I'm surprised the degree to which Apple is setting the pace in this new market. With all the resources available to these big players the combination of hardware and software is proving difficult.
Perhaps this suggests that people were looking at HP's purchase of Palm in the wrong way.
HP are the biggest computer manufacturer in the world. While I'm sure entering the phone market is a bonus to them, if they think that the iPad is a serious threat to their laptop business, buying Palm in order to be able to speed up manufacture of an iPad competitor makes perfect sense.
I'm not prepared to trust Techcrunch on this. Is this the same source that told them Last.fm gave listener data to major labels when the last U2 album leaked?
edit: is Techcrunch considered the Holy Bible around here? I'm a bit new.
TC is largely trustworthy. Everyone screws up sometimes (particularly in a high-stakes environment where some people give you bum leads just to watch you make a fool of yourself). One fuck-up out of hundreds of reports does not an unreliable source make.
In this case, I'd say the point is pretty believable. Although you should never trust anything you read on the internet 100%, I think this one is likely to be correct.
Right. The report just seems a bit off. A day after the acquisition, an unnamed source goes to Techcrunch before anyone else? Even if the source does exist, no guarantees they're not lying, deliberately misinforming, or misinformed themselves. (I wouldn't be surprised if HP was trying to light a bit of a fire under Microsoft, or really just gauge potential market reaction à la $999 iPad.)
I'm also somewhat peeved by the title of this submission of HN; no "Rumour:", no "Source:", no "Techcrunch:", just a statement of fact.
I haven't seen any non-TC confirmation of this story yet.
edit: saw a Business Insider piece which basically said "they might do it". No attribution.
I'm giving your upvote back. I'm not much of a TC fan either, a lot of it has to do with that they have a lot of the same tendencies and nuances that mainstream journalism has; namely: rushing to print so often and so frequently that sometimes really unfortunate things happen.
One such was the Last.FM/U2/User data deal.
But this is an unfortunate casualty of reporting, and TC while not immune, still in my opinion deserves more scrutiny from the tech community than they get. Arrington did a great job putting the blog on the Map as a voice in the echo chamber, but it's just one voice.
This is a very sensible decision. Ultimately, it will be very hard for anything running on x86 to compete with ARM at the moment in power/watt, which is probably the most important metric for these sorts of devices. Inte's working hard to change that, but they haven't managed it yet.
Furthermore, the constant cries for a Windows 7 slate are misguided. There are very few benefits to having windows any many disadvantages. While it's true Window's software will run on such a device, actually using it is a different matter. Just trying to scroll on the tiny scroll bar or tap a target a few pixels wide would be impossible with a capacitive screen and your finger, rendering most desktop applications useless.
If HP is refocusing on a WebOS-based ARM device, they have an actual chance at matching the iPad's usability and specs. I wish them well. WebOS is a wonderful operating system, and I'm glad it's finally getting a chance to flourish.
Are Microsoft and HP just pursuing the usual route of annoncing products that they never intended to ship, to try to take some sting out of Apples iPad announcement?
I remember a lot of people talking about how great it would be to run W7 on the HP slate, or how innovative Microsofts courier will be.
I would think this is less to do with HP wanting to just announce "something" to steal iPad thunder, and more about them just having gained a incredible touch OS. To be blunt, while Win7 has made many strides towards being a better touch OS it is no where near where it needs to be yet for someone to use it without a mouse and keyboard. There is just too much heavy lifting left to do.
I see this less as "we where never intending to do this," and more "we have something infinitely better, in house, which is actually built from the ground up for touch controls. Let's just go with that."
I'm not convinced that they can crank out a webOS tablet before the second generation iPad arrives. At that time it will be too late.
I own a 3G iPhone, but Apple's recent moves and policies around the appstore and their platforms has made me choose Android for my next phone. I simply cannot support a company like Apple and the direction they are taking computing with my money.
For that same reason, whoever comes out first with a more open tablet PC while still having a nice finish will get my money. Whatever happens I'm definitely not getting an iPad.
This, ofcourse is just me and my opinion, but it seems Apple has provoked quite a few people lately and with Android and other alternative platforms catching up (even Winmo!) I see Apple losing momentum here.
It might be unwise to underestimate Apple, but I say it would be unwise of Apple to underestimate the (continuous) PR-disaster the iPhone and AppStore has been to them the last few years.
