Rumor: HP ran webOS twice as fast on iPad 2 than own tablet
updated 10:00 am EDT, Fri August 19, 2011
HP said to have tested webOS on iPad 2X faster
HP supposedly had a much better time running webOS on the iPad 2 than its own TouchPad, an internal source rumored Friday. Although both have dual-core processors, Apple's tablet was reportedly "over twice as fast" and frustrated the team. The 1.2GHz Snapdragon limited what HP's team could do, and they were effectively saddled with a "two-year old piece of hardware" in the TouchPad where Apple had something cutting edge, The Next Web understood.
Supposedly, the iPad 2 was so much faster that it could run webOS apps, if not the OS, more quickly in the Safari browser than the TouchPad did in its pseudo-native form.
The timing of the sudden webOS hardware shutdown may have been unfortunate and denied HP a real chance at competition, the contacts added. HP's seven-inch TouchPad Go was and possibly still is already in production and would have been enough to improve on the slower, cheap-feeling current model. Earlier scoops gave it the 1.5GHz Snapdragon of the 4G and 64GB TouchPads.
A second-generation TouchPad was also supposedly in the works that would have been meant to compete with the iPad 3 on much more equal terms. It would not only have a Retina-grade display, possibly like the 2048x1536 LCD said coming to the future iPad, but would have a metal chassis to get a more premium feel common to Apple and some Android 3 tablet makers.
The cancellation in light of the new models either suggests a lack of confidence in this view or else HP's determination to shift towards an enterprise-first strategy, reversing much of the work of his predecessor. HP had bought Palm while Mark Hurd was still executive and had openly said it planned to compete with Apple in some areas. The forced exit of Hurd may have changed that strategy. Apotheker comes from SAP and is used to managing enterprise-level services and software with little grasp of home products, suggesting he didn't believe the company could push webOS hardware given his area of expertise.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Oct 2004
HP is a joke
First they were going to run WebOS on everything from phones, to tablets, to printers, to pc's and load it on every pc and laptop they sold - to canceling the entire effort when the first product they released was slow selling.
What was the market supposed to do? Reward them for releasing a device that was HEAVIER, THICKER, SLOWER and had LESS APPS than the iPad?
If the market had done that - the genius business managers at HP would be slapping themselves on the back for their brilliance in under engineering, cost cutting, and general disregard for the public - and never released a quality product - they would have crapped out one brick after the next.
But heaven forbid the market rejects their piece of junk - then its cancel all plans, because the marketplace is the problem - not their idiotic decision making.
This is why, in business, you have to always make sure your first attempt is a success. If it is - you move forward, if it isn't - that doesn't work. That's the long and short of it. That's the absolute ability of management at a large corporation to reason.