It's Not Qualcomm's Fault: Dispelling TouchPad Myths
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on August 19, 2011 6:40 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- HP
- Snapdragon
- OMAP
- Qualcomm
- Smartphones
- touchpad
- Mobile
webOS Needed Work
From the very beginning, webOS needed work in the optimization department. The hardware wasn't at fault, it was the software that always needed tuning, and as we saw with the Pre Plus even throwing more RAM at the problem didn't speed things up enough. We mentioned a number of places where webOS 2.0 still needed work to improve performance and smoothness in the Veer review. First among those really were the criminally long boot times:
"Unfortunately loading times on the Veer are still incredibly long due to some mismanagement of the linux boot process. Unfortunately it appears that WebOS increases the sleep time that apps send to the caller during the boot process from an already crazy 60 seconds to 120 seconds. There's discussion of this on WebOS Internals, but the situation is even worse now, at 120 seconds."
What Palm managed to develop was an excellent UI and front end to an OS, but there's little doubt that the underlying Linux code needed (and still needs) work. Simple tricks like disabling logging and implementing the boot process properly would result in noticeable performance gains. There's little dobut that other similar simple things could dramatically improve performance.
The fact of the matter is that Palm needed a lot of development time to turn webOS into a mature product. The HP of today is trying to turn itself into a fully focused enterprise company and as a result, webOS wasn't going to get the support it needed. An internal source at HP told me that the sales targets for the TouchPad were between the best selling Honeycomb tablets and the iPad. When that didn't happen, HP saw no reason to continue down the webOS hardware path.
As an enterprise company the move makes sense for HP and its shareholders. As consumers, we're disappointed. But the blame doesn't fall on Qualcomm or any chip vendor in the TouchPad, just on HP itself. The TouchPad needed more work, and webOS as a whole needs more work. You can either scale a project out by taking more time to get it done, or you can scale its width by committing more resources to it. The latter (and more efficient development) is what Palm has needed since day one, what HP promised to bring to it, and sadly exactly what it ultimately failed to receive at HP.
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kmmatney - Saturday, August 20, 2011 - link
Damn....that's cheap!piiman - Saturday, August 20, 2011 - link
they are sold out now :-(Stuka87 - Friday, August 19, 2011 - link
Arstechnica had an article today about this exact subject, and about how the hardware was such a limiting factor, and how it was designed over a year ago, and a bunch of other stuff.And I was really quite sure that this could not be the case (in reference to speed). So thanks for taking the time to clear things up Anand.
I am bummed that WebOS may go the way of the dodo, as I really liked the interface and the way it acted. But it is slow, even on the TouchPad which has a lot of hardware.
killerroach - Sunday, August 21, 2011 - link
That being said, Ars does have a pretty long-standing tradition of taking glee in the hardships of anybody not named Apple.AmdInside - Friday, August 19, 2011 - link
What about developer relations? It is a key that many big companies use to push their products by offering development assistance to help the customer make a better product. Look at how well tuned apps are to intel processors because of this. Perhaps Qualcomm did not provide sufficient assistance to HP to make WebOS as fast as it could be.I picked up a couple of Touchpads this evening. Fingers crossed that someone can figure out a way eventually to get honeycomb on the Touchpad.
DanNeely - Friday, August 19, 2011 - link
I don't know if they actively sought developers out; but it appears they were responsive to anyone who contacted them. A friend of mine contacted HP and offered to port one of his employers games if they gave him hardware. He got both a phone and a tablet to play with.GrizzledYoungMan - Saturday, August 20, 2011 - link
How poopy the actual Android user experience is.kmmatney - Saturday, August 20, 2011 - link
Have to agree...I tried an Android tablet, but the user experience just wasn't there, so sold it and paid a lot more money for an iPad2. I'm itchin to upgrade my 2+ year old 3GS, but at the moment Android is a downgrade, so I'm just waiting for the next iPhone. I'll probably have to wait a month or more after it comes out because of all the hoopla. Pain in the ass to be tied to Apple products, but the user experience is worth it, IMO.piiman - Saturday, August 20, 2011 - link
Please define "user experience"Sterman - Saturday, August 20, 2011 - link
you know... that magical thingy that makes you feel good inside.