The HP TouchPad Review: webOS on the Big Screen
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 17, 2011 11:11 PM ESTHP App Catalog
Like all modern mobile devices there's an app store on the TouchPad. The HP App Catalog has all of the basic features of any other app store. Reviews, ratings, categories, search, etc... are all there. There are a couple of things here that are worth mentioning. The first is how easy HP makes it to switch between positive and negative reviews, as well as the graphics used to show overall ratings on an app.
The second is just how many TouchPad apps there are in the catalog. Obviously iOS is still in the lead in terms of app quantity but I'm not a big fan of playing the numbers game when it comes to app stores. I personally believe that what matters are whether the dozen or so apps that you regularly use are on the platform you care about. For me the TouchPad's catalog is complete enough given my tablet usage model (mostly email, web browsing, Facebook, videos, music and photos). One absence that I know will impact a lot of users is Netflix, unfortunately I haven't seen any estimate for if/when a Netflix app will appear on the TouchPad.
Next year HP is expected to begin shipping webOS on its PCs as well. As one of the largest PC vendors in the world, this could seriously increase the install base for webOS and make it even more attractive for developers. I wouldn't count HP out of the app game at this point, not by a long shot.
webOS Smartphone Apps on the TouchPad
You can run non-TouchPad specific webOS apps on the tablet as well, they just appear in a smaller 320 x 480 window. The biggest issue with non-tablet webOS apps is that they all run in portrait mode, even if you rotate your TouchPad:
This seems like an oversight on HP's part but it's an annoying one nonetheless. There's also no way to scale up the size of these apps, they remain confined to a 320 x 480 space on the screen.
Placeholder Apps
There's a YouTube icon in the apps list, tapping it will bring up what looks like a YouTube card. After a couple of seconds however it'll just load a web browser that takes you to youtube.com:
I suspect there's a YouTube app coming, but it's just not ready yet. Note that RIM did a lot of this type of thing on the PlayBook as well (e.g. with its Gmail and Facebook icons).
It does get worse on the TouchPad unfortunately. In the HP app catalog there are a number of apps that you can download that are just placeholders for apps to come. For example, you can download the Kindle app but launching it will give you this:
A screen telling you that the Kindle app is coming. Admittedly HP doesn't try to hide this from you, in the description on the App Catalog HP tells you that this is just a placeholder. On the bright side when the Kindle app is available you don't have to search for it to download it, you'll just have to update the app you already downloaded.
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Conner_36 - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
because its a free marketkmmatney - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
I agree - at this price there isn't much incentive. At this time, it seems like the iPad 2 is still the better device. I don't think WebOS gives you any more "freedom" than iOS.bpgd - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
This is the review I have been waiting for. As always Anand's review is gold standard. He goes into details and really tells how the thing works.NeoReaper - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
I feel bad writing this comment because this is actually the first time I've ever posted anything on Anandtech and I've been coming to this site since its inception. I have a lot of respect for virtually every article I have ever read on this site written by Anand with the exception of this one. This is only an opinion but I feel like this review isn't nearly as critical as it should be. Based on what I've read in regards to performance, battery life, bugs, etc.. this device doesn't deserve the pass that you gave (at least that's the impression I get from reading this) This device has too many underlying flaws that haven't been addressed, mainly being the OS performance issues that have existed since the original Pre. Why criticize Skype performance when the screenshot you have cleaerly shows a large number of system services sapping CPU usage for no good reason? I mean, really? Pulseaudio is using almost 27% CPU usage. Maybe I'm interpreting this review incorrectly... I just feel that you were hoping for this device to deliver but reality it doesn't and you're simply hoping that OS updates will resolve the performance issues. If you want to believe that, why not expect the competition to make an update to the OS which boasts features that will make it better for office productivity? Hope is for fanboyism, a reviewer should be deliver facts without twisting it with what could be. Your final words are completely contradictory to itself. I hope you re-examine your review. As I've said already, I have great respect for you, Anand, and I've praised virtually every article you have ever written, but this article I cannot.lunarx3dfx - Tuesday, July 19, 2011 - link
One thing you might want to keep in mind though, is that while pulseaudio was using 27% of CPU resources, is that necessarily HP's fault? I would be more inclined to believe that the fault lies with the developers of pulseaudio for not making a well optimized app.Now, I'm not excusing the glaring flaws with the Touchpad, however I have not noticed the majority of the performance issues reviewers have seen with my personal TP. That's why in an earlier comment I wanted to know what build of the OS Anand's unit is running. I think reviewers got an earlier build that may not be as optimized as the release build.
I was in Staples the other day, and the demo unit was running build 16 whereas the release models are running build 41.
NeoReaper - Tuesday, July 19, 2011 - link
i see your comment regarding the build number now, it would be very interesting to hear back from Anand regarding the build he was running and whether or not any performance issues have really been fixed. as for the pulseaudio thing, pulseaudio is a linux audio service so the state of its optimization would be HP's fault. It is not a third party application. As I said, my main gripe with the review is that even in the final words portion of his article, many statements are contradictory. How productive can it be when he states that the unit is runs slower than its main competitors in virtually every aspect? How can you justify weight and size with such poor battery life and performance? Maybe I'm being a bit too harsh but the problem is, all the underlying "performance" issues that he states are in the Touchpad are the same problems that plagued the Pre, Pixi, and Pre2. I would love for HP to "fix" the performance issue, but maybe its not really that easy to "fix".lunarx3dfx - Tuesday, July 19, 2011 - link
I forgot about pulse being a linux service. Whoops. lol. I can expplain the extra weight and thickness of the device though. Well, HP did. The reason it is so much thicker and heavier according to them, which makes sense to me, is the inclusion of the inductive charging coils.NeoReaper - Tuesday, July 19, 2011 - link
ahh, ok ok, that makes sense.Leonick - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
The keyboard is actually pretty impressive compared to the competitors, having both a numbers row with special characters and a tab key.I also like how it handles the settings compared to iOS, having settings in the individual apps make a lot more sense in my mind that a centralized app, still iOS apps can do this if the developers choose to and when there are any settings you might want to change more than once or while running the app the generally do so.
Seems they got notifications pretty right for a tablet too. Pretty similar to how honeycomb does it it looks like. I think the system coming with iOS 5 will do fine for the iPad but it's still not perfect, it seem to be lacking statusbar icons to show that you have notifications and it would be neat if it could display upcoming calendar events and not just events with reminders (like the cydia app Lockinfo does).
Also, it was mentioned how the system was similar to notifications on a PC, well that's understandable, they do have plans to put WebOS on PCs.
Belard - Tuesday, July 19, 2011 - link
I agree with you on the keyboard. When I played with the Playbook, I noticed the keyboard right away and LOVE it... iOS and Android should COPY this onto their own devices... ah, let the lawsuits fly.When you have passwords that are combos of numbers and letters, going back and forth can through you off (it does me).
I'd give HP/WebOS a 10 for the keyboard. I'd give Android and iOS a 6 in comparison.
The Settings Icons for WebOS are a pain.... You have to open one after the other, and if you DON'T close the, they'll stay in memory - constantly running.