The HP Touchpad was too pure for this world

Today we're fixing up the greatest tablet ever released - the 2011 HP TouchPad running webOS!

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#HP #TouchPad #WebOS

[Yeen]

I’m the one who donated the Touchpad at VCF Midwest. I found it in the free pile of all things at last year’s VCF Midwest but it ended up sitting in my old tech drawer for over a year and I felt that it needed a better home.

You’re welcome.

[Sb]

I still won't forgive HP for what they did to Palm.

[jasonmusgrove]

The Touchpad has a mildly amusing "easter egg" on it. Normally, you can dismiss (close) applications from the app switcher by swiping it up. However, in one of the two landscape orientations, you can pull down on an application which is accompanied by a "stretching elastic" sound, and let it go which causes it to fly off the top of the screen going "whee!"

[RetrogamerGenX]

I actually worked for HP at the time and worked on the Touchpad. Web OS is actually an OS developed by Palm and was bought by HP. The touchpad was developed around Web OS. But unfortunately, that's the reason it didn't do well. Everybody wanted either and Apple or Android. There wasn't room for another OS. Sales plummeted, and then came the firesale. Once people got there hands on it, they loved it. But it was too late, the higher up canned it. There was a big community for custom Android distros which I was a part of. But many many moons go brother. Great to see one still working and running Web OS instead of Android. The touchpad even came up in my last show about right to repair. So it was cool seeing this video after it came up in our discussion.

[charlesmoto]

Fun Fact: webOS still lives on as the open-source LuneOS to install onto different devices.

[RetroFett]

Had one of these myself. The operating system was way ahead of anything anyone else was doing and really made the machine. HP reportedly had a difficult time sourcing the components because Apple had monopolized foreign supplier production runs with its iPad.

[xeroniris]

I loved webOS so much. I kept my HP Pre 3 as my daily driver until 2017. I got an HP touchpad in the firesale. RIP webOS.

[CathrineMacNiel]

WebOS was so cool. The first actual attempt on using web technologies to create local Applications. I loved my Palm Prë even though it had the oreo twist issue, even wrote some personal applications for it. With Continuum I had all my communication needs in one place, it was just glorious.

But, it simply didn't had enough applications, leading to not interested end users, and then HP came. And WebOS was mutated into some Frontend for LG Smart Devices.

[steveg]

I had one in 2012/2013 when i converted it to Android to get a cheap android tablet off ebay.

[ptonpc]

From what I recall at the time, people knew the Touchpad was pretty much DOA. It was originally supposed to be part of a family of devices but HP got cold feet. The other devices were cancelled but the Touchpad was too far advanced to do so. There were 'shenanigans' at HP.

[JeffBreyer]

Next, the blackberry playbook. A criminally overlooked and overhated device. It was very good and pioneered a lot of those gestures everyone uses now.

[blahaj___]

the soundboard app and lightsabre app were peak early 2010's

[Subnet_Masked_]

That interface is giving me a different timeline Gnome vibe.

[mikegoggin]

Please yes to another video on how you might still make productive use of a TouchPad today. I still have mine. It's been sitting in its original box for the last 12 years. I'd also love to dumbify my smartphone by going back to a Pre.

I love those old Palm/HP webOS devices. Just wish I could reasonably use them.

[EverythingIsBrokenGarage]

I remember when they went on steep discount when HP canned them, I had a supplier who listed the 16gb for $50CAN a unit, I ordered 10 of them but sadly the order was quickly canceled and refunded and the listing disappeared off my suppliers site. I have wondered to this day what kinda fun I would have had with 10 of them.

[evefavretto]

Talking about Angry Birds, there's a Easter egg in the app switcher. Hold it upside down and pull a card down and the card will be slingshotted with the Angry Birds sound effect.

[TimothyCizadlo]

Mine went into the ewaste bin about six years ago due to the battery. I had picked it up at the bookstore for the college I was attending at the time, and they had them in stock well into Monday afternoon - the price cut was on Friday, so most were gone by Saturday, but the bookstore was closed all weekend at the time. I kept using it for a good long time as a PDF reader, for which I have yet to find a suitable replacement.

[Sonic]

I bought an HP Touchpad *THE DAY* before HP cancelled it. I was livid, but it was really cool. Put Android Honeycomb, then later Ice Cream Sandwich on it. Loved webOS.

[samuelbowers]

Finally, I got one of these on Christmas 2023, I have it on HP webOS, and it is AMAZING!

[TheTalonts]

I would LOVE to see further videos on this. I've had one in use daily since 2011, it was a weather station until the servers were shut down, now it's a "wall" clock on the wireless stand, but since it hasn't been able to connect to an NTP server for years, I have to occasionally manually set the time on it.