific mention that Samsung would “more actively seek mergers and acquisitions” might imply an openness to working with HP on webOS devices.

Both of Samsung’s main existing platforms, Windows Phone and Android, now have strong ties to hardware partners (Nokia and Motorola, respectively) and while the Samsung-led bada has made surprising advances in terms of market share, it still lacks mindshare. Back in March, insiders suggested that Samsung was eyeing HP’s PC business, something the company now says it intends to spin-off.

HTC is another strong contender, in a similar position to Samsung with regards its two key platforms, but without a homegrown bada-equivalent to fall back on. Instead, HTC has been busy snapping up and investing in cloud service, consumer audio, game streaming and other companies, feathering its Sense portfolio as a way of better differentiating its devices. Sense, as we’ve said before, is in effect one big user lock-in attempt: once you’ve had a taste of online sync, remote tracking, offline maps, various cloud services and homegrown HTC apps, so the proposition goes, would you really want to lose all that when you upgrade your Android device by jumping to a different manufacturer?

Sense’s distinctive appearance could certainly sit on top of webOS as much as it does Android. The company’s “helicopter” overview of the multiple homescreen panes already looks a little like webOS cards, in fact. HTC has a preference for deep modification – look, for instance, at what it was doing with Windows Mobile on devices like the HD2, before Microsoft clamped down on UI alterations in Windows Phone – and may well be tempted by a company willing to throw wide open the development doors if it helps make some return on a $1.2bn investment.

Let’s not forget, though, that ex-Palm CEO, ex-HP webOS lead and current senior vice president for product innovation for the personal systems group, Jon Rubenstein, also sits on Amazon’s board. The retailer is tipped to be readying a set of Android tablets with a release before the holiday season; could it switch to webOS instead? Amazon’s commitment to the platform has been present from the start, with the original Pre launching with the Amazon MP3 Store app preloaded and, most recently, a version of Kindle for TouchPad being released.

On the flip-side, though, Amazon has invested no small amount of engineering time and marketing into Android, with the Amazon Appstore for Android already gaining download market-share thanks to daily free app promotions, though it’s always been the retailer’s intention to make the download service cross-platform. If middling developer adoption has been a significant thorn in webOS’ side, the huge consumer reach Amazon represents might be a deciding factor in which platforms coders choose to support.

Then there are the outliers. RIM is struggling with its BlackBerry 7 OS, with dwindling market share and only the promise of QNX-based smartphones in 2012 to buoy investors’ mood. Although reasonably praised by reviewers on the BlackBerry PlayBook, however, QNX is yet to find significant market adoption. webOS – which we’ve already seen works well on smaller-display devices like the Veer - would fit neatly into the compact touchscreens on QWERTY candybars like the Bold 9900/9930.

Huawei and ZTE could also be contenders, both Chinese firms with little brand-recognition but – like HTC before them – strong ambitions to take on high-profile rivals. ZTE has already shown itself capable of rivaling Apple and others on mobile devices overall; the name cachet of being connected with an established firm like HP, as well as the differentiating factor of webOS, could be enough for either company to break out of their current niche. Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM’s computing business and subsequent escalation is a good example of how little-known players can – with a healthy bank balance behind them – quickly grow to be a mainstay of the market.

Of course, there are other low-profile companies who might like to do the same, and Huawei and ZTE are merely two of them. HP’s decision to take a step back from the hardware side of webOS is probably a sensible one – a key criticism in our review of the TouchPad was the unconvincing design and construction, which overshadowed the software’s promise – though how the company has handled it is unlikely to leave existing users and developers with much positive to say. Still, webOS isn’t dead yet, and if this surprising month in tech has taught us anything it’s that nothing – however outlandish – is necessarily off the table.

For a comprehensive summary of HP’s webOS and computing decisions over the past few days, check out our full run-down of the news.

Now one of two main things I want to talk about here is this fun fact: the Microsoft Kin, aka KIN, being a family of mobile phones made by Microsoft running an operating system called KIN OS, lasted a grand total of 48 days, at which point Microsoft announced they’d be discontinuing the entire line, OS, hardware, and all. This compares very readily with HP’s announcement today that they’d be stopping production on the TouchPad tablet and all webOS-based handsets as well as deciding soon what they’d be doing with the webOS mobile operating software. Does the near-50-day mark signify some sort of unspoken “it’d better work by then” cutoff date for newly owned or created mobile operating systems?

Next regarding the PC business, I should remind you, if you were somehow unaware, that IBM had a computer unit for a number of years leading up to its selling of said unit to Lenovo, a Chinese company, in the year 2005. IBM has since stayed very much alive in the tech world, not popping up just a whole heck of a lot here in the consumer-based part of the environment, but still very much a force in the business enterprise and odd things like a computer chip that works like a brain. Lenovo is also still doing very well for themselves, currently holding the number five spot in top five mobile PC manufacturers by units shipped – at the end of this list behind, Apple, HP, Dell, and Acer, but still very far from the bottom.

HP is currently considering doing something very similar to what IBM did in 2005, moving their main bulk away from the personal computer and dropping a lot of bank on working with data instead. Today HP announced their plans to acquire Autonomy, one of the biggest technology firms in Britain in an obvious move toward enterprise software. Since all the way back in March of 2011, HP had been planning to “expand beyond” its PC business to focus more on cloud computing, connectivity, and software. Should it make all the right moves, this largest PC vendor on the planet Earth will soon cease to manufacture PCs and be all the better for it.

That price gets you an unlocked SIM free smartphone. The smartphone has 8GB of internal storage. The device is listed on the page as being available and ready to shop within two days. There are also reports that the Pre3 is shipping in the UK via Box.co.uk for £349.98 and that Clove has the smartphone listed for £360.

An official statement from HP has confirmed the device to be available and shipping. The statement hints that the smartphone will land in the US soon as well. How quickly soon will come is up to the imagination. I would think with a support page on Orange and other retailers confirming the Pre3 is shipping Orange will be fessing up soon too.

[via PreCentral]

The most prominent carry-over from the Palm acquisition a year ago, Rubenstein has been credited not only for driving development of webOS 3.0 but of the platform’s roadmap as a whole. While early reviews of the TouchPad – you can find SlashGear’s review here - were mixed, in most cases finding underwhelming hardware, the was little doubt that webOS had the potential for something far more impressive.

By shifting Rubenstein away from direct control over webOS, however, the fear is that HP’s arguably more mundane approach to PCs, notebooks and – dare we mention them – printers might sap some of the magic of the Palm platform. HP itself says that in fact the exec shuffle will “accelerate the scale and growth of its existing webOS business as well as to expand and enhance other HP product lines.”

That will likely see webOS make its much-discussed debut on HP’s PC range, as well as on printers and perhaps other peripherals. There are also several new devices expected from the leaked webOS roadmap in the coming months.

[via ZDNet]

Hardware

Anyone who has played with a Palm Pre will recognize the HP TouchPad, a square of glossy black plastic with rounded-off corners. It’s a fingerprint-magnet front and back: within seconds of getting it out of the box it was already smudged and smeared with finger grease. We quickly swaddled it in a Fusion of Ideas Stealth Armor adhesive case, since the plastic picks up tiny scratches with reasonable ease, though build quality generally was creak-free.

The TouchPad measures 9.45 x 7.48 x 0.45 inches and weighs 1.6lbs, making it slightly shorter and slightly wider than the iPad 2, as well as being noticeably thicker and heavier. We get the feeling HP designed the TouchPad to take on the first-gen iPad and then, unlike Samsung with the Galaxy Tab 10.1, refused to rework it when the iPad 2 appeared. The result is a thick slate without the premium feel of metal- or soft-touch plastic-bodied tablets from rivals.

Physical controls are minimal, with a volume rocker on the upper right edge, a power/sleep button on the top edge – across from the 3.5mm headphone jack – and a home button underneath the display. Unlike recent webOS phones, this home button is physical rather than touch-sensitive; it’s also not surrounded by a touch gesture area. A microUSB connector is used for charging and syncing, a welcome change from the proprietary connections on other tablets.

The display itself is a 9.7-inch LCD IPS panel with LED backlighting, matching the iPad’s 4:3 aspect ratio and 1024 x 768 resolution. The capacitive touch recognizes multitouch gestures and apparently has a toughened coating for easier cleaning, though it’s not a Gorilla Glass panel as Samsung uses on its tablets. As you’d expect from an IPS panel, the viewing angles are broad no matter whether you have the TouchPad in portrait or landscape orientation, though we did find the colors were a little more yellow than the purer whites on the iPad 2. Still, it’s a bright and usable display.

Above the screen is a 1.3-megapixel camera paired with a digital microphone; HP has resisted the urge to put a camera on the back. While that may leave it with a gap on the spec sheet in comparison to most other high-profile tablets of today, it’s arguable quite how much a rear camera would actually be used on a tablet. Most people we know use their phone for photography, finding the act of holding up a 10-inch slate pretty counterintuitive. There are stereo speakers, too, and HP has turned to Beats Audio to polish its output just as the specialists have done for certain models in the company’s laptop range. The promise is more “sonic integrity” for your music, though in reality we found it generally meant somewhat louder audio, not necessarily a bad thing but hardly groundbreaking.

Specifications

HP has opted for Qualcomm’s 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon APQ8060, the non-3G version of the chip found inside the HTC Sensation. That makes it – on paper at least – faster than the Apple A5 based iPad 2 and the various Tegra 2 powered Android Honeycomb tablets, with their 1GHz clock speeds. Qualcomm’s selling point for its chip is the asynchronous cores, which can be run at different speeds depending on the demands of the system. That means, so the engineers insist, that power consumption is reduced, since one core can be partially active rather than the all-or-nothing of rival processors.

The Snapdragon is paired with 1GB of memory and either 16GB or 32GB of flash storage. Wireless connectivity includes dual-band 2.4/5GHz WiFi a/b/g/n as well as Bluetooth 2.1+EDR. At launch there are no WWAN-enabled models, however, so if you want to get online while on the move then you’ll need to find a WiFi hotspot or tether the TouchPad to your phone.

Software and Performance

The TouchPad runs webOS 3.0, the latest version of the platform, and we’ve covered it comprehensively in our standalone review. Developed with both tablets and smartphones in mind, HP and the acquired Palm team have done a generally excellent job in scaling the best parts of the OS to suit the TouchPad’s bigger screen.

We’d recommend reading our full webOS 3.0 review for all the details, but the highlights are the multitasking system, Just Type and the messaging and Facebook integration. As on webOS phones, the TouchPad uses a series of cards to represent open apps: hit the home button and you see all of the cards arranged across the screen, each providing a live view of the app in its current state. This last element is far more useful when you’re dealing with the 1024 x 768 resolution of a tablet panel: you can see when a new email arrives in your inbox in the card view, and even preview the sender and subject without having to tap into the app itself.

Cards can be reordered by long-pressing and dragging them elsewhere in the horizontally-scrolling list, or they can be dropped on top of each other whereupon they convert into decks: groups of clustered cards. HP pushes the deck idea as a way of collecting together related tasks and projects, so you could have a draft email and a few webpages in a deck as you research for a new message. Closing an app involves flicking it up, off the display.

Rather than provide widgets or homescreen icons, webOS uses a launcher at the bottom of the screen – with space for five user-customizable apps – together with a full applications page. It works well, but the TouchPad does look somewhat barren when there are no apps open, with its empty expanse of desktop. There’s also the Just Type bar, which looks like a regular search field but in fact opens up a range of local and online search, together with shortcuts to posting new messages to Facebook or in emails or IM conversations.

Start typing, and you see search results from email headers, contacts, browser bookmarks and history, search history and local apps, along with Google results; however, you also get the option to use what text you’ve entered as the start of an email, appointment, memo or IM (webOS 3.0 supports Google Talk, Yahoo! IM, Skype IM, AIM and SMS, the latter requiring a webOS 3.0 phone like the Pre3 be paired via Bluetooth). Finally, if you’ve logged into your Facebook account, you can set the text as your latest status. Third-party developers will be able to hook their apps and services into this Just Type system, and hopefully among the first will be Twitter, since the short message service is conspicuous by its absence.

In contrast, HP’s Facebook implementation is perhaps the best we’ve seen on a tablet to-date. The company – not the social network – cooked up a new Facebook app specifically for the TouchPad, with a two/three pane design that supports your wall, friends walls, messages, Places – with support for checking in and finding nearby contacts, with mapping provided by Microsoft’s Bing Maps – and galleries, including the ability to upload shots directly to a new or existing album. The only key things missing are Facebook Chat support and the ability to log in as the admin of a group or fan page you manage. Otherwise, it’s an app Facebook itself could learn from.

Text entry is via the on-screen keyboard, and HP has made the ‘board resizable to suit those who prefer bigger buttons and those that like to have more of the desktop visible at any one time. There are four sizes to choose from, each with a dedicated number row above the QWERTY, which means less tapping between layouts as on the iPad’s keyboard.

Somewhere the webOS experience falls well short, however, is in third-party apps. The App Catalog may have been around on the first Palm handsets to hit the market in June 2009, but over two years later there are still a mere 9,000 or so smartphone apps to choose from. The TouchPad has an even more limited selection: “a minimum of 300″ titles at launch, HP tells us. Around 70-percent – or approximately 6,200 – of the apps intended for webOS smartphones will reformat to suit the higher-resolution, 9.7-inch display, a proportion that’s steadily increasing as more developers get to grips with the Enyo framework. Enyo is the new SDK, which allows apps to be designed to rescale appropriately to different form-factors, so that the same software can run properly on both smartphone and tablet.

We had high hopes for the TouchPad’s 1.2GHz dual-core processor, but daily usage is mixed. Apps load quickly and screen rotation is swift, but tap-to-zoom animations in the browser are jerky. Meanwhile Flash animations – the TouchPad supports Flash Player 10.3 beta – are generally slow to load, with the same pages rendering quicker on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 than in the HP browser. Nonetheless, hiccups aside we managed to load the TouchPad down before overall performance suffered: we reached fourteen decks, the majority with 2-3 cards and one with 7, before the slate became sluggish to respond.

HP Touchstone and Keyboard

Just as the original Pre had its Touchstone inductive charging dock, so the TouchPad has a wireless dock of its own. Now shaped like an easel, and so supporting the tablet in both portrait and landscape orientation, it automatically charges the TouchPad when docked as well as loading up the Exhibition app. This basically turns the slate into a digital photo frame, by default showing a selection of photos from the gallery along with date and time. Dig into the settings, however, and you can choose specific images to scroll through or the agenda from the webOS calendar. It’s also possible to have photos pulled down from Facebook galleries, a great way of keeping up to date with new images your friends add.

Unfortunately, the Touchstone is still charging-only, and there’s no wireless data connection. We would’ve liked to have seen HP continue Palm’s legacy of driving the cord-cutting process, and perhaps add in wireless HDMI or at least some sort of cable-free sync with the included HP Play PC app for side-loading content and playlists. There’s no HDMI support, either, nor native DLNA streaming. It’s priced at $79.99.

The other accessory HP supplied to us is the TouchPad Wireless Keyboard, a $69.99 Bluetooth ‘board complete with a dedicated cards button to show all the open apps. The keys themselves are a similar low-profile sort to the chiclet keyboards common on laptops, and while that means they’re not exactly the pinnacle of typing sensation, it’s definitely more usable for entering large quantities of text than the on-screen keyboard.

Touch to Share

There may be no wireless HDMI or NFC, but HP has been experimenting with Bluetooth for its Touch to Share feature. Hold a webOS 3.0 phone – such as a Pre3 – near the TouchPad’s home button, and an open webpage on the handset will automatically open up on the tablet, too. It works in reverse as well, useful if you want to continue reading a page on your phone when you’re leaving the house.

The link also works with incoming SMS messages on your handset, with those texts automatically slotted into IM conversations on the TouchPad, together with allowing you remote answering and initiating of calls. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much where Touch to Share runs out right now, and we’re not sure it’s enough to persuade users to opt for webOS 3.0 on both their tablet and their phone. There’s definitely a gap for HP to extend the functionality, such as transferring audio and video playlists across from one device to the other – preferably with the playback switching automatically between the two – or by switching in-progress Skype video calls over.

Battery

The TouchPad’s 6300-mAh battery is slightly smaller than the packs in the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and iPad 2. HP suggest you’ll see up to 8hrs of solid web browsing over WiFi, up to 9hrs of video playback, or up to 3.4 days of music playback. Of course, real-world use is a mixture of all three, messaging and other apps, along with some time in standby.

In practice, we found longevity was much akin to its rivals. After a day of mixed use, the TouchPad was still showing roughly fifty percent of its charge left; with more realistic use, rather than amid the review process, you could certainly keep the TouchPad running for longer. It’s straightforward to drop the tablet onto the Touchstone dock, too, and so keep it topped up that way.

Wrap-Up

The HP TouchPad is a two-part story, first the brand new webOS 3.0 and second the tablet hardware it’s launching on. webOS itself is everything we hoped it would be on a larger touchscreen, the slick multitasking system, unobtrusive notifications and neatly designed core apps all-scaling perfectly to the TouchPad’s 9.7-inch display. If the iPad feels like jumping from app silo to app silo, and Honeycomb is a jumble of mixed intuitiveness, the TouchPad user experience is holistically polished.

Where the TouchPad benefits over HP’s incoming smartphone range, such as the Pre3, is in the absence of Windows Phone 7 on tablets. Microsoft’s slate strategy means the investment it’s putting into the phone OS isn’t reflected in tablet computing; instead, it’s dreary Windows 7 until Windows 8 arrives next year. Rather than facing three increasingly strong rivals, as webOS phones do, the TouchPad only really has to challenge Honeycomb and iOS.

Not to say that isn’t a significant obstacle, and the TouchPad’s uninspired hardware doesn’t really help. Lacking the premium feel of a metal tablet, or the slender build of other recent slates, the fingerprint-magnet TouchPad runs the risk of feeling cheap and bulky. That’s not even half true, though, as HP has matched Apple’s iPad WiFi pricing. HP’s Touchstone charging is slick, but the much-vaunted Touch to Share functionality is a mere shade of what it could be.

None of those middling advantages are likely to help HP in its biggest test: encouraging developers to take webOS seriously. The recent confirmation that talks to license the platform are ongoing could well do more for it, if HP can get a sufficiently big name onboard. We hope it can, since the biggest shame of all is that, thanks to webOS 3.0, the HP TouchPad offers one of the best tablet experiences around, and we can see many would-be tablet buyers missing out on that while the platform keeps its marginal status. Uninspiring hardware, perhaps, but we’ll happily look past that based on webOS’ charms.

The phone is a quad band unit and measures 111 x 64 x 16mm and weighs 156g. The screen is a 3.58″ TFT capacitive touch unit with a resolution of 480 x 800. It has a small landscape slide-out QWERTY keyboard and an accelerometer for UI auto-rotate. Internal storage is 16GB and it has 512MB of RAM. It will operate on 3G networks and has 802.11b/g/n WiFi.

The rear camera is a 5MP unit and the CPU is a 1.4GHz Scorpion with Adreno 205 GPU and a Qualcomm MSM8655 chipset is used. The smartphone also has Assisted GPS, active noise cancellation with the integrated mic, a digital compass, and supports MP3 and MP4 files.

[via Play.com]

“webOS 2.1 is so fast it’s crazy” Charavel says, ”My Pre Plus feels like a brand new device. Amazing.” Interestingly, it seems the German webOS doctor for 2.1 seemed to recognize Charavel’s French Pre Plus with no problems; the phone told him to reboot and, once that was complete, he had the updated version up and running. We don’t have a Pre Plus to hand in order to try it ourselves, and as ever installing firmware not intended for your device can leave you with a bricked phone, but it seems this may be one of the easier update cycles.

Still, it does imply that other versions of the Pre Plus on different O2 country carriers will likely see a 2.1.0 update of their own. There’s a lengthy pdf (in German) detailing the changes, and the homebrew community is already tinkering with the ROM to see if they can make something more generic out of it.

[via webOS Roundup]

That’s considerably earlier than the June release window we heard about earlier this month, though there’s no word on whether the $600 price tag also tipped is still accurate. Of course, the sources behind this new release information, cited as upstream component manufacturers, haven’t said in which regions the April launch will take place, so it’s possible – if perhaps unlikely – that HP could still be aiming to push the TouchPad out in the US come June.

After some back-of-envelope sums, HP is expected to ship 4-5m webOS 3.0 TouchPad units in 2011. That’s a healthy number for the company but considerably less than the 40m iPads Apple is believed to be targeting for this year.

This webOS 3.0 ENYO SDK will be available to download from what was formerly known as the Palm Early Access channel today. The privilege of downloading this SDK will be reserved for those that email pdc@palm.com and beg and scream and ask nicely if they can have it. And you DO want it, right? ENYO is resolution independent so you can develop for any of the three devices announced yesterday. If you’ve used Palm’s Mojo SDK in the past you’re going to have to change the way you work just bit, but HP has stated that older Mojo-based apps will still function in this new version of the SDK.

Will you be amongst the developers working on webOS 3.0 for these perhaps rather promising new devices? Shoot an email over to pdc@palm.com to request a look at the SDK and try it out. Tell us if it’s the system for you, or if you plan on skipping it while you continue to develop for Android 3.0 Honeycomb, Android 2.4 Ice Cream, and iOS 2.3.

[via Switched]

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The Palm heritage is still strong with the Veer, despite HP dropping the branding of its acquisition, and the design owes a lot to previous models. Pebble-sized and neatly curved, it’s testament to webOS’ ingenuity that the platform is still usable. The combination of gestures and swipes work well, and the 800MHz processor keeps things moving swiftly.

As for that keyboard, it’s obviously not going to replace a BlackBerry for enterprise users, but then that’s not HP’s target audience. Instead, it should open the door to a new crowd of people stepping up from featurephones. If HP leverages the touch-to-share functionality well, it the Veer could also end up being the downtime phone of choice for Pre3 and TouchPad owners, taking advantage of easy synchronization between devices and offering an easily carried device.

More details on the HP Veer in our video (coming soon) and gallery!

Unlike the 3.1-inch display of its predecessors, the Pre3 packs a 3.6-inch panel running at WVGA (800×480). That makes for more on-screen at any one time, and for a generally more satisfying browsing and emailing experience. The larger casing also means there’s room for a bigger physical keyboard. While we generally liked Palm’s ‘boards, the portrait orientation sliders could feel cramped even for those with regular-sized fingers. The difference is only slight, but it’s enough that we noticed an uptick in our typing speed from the off.

Speed is seemingly the watchword for the HP Pre3, since out of the gate it’s promising one of the fastest processors we’ve seen on a smartphone. The 1.4GHz Qualcomm processor leaves webOS running smoother than we’ve ever seen it before, and even Flash Player 10.1 whips along nicely. Palm was slowly gathering momentum among games developers, and hopefully HP will continue to leverage that support and help the Pre3 find its niche with power-users who also like gaming.

More on the HP Pre3 in our hands-on video (coming soon) and live gallery!

The TouchPad chassis is black plastic, like the Veer and Pre3, but it’s sturdy and creak-free. The display, meanwhile, is bright and clear, with the dual-core 1.2GHz processor keeping webOS 3.0 moving swiftly. The obvious multi-pane layout comparison is Google’s recently unveiled Android 3.0 Honeycomb, and the TouchPad’s split email app – where, along with the browser, we’d imagine most owners will spend their time – is functionally relatively similar.

Where webOS shows its strength is in how it handles multitasking. Honeycomb has its thumbnails, but the TouchPad steps up the game with live thumbnails that can be stacked and juggled on the HP’s 9.7-inch screen. Palm arguably set the standard when it came to discrete notifications, and HP has pushed that in webOS 3.0, moving alerts to the top of the screen and allowing for individual or multiple dismissals. There’s also video calling, thanks to a front-facing camera on both the TouchPad and the Pre3.

Perhaps what’s most interesting is the Touchstone wireless transfer, which works when you tap the Pre3 or TouchPad against the Touchstone dock. Out of the box it will work for sharing URLs, but HP have ambitious expectations for the technology including media sharing and more. A demo works better than words, so check out our hands-on video.

Of course, while the TouchPad’s size and weight line up against the iPad, Apple is expected to launch the second-gen iPad 2 sometime within the next few months, and that could well hit the reset button on the tablet market. And, with HP telling us not to expect the TouchPad until Summer 2011, that gives Apple even more of an opportunity to set the consumer standard before the webOS slate is even out the door.

We’ll have to wait until review units are ready to know for sure, so for now check out our video and live gallery!

Meanwhile there will be other form factors offered, particularly in HP’s tablet range; the company has already said that the 9.7-inch HP TouchPad is only the first of a new family of slates. The PC market, however, will be HP’s major play. It’s unclear at this stage whether HP ever intends webOS-specific computers, but – like the Mac App Store on OS X – it certainly expects to integrate some degree of webOS support into its entire PC line-up. That includes not just webOS apps, but the web-based services previously available only on Palm smartphones.

Such a strategy would – with HP selling millions of PCs every year – see webOS’ footprint increase dramatically, and the platform’s appeal to developers likely get a welcome boost too. HP promises more information on webOS PCs “in the coming months.”

There are a couple of prerequisites for this magic to happen. First, Palm and HP note: “Requires HP TouchPad with webOS 3.0 and Pre3 or Veer with webOS 2.2 or higher, both products having the same HP webOS account. Viewing URL web page content requires data connection via Wi-Fi or cellular connection.” Then they add “Within wireless coverage area only. Actual speeds may vary. Email, mobile number, and related information required for setup and activation. Required data services sold separately; unlimited plan recommended and may be required. Not all web content may be available.” Both of these rules seem to be in place mostly as a precautionary measure against foolish users who would desire perfect products, but they’re helpful anyway.

How would you use this feature? One of the examples HP gives is sharing a URL with a friend, simply tapping the devices together rather than taking that extra few seconds or minutes to re-type the address in to an instant messanger or email. Another example is if you’ve found an article or an entire blog you’d like to have on one device when you’ve discovered it on the other – just tap. Connectedness!

The Palm Pre 2 has been speculated to be available with Verizon sometime around this week and sure enough they’ve just made it official. The hype around the phone was mainly about the support for webOS 2.0.

But other than that it doesn’t seem like there was too much excitement about the device considering that most major carriers had no plans to carry the device. And now with the Palm Pre 3 possibly available this summer, the Pre 2 may very well be just a tiny blip in the radar.

As you types on the homescreen, the JustType screen appears. You’ll be able to instantly search Google or Wikipedia or, best of all, post instantly to Twitter. As they’ve said earlier in the program: multitasking here isn’t just an afterthought. How will you use this multi-sized keyboard? For Twittering while you watch a movie? Or perhaps to work on your own, bumping up the size when you hand the tablet over to grandma? It’s all up to you with webOS!

Had HP not purchased Palm this would still be the case. However they did purchase Palm and now HP finds themselves right back in the middle of this fascinating mobile conversation, this time with a fresh suite of mobile products.

During the era where traditional clamshell mouse and keyboard PC’s were the hottest topics, companies like Dell and HP, Lenovo, Toshiba, Sony, etc were the focus of many analysts like myself and media.  I still track all those companies extensively however the growth sectors for tech are now smartphones and tablets.

Halo Products Drive Mind Share
The bottom line is if you don’t have an object of desire somewhere in your product portfolio it is very hard to capture attention for other products in the lineup. This lesson is proved true for the mass market over and over again. HP tried to combat Apple by buying Voodoo and it didn’t work quite like they planned.

With Palm, however, they acquired an innovative hardware and software team who has proven to make devices of appeal. HP’s hope with these three new devices is that they take a step deeper into the mobile consumer and business landscape. They can do this now with products they did not have the internal expertise to develop. Another hope is that these products may shed light on their many other products in their portfolio.

HP Should Focus on RIM
Apple and Google are in the middle of the rink fighting for consumers. Google has no interest in enterprise right now as their advertising model for mobile is geared entirely at consumers. RIM is the leader in business and Microsoft is nearly TKO of this sector.

HP has a shot to pass Microsoft in smart phones and tablets and begin to eat at RIM’s market share if they stay focused. An ancient proverb says, “If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.” RIM and HP cannot go after business and consumers at the same time and should listen to this wise proverb and choose the battle they have the best chance at winning. In my opinion both RIM and HP are better oriented to battle for the business customer.

The Bottom Line
I’m not going to make a prediction of how successful these new products from HP will be. I will say that they are fresh and that more products running Web OS is certainly a good thing for the market. More importantly HP took an important first step today. They demonstrated that they, along with their newly acquired Palm teams, can create products that will at the very least be competitive. I know many who have written Palm off. Even though the Palm name is gone this story is far from over.

Welcome back to the conversation HP.

The HP TouchPad offers either 16GB or 32GB of onboard storage and Flash Player 10.1 support, but it’s the updates to webOS 3.0 that HP is particularly pushing with the new slate. As well as Synergy, and phone-to-tablet communication (which flags up calls and SMS from the phone on the TouchPad, where you can answer and respond to them), the various webOS apps have also been adapted to suit the higher resolution screen.

Email now gets a multi-pane UI, showing the inbox at the same time as a message for instance, and allows for multiple selections and local content search. Contacts, too, has been updated with HP’s new super-scrolling feature, while the calendar – which still uses Synergy to pull in information from Exchange, Google Calendar and other sources – now allows for multiple calendars to be shown at any one time.

The TouchPad also supports video calling with a front-facing camera, and the new photo and video albums are now connected and offer integrated comments from online. HP has carried the Beats Audio tech over from its notebooks to the TouchPad, to improve the sound quality, and the TouchPad can also wirelessly print documents, photos and emails to the company’s range of wireless and networked printers.

On-device content will be managed with the HP Movie Store, offering downloads of movies and TV shows, while Amazon has developed a Kindle for webOS app for ereading on the 9.7-inch slate. As well as books there will be magazines, such as Time, Sports Illustrated and Fortune.

A single control button pulls up webOS’ “card view” of open apps, or pulls up the application launcher, and in 3.0 it’s now possible to stack apps together. Notifications, too, can be handled individually or dismissed as a complete stack. Finally, there’s a virtual keyboard with a dedicated number row that, HP suggests, will reduce keyboard layout switching (as you find on the iPad, for instance). It can also be resized, so if you can handle tiny keys then you can save more of the screen for content, or vice-versa.

Like the HP Veer and the HP Pre3, the TouchPad supports HP’s updated TouchStone technology. In addition to wireless charging – with a neat desk stand – there’s touch-to-share support between the three devices. Tap them together, and information can be wirelessly transferred across. The Touchstone desk stand automatically kicks the TouchPad into “Exhibition Mode”; the tablet is context-aware, knows whether it’s at the office or at home for instance, and so automatically shows information – photo slideshows, a calendar, dock-specific apps or just the time – suited to its location.

Exciting stuff, and we’re very interested to see HP build on webOS’ obvious multitasking strengths with a full ecosystem. The WiFi b/g/n HP TouchPad will go on sale in summer 2011, pricing tba, and be followed by 3G/4G versions later in the year.

The Pre3 gets two cameras, 5-megapixels on the back capable of shooting HD video, and a front-facing camera for video calls. Connectivity includes 3G, WiFi and HP mobile hotspot support, together with GPS and Flash Player 10.1 support. HP will be preloading the QuickOffice Connect Mobile Suite for the business audience, and of course there’s the webOS app store for third-party titles. It’s also a world phone, with both HSPA+ and EVDO Rev.A connectivity.

No word on pricing or which carriers we can expect to see the HP Pre3 launch on, or indeed whether HP will be pushing it unlocked as has been the case in some regions with the Pre 2. The HP Pre3 will go on sale in summer 2011.