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12/05/2011, 09:37 AM
#101
 Originally Posted by ggendel
The demo units were the best way to kill the TouchPad. I went into Best Buy to play with it and was struck how slow and clumsy it was. Five feet away was the iPad display, which caught people's attention quickly and the units worked quick and flawlessly.
I still became an early adopter because I had two WebOS phones so knew it's potential first hand. I figured that it would take a couple of updates to fix the issues. HP never came through, but the homebrew community has been the beacon of light through all of this turmoil. The performance is up, I have a workaround for the Wifi issues, I can VNC to my servers to do real work, and can print to a non-HP printer. They have managed to do most of what HP promised... Make a TouchPad that I could use for my work. It's close enough that I'm planning on leaving my laptop behind on my upcoming trip for the very first time.
I still long for a VZ pre 3 (and that cool wireless-audio charging dock) now that my contract just ended. But no pre 3's to be had except at prices I'm not comfortable with (as my Pre 2 is doing just fine).
Personally, I can't think of a way for Meg to fix this. Not only has mortal damage to WebOS phones and tablets been done, but the window of opportunity is slipping by quickly to get back in the game. Competitors are copying the best features of WebOS, the WebOS brain trust are giving up and leaving, and HP's track record says that they develop new hardware slowly. They will always be way behind playing catch up to the leader.
I agree with your rationale. During this period of uncertainy all we can do is hope for HP and Ms. Whitman to make the right decision and keep webOS alive. Even if HP decides to fully support webOS, they could only vie for third place behind Android and Apple.
As life-long Sprint customers, my family and I had no choice but to move on to Android 2.3.5. I personally still update and use my WiFi-enabled TouchPad and Pre minus. However, I will return to webOS if Sprint decides to carry a new product line of webOS smartphones and tablets. I'm sure many of our friends here in the webOS communities feel the same way too.
So hopefully HP can make the right decision and resurrects webOS someday.
Season's Greetings
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