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]

You’ll get a full hands-on treatment with this device courtesy of the Nation right below this paragraph, including no less than benchmarks, Ken Burns effects sliding in and out, and Asphalt 6 running quite nicely for superior racing action. As they say, webOS 3.0 works “without compromise” on this smaller device, and it’s a pretty big bummer that the device will never see the light of day because it’s certainly not the least impressive tablet in the history of mobile. On the other hand, the cameras aren’t fantastic, the tablet is thick, and again, this tablet will never be sold to the public.

For a much more interesting and relevant vision for you the consumer, if that’s who you are, head to our timeline below to see how the released version of the TouchPad worked out over the past year. It’s a hundred-dollar madness fest you’ll never want to forget! That, and the idea that there might be SOME TouchPad Go units out there in the wild able to be hacked up is an interesting thought to think through. Let’s run some iOS on that mother!

[via WebOSNation]

The TouchPad 4G is expected to sport a faster 1.5GHz processor instead of the 1.2GHz processor of the WiFi-only models. This probably won’t sit well with customers who bought the original TouchPad just a month ago. Add to that the slew of discounts being offered in recent weeks for the TouchPad, which just got its price dropped permanently by $100 today.

Although a specific launch date is still unknown, the 4G TouchPad has been listed at $699 on Amazon for the 32GB model. Now that the WiFi-only model is at $499, it’ll be interesting to see how consumers react to paying an additional $200 for the privilege of AT&T’s HSPA+ connection and the extra burden of a data plan. Make sure to check out our full review of the WiFi HP TouchPad to get a taste of what to expect with this new version.

[via Engadget]

HP’s senior vice president and general manager, Stephen DiFranco, has just confirmed that the $100 instant-savings promotion is now permanent. It applies to all models of the HP TouchPad, with the 16GB model now dropping to $399.99, the 32GB model now at $499.99. This seems to be the price point the TouchPad should have started out at instead attempting to butt heads with the market leading iPad 2.

The HP TouchPad is the first from HP and the first to offer consumers a tablet that’s non-Apple and non-Android, with its webOS platform. It had just recently gotten a major OTA firmware update to version 3.0.2, which boosts performance and reliability adds some more streamlined features. Make sure to check our full review the HP TouchPad to see if its worth your money, even if $100 less.

[via HP]

Of course, this discount is besides (and perhaps unable to be combined with) the $60 price cut we saw earlier this week as well. Then there’s ANOTHER discount at Staples, this one for either the 16GB OR the 32GB version of the tablet, valid through the 7th of August and only, again, at Staples. One way or another you’re gonna get this tablet for a discounted price. The discount at Staples is only available with coupon, that being the same coupon you can find in the gallery in this post below.

All of these discounts have us wondering whether or not the tablet was meant to be sold for the first price point or these major discount prices – either way it’s time for you to take a look at our full review of the HP TouchPad so you know what’s going on in the world of non-iOS and non-Android tablets. Will you indulge?

Bonus: have a look at our hands-on video with the tablet as a preview for the full review why don’t you? We’d love for you to have a look.

[via PreC]

Multitasking

The original “cards” webOS multitasking system was running rings around rivals back when the first Pre was launched, and it’s still impressive today. Rather than fill the homescreen with widgets and icons, app launching is done either from a shortcut bar running along the bottom of the screen or a dedicated menu, and the bulk of the space is used for webOS’ cards. Each card represents an open app or a part of an app: a browser tab, for instance, or separate views of your email inbox and a new message you’re partway through writing.

The gestures that Palm came up with have been preserved in webOS 3.0 – either swiping around a gesture area underneath the display on smartphones, or on the touchscreen itself on tablets – and there’s support for grouping “decks” of cards together. Tap and hold your finger on a card, and you can drag it on top of another to group them together. Alternatively you can mix around the order that the cards are presented.

Jumping between apps is therefore very slick, and webOS 3.0 feels well blended together. Even though you’re in effect jumping back to a homescreen app-switcher each time, because the cards remain animated – videos keep playing, new emails arrive in the inbox, etc. – it feels more dynamic and interconnected than, say, picking an app icon from Android’s far more simple task manager.

Just Type and Multitasking demo

Just Type

Palm’s universal search promised a lot – and perhaps under-delivered – in the early stages, but has grown into Just Type. The odd name hides a comprehensive system of not just searching but content creation, too: tap the Just Type box on a non-keyboard device like the TouchPad, or start typing on the physical keyboard on a phone like the Pre3, and webOS automatically starts querying through your browser bookmarks and history, email headers (but not, unfortunately, the message bodies), search history, local apps and contacts, along with suggestions from Google.

That’s not all, though. Using the Quick Actions you can fire off whatever you’ve typed as a new IM, or use it as the basis of an appointment, email or memo. You can also use Just Type to quickly throw up a new status message on Facebook – type your witty update, hit “Update Facebook Status” and it automatically gets added to your wall, assuming you’ve logged into Facebook through Synergy – though not to Twitter. In fact, native Twitter support is absent through webOS, though HP has opened Just Type up to third-party developers who could, if they so wished, add different Quick Actions of their own.

Similarly, users can add in any site, which supports the OpenSearch standard, so that as well as a general Google search you could run local queries on particular sites you follow. In general it works well, though we’d like to see a place where common OpenSearch sites were listed for easy addition: a little like the page of alternative search options most browsers provide. Otherwise, we can see users missing out on the functionality, simply by not realizing it’s there.

Synergy and Notifications

If the cards were one big part of what made webOS special, then Synergy and the notifications system are the remainder. Synergy offered to pull in all the disparate elements of your online life well before rival platforms – or modifications to rival platforms, like HTC Sense – did the same, and in webOS 3.0 the list of supported services has grown to include Facebook, Google, Exchange, LinkedIn, Yahoo!, AIM and Skype.

Since we’d already created a webOS account from previous Palm review units, logging into that automatically pulls in the third-party services you’ve used before. We’ll cover individual usage later in the review, but in general there’s support in the contacts, email, messaging (IM and SMS) and calendar apps.

Then there’s on-device alerts. Make no mistake, notifications are difficult things to get right: Apple is only really addressing them properly now, years into iOS, after all. webOS, though, understood it from the very start. Notifications slide into view across the top of the screen (in the top status bar on the HP TouchPad, for instance) to preview their content, and then collapse to icons. Tapping each icon gives a glimpse of whatever email, SMS or calendar alert is being flagged up, and you can then tap again to go straight to the relevant app, or swipe the notification off the screen and attend to it later. It’s easy, intuitive and works exceptionally well.

Messaging and Facebook

The days of users having a single email account – or indeed expecting to use one device for either work or play, but not both – are long gone. webOS 3.0 supports multiple accounts including Microsoft Exchange to keep enterprise users happy and Gmail for most other people, though if you have Yahoo! or indeed any POP/IMAP compliant account then you’ll be able to access it.

Inboxes can be viewed individually, by account, or combined into one big in-tray, though there’s no grouping support as Microsoft has added to Windows Phone 7.1 Mango, where you can have multiple merged inboxes. What you can do, though, is have each inbox as a card, and then group together decks of cards, which allows a greater amount of organization than, say, iOS or Android.

Then there’s IM, with support for Google Talk, Yahoo! IM, Skype IM, AIM and SMS, though you’ll need a webOS phone like the Pre3 if you want to use the latter on a non-WWAN tablet like the TouchPad. IM and SMS messages with the same contact are automatically meshed together in the same view, similar to how Mango handles conversations.

The IM app itself isn’t a mere viewer, but can be used to manage buddy lists with control over adding, removing and blocking contacts. On the TouchPad, if you have a webOS phone paired via Bluetooth then you can send and receive SMS messages, in addition to answering calls, all from the slate. Useful if your phone is in your pocket.

webOS 3.0 brings with it a new Facebook app for the TouchPad tablet. Contrary to some reports, the app is all of HP’s own doing – rather than Facebook’s handiwork – though the social network’s engineers could do a lot worse than look at it as a good example of how to cater for tablet users. In effect, it’s the desktop Facebook environment pulled from the browser and made straightforward for fingers rather than a mouse cursor.

The basic view consists of three columns, with a top-level list of sections on the far left – Newsfeed, Messages, Events, Places, Friends Photos – which then open up in the second and third columns. You can drag across the second column to cover up the first, giving more room for your Facebook Wall, for instance. In the messages section, the middle column shows each message by sender, subject and a preview of the content, and then the full conversation opens up on the right. In places, meanwhile, there’s a list of nearby locations already registered in the middle, and then a Bing Map results page on the right; you can expand that by dragging the middle column to the left, and then view nearby friends by their recent check-in activity.

Photo galleries can be viewed in thumbnails and slideshows, and you can manage tags, comments and “Likes” all from the webOS interface. It’s possible to upload images from your device straight to a new or existing gallery, too. Unfortunately there’s no way to log in as an admin of a group or fan page, though you can browse those pages under your own account.

Browser and Maps

The usual webOS gestures for browser navigation continue in v3.0 – swiping forward and back through the history, and pinch-zooming for instance – performed either in the gesture area under the screen on smartphones or on the display itself on tablets. Rather than tabs as on Android or pages on iOS, webOS 3.0 treats each browser window as a separate card, meaning they can be added in to decks. After a little acclimation, it’s useful to be able to group together all of the browser panes you’re using for, say, researching an ongoing email with the draft email card itself.

Unlike the iOS browser, Safari, webOS supports Flash Player 10.3 Beta, complete with hardware acceleration. Performance obviously depends on the chipset in the device itself, though when we looked at the dual-core 1.2GHz TouchPad side-by-side with current crop of dual-core 1GHz Android tablets running Honeycomb, we found the webOS slate lagged behind in its rendering. Adobe could well address that with subsequent updates of Flash Player, however, so we wouldn’t read too much into it right now, and of course some platforms – like the iPhone and iPad – don’t have Flash support at all.

Rather than Google Maps, HP has partnered with Microsoft for mapping apps and data in webOS 3.0. Bing Maps is used, supporting the same satellite and birds-eye views as on the desktop along with traffic information. It all works, but if you’re a frequent Google Latitude user, for instance, you’ll miss the integration. There’s also no turn-by-turn directions as you’d get in Google Maps Navigation, though you can of course get directions and a route list.

HP also throws open the doors to third-party developers wanting to embed mapping information into their webOS apps. This relies on the core map engine in webOS 3.0 itself, for better performance; it’s evident in the native Facebook app for the TouchPad, for instance.

Multimedia and Gaming

Synergy shows itself in the webOS 3.0-multimedia experience, with support for local and online galleries accessed through the same straightforward interface. As well as pictures saved to your device, you can access Snapfish, Photobucket, Dropbox and Facebook galleries, including accessing comments that have been left on the social network.

From those galleries you can create and organize new albums, as well as set up Exhibition, the display app that auto-runs when you dock your phone or tablet. In effect turning your webOS device into a connected digital photo frame, Exhibition works best with the optional Touchstone dock, but can be manually run as well. As standard it shows a clock and a slideshow of images, but HP has also left it open to third-party developers to add their own content. You could, for instance, have a Twitter feed or keyword search, if a developer feels so inclined to code it up.

Music, meanwhile, looks much the same as it has in previous versions, though now gains the HP Play synchronization app to make transferring media from your PC more straightforward. Play automatically sucks across content from iTunes and other multimedia stored on your computer over to your webOS device, though of course only works with supported formats: MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, QCELP and WAV, as long as they’re DRM-free. Playback can be sorted into playlists on-device, as well as accessed by artist, album or genre, or indeed played in shuffle mode. It’s all relatively basic, though the UI is slick and swift. HP has also promised an on-device music purchase system, using Amazon’s MP3 service, though that will only be added in at webOS 3.0′s launch and wasn’t available for us to test.

With iTunes’ dominance in multimedia and Google adding video purchase and rental to the Video service on its Android devices, HP has turned to RoxioNow for movie and TV show downloads and rentals. The same service as behind TiVo, Boxee and other systems, content acquired through RoxioNow can be watched on up to five devices linked to the same account. Log in on your PC, for instance, and you can pick up watching a video you started on your TouchPad.

Unfortunately there’s no real intelligence between the different devices, a shame considering HP would obviously like people to buy both its phones and tablets and its desktop and notebook computers. There’s no bookmark sync or auto-resume, nor the ability to stream content stored on the computer to the tablet or, indeed, vice-versa.

HP relies on Amazon’s Kindle app for ebook support, available through the App Catalog. Just as with the retailer’s apps for other platforms, it’s straightforward to log in with your Amazon account and then sync down any existing ebook purchases, or tap through to the store to buy new. HP is also talking up gaming on webOS 3.0, with access to the 3D graphics acceleration in compatible chipsets, the various sensors – such as the accelerometer – for motion-based gameplay. At launch there’ll be Angry Birds, Atlantis Sky Patrol HD, Shrek Kart, Glyder 2 and others.

App Catalog

Under Palm’s stewardship and now HP’s, the webOS App Catalog has been slow to grow, falling well short of what Android and iPhone users have to explore; even Windows Phone 7, despite being newer to the market, has already surpassed it in sheer number of titles. At time of writing there are around 9,000 phone apps to choose from in the App Catalog, along with around 300 apps specifically designed for the TouchPad tablet. Roughly 70-percent of the phone apps will also work on the TouchPad, a growing proportion as developers modify their software using the new Enyo framework (that can scale to suit either a phone or tablet display).

As on other smartphone platforms, webOS apps support in-app purchases – for unlocking new content or functionality – and there’s not only user reviews but also the ability to rate the usefulness of those reviews. Unlike on rival platforms, you can bookmark apps so as to find them more quickly later on.

HP is trying to drum up interest – among users, developers and press – with its new digital magazine, webOS Pivot. Featuring app news and reviews, interspersed with unique content, photography and features from mainstream and tech columnists, it tries to be the glossy magazine of mobile software. Like all corporate mags, there’s a faint air of desperation around it, though the sense of it being one long advertorial is a lot less intrusive than in others we’ve seen. Whether it will prove to be a solid tool in cutting through the ongoing issues the Android Market and iOS App Store have – that is, stand-out apps getting lost amid the crowd – will have to wait until the App Catalog itself gains the sort of traction its rivals have.

HP Pivot demo

Touch to Share

Palm was an early adopter of new wireless technologies among the smartphone elite, its original Pre offering straightforward charging using the Touchstone dock. That same inductive recharge technique is carried forward with HP’s new range of phones and tablets, but there are other wireless options making their debut in webOS 3.0.

Touch to Share is intended to encourage webOS users to pick up both a tablet and a phone running the same platform, by making cross-device information transfers easier. Browse a webpage on your Pre3, for instance, and by holding the handset near the home button on the TouchPad you can automatically open up the same webpage on the slate. It works in reverse, too.

Similarly, once the two are paired, they maintain a Bluetooth link and any incoming calls or SMS messages to the Pre3 are flagged up on the TouchPad. As we covered before, you can reply to SMS directly from the tablet itself, seamlessly mixing texts in with IM conversations, while calls are remotely answered on the phone.

It’s useful, but we can’t help but feel it doesn’t go far enough. Transferring other data should be straightforward: photos and videos you’ve shot on your Pre3 and want to view on your TouchPad without having to upload them to an online gallery and then wait for them to sync down to the slate, for instance, or swapping music files between the two. We’d like to be able to transfer in-progress Skype audio/video calls between devices too, or pass across music playlists, preferably while they’re actually playing. Listening to tracks on your TouchPad but then realize you have to go out? Tapping your Pre3 against the slate and having the music instantly transfer from one to the other would be great. As it is, Touch to Share shows some early promise, but needs fleshing out.

Video Calling

Rather than cook up its own video conferencing standard, as Apple did with FaceTime and Google did with its Google Talk update, HP looked to Skype instead. Log into Synergy with your Skype account, and you can make audio and video calls as well as hold IM conversations. Video calls switch to audio-only when you back out to the card view, though you can continue to hold your conversation by voice.

There’s also support for SkypeOut, if you have money in your Skype account to make calls direct to phone lines rather than other VoIP users, and integration with the webOS contacts list. If you’re on a data-only connection, such as WiFi on the TouchPad, it automatically attempts to place the call over Skype; if you’re on a webOS phone, or have your TouchPad tethered via Bluetooth to your webOS phone, there’s the option to place either a regular call or a SkypeOut call.

Extras

The webOS calendar pulls in details from all of your Synergy-connected accounts, color coding them automatically and warning you if you’re about to schedule an appointment that might clash with something added to a different calendar. There are the usual day, week and month views, but oddly no agenda view. That’s the same as Honeycomb, though at least Android tablets have the option of an agenda homescreen widget.

Tablets may mostly get used for browsing, multimedia and gaming, but that’s not to say business documents will never land in your inbox. HP includes QuickOffice with webOS 3.0, with viewing options for Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, as well as Adobe Reader for viewing PDF files. There’s no way to create or edit them, however, though HP tells us the TouchPad at least should have Word and Excel document editing functionality by mid-Summer. Functionally, it works as you’d expect: receive a document as an email attachment and, when you tap it, it automatically downloads and is then opened in the appropriate app.

It’s also possible to print from webOS, as long as your networked printer is on the same network as your phone or tablet and supports the PCL page description language. HP says its networked and wireless printers from the past five years should be compatible. Options include double-sided printing and color/b&w, along with multiple page sizes and management of different paper trays, assuming your printer has those options. You can print from the browser, inbox and photo gallery.

HP is also readying an imminent webOS update, which will be delivered OTA to TouchPad owners in a few weeks time. This, the company tells us, will for the most part be based on feedback from beta testers and early-adopters; various performance tweaks are already confirmed, along with issues relating to auto-correction, device rotation, messaging, email rendering and web browsing. Skype performance is also being optimized, though we had no real problems with either video or audio chat.

Wrap-Up

There’s no denying that webOS has matured into a solid, capable platform, at least in terms of its core functionality. What’s particularly admirable is how readily webOS scales to suit different screen sizes, without the UI or gestures feeling out of place. It easily feels the most interconnected and seamless platform when it comes to movement between apps, multitasking and handling notifications and updates.

HP’s biggest challenge is persuading users and developers that there’s room in the mobile ecosystem for webOS. Android and iOS have already soaked up a huge amount of the market, and Microsoft’s investment in Windows Phone – and the expected flood of Nokia devices running the platform from later this year – leaves three strong rivals against which webOS lacks mindshare. That’s a shame, as it’s a capable platform and, in v3.0, has seen a lot of its rougher edges polished up nicely. The Facebook client, for instance, is the best interpretation of Facebook on mobile that we’ve seen to-date, and the cards/decks multitasking system is incredibly intuitive to those picking up a webOS device for the first time.

Problem is, Apple already speaks to the beginners market with a very clear value proposition, and it will take a some work to convince would-be buyers that webOS’ limited app selection can hold its weight against the many thousands of iOS apps. In its favor is the scale of HP’s investment, far outweighing what Palm – as a relative boutique manufacturer – could use to drive marketing and promotion. When webOS starts to appear on HP PCs from 2012, which will be a big step forward. Until then, webOS 3.0 may end up being enjoyed by a minority group of in-the-know fans, while others flock to Android and iOS and miss out on the HP platform’s polish.

Make sure to check out the HP TouchPad review.

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.

Taiwan Economic News today reported that Inventec Corp., a major Taiwanese subcontractor manufacturer for HP, has received a “big-ticket” order of tablets from HP for both the 9.7-inch model and a 7-inch model. The orders placed are for roughly 400,000 to 450,000 TouchPad tablets per month with the 7-inch model set for an August launch. Inventec is said to begin shipping tablets in June.

This report supports prior rumors that a 7-inch HP tablet codenamed Opal would arrive sometime in September. Details on the smaller tablet are unknown except that it will measure 180 x 144 x 13mm and have a 1024 x 768 capacitive touchscreen.

[via BGR]

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]

As you’re about to see, these two tablets are very similar in some ways, and very different in others. Will the iPad’s massive library of applications from the Apple App Store keep you with the fruit? Or will you join the somehow brand sparkling new ship sailing out of HP headquarters today on seas called webOS 3.0?

Check out the big chart and let us know what seems more enticing to you. We’ve been shaken today by the release of these new HP products, and we’re certainly glad to see another contender in the tablet game, one that isn’t a fruit nor is it a green robot. We’ve been watching webOS but we’ve not been placing any bets on it. Looks like that might very well be about to change.

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.”

This is big news, this and everything else HP has announced for webOS today, it’s all amazingly big for a company some folks have been calling dead for months. Video calling may seem like old hat for those of you who’ve been using it on your Android and iOS devices for a while now, but the ability to switch so easily from a phone call to a video call is not only a big advancement for webOS devices, but for the brand and our collective expectations of a mobile OS as well.

Have a look at a couple images from this part of the presentation below, then check out the rest of our coverage of the event by finding the webOS 3.0 tag! And don’t forget, that front facing camera is a 1.3-megapixel webcam, so it’s not going to be the most amazing quality you’ve ever seen in your life, but it’ll hold up against Apple and Android just fine.

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!

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.