WEBVTT - The Curious Case of the HP TouchPad 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.880 It's ready, Are you hey there, Tex Stuff listeners. This 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:09.239 is Jonathan Strickland and I have got a request for 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:11.479 all of you. Now. Chris and I have decided that 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:13.800 we're going to try and experiment. We're doing our first 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.600 crowdsourced episode of tech Stuff and we want to know 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.920 what your pick is for the worst video game of 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:26.480 all time. Now, nominations you can. You can make one nomination. 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:28.960 You nominate one game, and you need to tell us 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.240 the name of the game and the platform it was on. 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:33.239 And it could be any platform. It could be an 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:37.600 arcade game, it could be a PC, Mac, Xbox, PS three, 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:42.360 Nintendo handheld console. It can be web based if you like. 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:44.479 But just you let us know what the platform is 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:46.400 so we can make sure we count that as the votes. 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:51.760 So you can nominate your game either through email, which 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:55.360 is text stuff at how stuff works dot com, or 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:59.280 you can nominate through Twitter or Facebook. And we're gonna 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:02.440 put a cut off date on this. I want to 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:04.680 have the episode go up by the end of September 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.240 of even so let's say you need to get your 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:13.480 nominations in by September eleven, So if you get those 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.959 nominations into us, we will make sure we include those 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.080 in the process and we will have an episode where 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:23.520 we give you the worst video games of all time 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.600 based upon the votes of our listeners. Thanks a lot. 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:31.119 You can't wait to hear from you. Get in touch 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:40.479 with technology with tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.240 Hello again, everyone, Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:46.000 Chris Poulett. I am an editor at how stuff Works 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.640 dot com. And sitting down across from me because he 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:53.240 just doesn't want to stand, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:57.520 Sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much and I 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:02.080 have to close my eyes and hide. That typically has 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.160 nothing to do with the electronics and computer industry, but 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:10.560 today we're talking about a very weird situation, the the 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.960 HP touch pad and its fate and uh and reaction 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:17.720 to that fate and what that reaction to that fate 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:20.600 might actually mean and how it could change the fate. 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:26.280 And I got a headache. Yeah. So a few podcasts ago, 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:27.880 and I don't even remember which one it was on 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:30.680 because I didn't think about it until just now to 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:34.760 look it up. Um, we talked about web OS and 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.080 in terms of and it was a tablet And I said, 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:39.320 you know what, I actually have finally had the chance 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:42.799 to mess around with an HP touch pad. Um And 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:45.040 it was the first time I had ever actually encountered 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.359 the web os in the wild. Um, I think there 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:50.519 was an elephant standing nearby. It was a little scary, 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:52.640 an elephant in my pajamas. How I got on my 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.840 touch pad I'll never know, but uh, but yeah, it 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:58.639 was the first time I had actually ever had the 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:01.320 opportunity to tried. I never actually seen a Palm pre 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:04.040 or anything, you know, anything else that ran it. And 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.480 I really liked the OS and I didn't spend hours 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.280 with it. I spent about five minutes with it, but 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:12.400 I thought, hey, you know what this is. This is 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:15.560 pretty nice. And I used Android on my phone and 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:19.000 I use you know iOS, I've got an iPad. I thought, well, 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:20.960 this this is a pretty nice o S. I really 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:22.760 like it. I would like to mess with it some more. 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.799 And I thought, maybe HP has got something with this thing. 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:30.680 Except HP didn't think so. Um. Well, before we before 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.320 we jumped too much into the actual story, we probably 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.080 should revisit. We did an episode on Palm which is 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:38.160 where you were thinking of the web os. We did 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:40.400 an episode on on the the rise and fall of 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:45.600 Palm and kind of it's a pathway and uh. And 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.320 in a way, what we're talking about now is almost 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:51.600 the death of Palm, although there's a glimmer there's a 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:55.680 glimmer of life left in what Palm created. Yeah, in 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:59.920 a in a nutshell, Palm, of course was h personal 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:06.000 digital assistant company. They made the hardware for UH, for 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:11.240 this device, which in the was wildly popular with business people. Um. 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.640 It was a predecessor to the smartphone, a company where 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:18.280 the the company founders left and created another company called Handspring. 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:22.400 They came up with the Trio, which was a very 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.520 early smartphone. It used. They licensed the Palm operating system 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:31.159 from Palm, and eventually Palm acquired hand Spring and started 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:36.880 making Trios, and they sort of, you know, gradually started 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:40.520 the smartphone market more or less, I would say, along 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:44.000 with BlackBerry. Right, BlackBerry was getting a lot of traction 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:48.440 in the enterprise field, so all the professionals, right, executives, 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.640 people like that, were snapping up Blackberries and getting hooked 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:56.120 on them. Uh. And then Palm was courting that same 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:00.200 customer base. Uh. Neither Palm nor BlackBerry at the time. 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:03.479 We're really making a huge dent in the general consumer 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.279 market that we didn't see the general consumer get interested 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:09.680 in smartphones really until the introduction of the iPhone in 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:13.680 two thousand seven. Yep. And the thing is, BlackBerry had 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:18.760 the enterprise market sewn up, partially because of their thorough encryption. 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:24.120 They have their their proprietary encryption system and network. UM 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:28.840 and iPhone had this brand new operating system, and all 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:31.960 of a sudden, Palms operating system which hadn't really been 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:35.919 updated significantly. I mean, yeah, I've been gone through periodic updates, 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:41.360 but it wasn't uh really new or refreshed. UM started 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.440 to really show its age. I mean BlackBerry and and 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.760 an Apple, we're really setting it behind. And it was 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:52.600 painfully obvious that Palm was losing ground very very quickly. Right, 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.600 So let's flash forward to two thousand nine. January two 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:59.159 thousand nine at C E. S. Palm unveils the Palm 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:03.560 pre running the brand new web OS. The press went nuts, 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:06.120 Oh boy, did they? Yeah? Look at that this was 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:08.720 a device that had more buzz around it than just 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.640 about anything else on the floor that year. There were 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:14.520 a couple of other items that also got some some 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.520 major buzz, but the Palm pre was was way up there, 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.960 and everyone who saw it thought it looked really snazzy. 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.640 That the web operating System or the web OS rather 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:27.520 was that it was very um uh snazzy. It had 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:31.080 a nice, uh flashy look to it. It looked like 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.080 it was very responsive. Uh, it looked like it could 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:37.080 really give the iPhone a run for its money as 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:41.799 far as design is concerned. Because really, I'm a huge 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:44.040 Android fan, don't get me wrong, So when I say this, 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.400 know that I'm saying it as someone who owns Android 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.280 products and loves the Android system. Android does not have 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:55.160 the flash or style of iOS. It doesn't. It's it's 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:57.760 a very useful system, and it has a lot of 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.880 flexibility and a lot of customization built into it, which 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:03.159 is fantastic and that's why I love it. But it 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:07.040 doesn't have the kind of snazzy look of iOS or 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.920 web os. So the response was, Hey, this is a 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:15.040 smartphone that might appeal to the same potential customer as 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:19.160 Apple's customers, right, not just like not just smartphone buyers, 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:21.520 because some smartphone buyers are like me, you know, they're 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.280 gonna be I want the Android one because it it 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.480 kind of caters to my style. Some are going to 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:30.600 be I like this one because it's pretty and it works. 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.160 And uh, and there's nothing wrong with either of those two. 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.080 By the way, I'm not passing any judgment. I just 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.600 happened to fall into that one category versus the other. Now, 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.160 the webOS the Palm pre like I said, made a 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:44.760 huge splash, but there was a problem in that it 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.520 didn't get to market until June of two thousand nine. 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:52.040 So it was it was unveiled in January and then 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:56.760 six months passed before it hits store shelves. Yeah, and 0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:00.240 there's another problem too, and it really hit a long 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.760 time before this, and that is that Palm did not 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:09.120 move early enough to make this work. Not really right. 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.400 So by two thousand nine, the iPhone has been out 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:13.280 for two years. The Android phone has been out for 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:16.160 almost as long. Android launched just a few months after 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:20.880 the iPhone became available, and so you already had these 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.080 companies already had a jump in the smartphone market. We're 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:27.360 already building a customer base, and so you're starting to 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.960 lose the number of people who are interested in smartphones. 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.920 But don't already have one, and then that means that 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:37.200 you have to get whatever group is left, like people 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:39.120 who want a smartphone but haven't bought one. They've held 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:41.720 off that that number has gotten very small, or you 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.160 have to convince people who have bought a smartphone to switch, 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:46.280 which is tough because most of the time, at least 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.520 in the United States, those smartphones are coming with contracts 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:52.800 that last at least two years, and to get out 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:54.880 of that contract you have to spend more money. So 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.400 it means that the purchase price of a new smartphone, 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:01.200 you know that part of it, that's the base amount 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:02.520 of where you're gonna spend, but you're also going to 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.040 spend the money to get out of your current contract 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:07.880 on top of that, so it makes those smartphones even 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:10.080 more expensive. Or you know, if you buy a phone 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:12.840 that isn't connected to a plan, that adds money to 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:18.080 the purchase price. So anyway, uh, yeah, Palm was already 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:20.720 behind in the game, and then the fact that it 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:23.640 took six months from the unveiling to the launch meant 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:27.000 that that buzz that was so powerful back in January 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.679 had died down to just a murmur by June, and 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.520 so it the Palm pre did not have a hugely 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:38.200 successful launch. Uh. They followed it up with the Palm Pixie, 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:42.240 which had even worse But anyway, Palm started to suffer 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:46.040 and then the company began to waiver financially. And that's 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:48.760 when HP stepped in in two thousand ten and purchased 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:52.520 the company. Yeah, they had been sort of, I would say, 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.559 not so secretly looking for suitors, you know, who wants 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:58.679 to pick us up. We got some good stuff and 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:02.680 uh an HP was was the winning bidder on the 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.760 company and picked it up. And people began saying, okay, 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:07.959 so is HP going to get in the smartphone business? Now? 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:09.840 What does this mean for the web os? And HP 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:12.680 pretty much said definitively they were not interested in the 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:14.880 smartphone business. That didn't mean that they were going to 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:18.480 completely discontinue all that, but they they the company made 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:22.520 it very clear that this purchase was really for webOS 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:27.160 more than anything else. And and so people were saying, okay, 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:29.080 so if you're not going to make smartphones with it, 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.880 what are you going to do with it? And of course, 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:39.240 in with the launch of Apple's iPad um, it became 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:42.960 clear that there was a market for consumers to buy 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:48.000 tablet computers. So the tablet computer race is now on, 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:52.800 with Apple firmly in the lead. Uh and HP starts 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:56.520 to develop tablets as well. And tablets were not again, 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:59.120 not a new thing. Tablets have been around for a while. 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:01.680 It's just that iPad was the first one to really 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:04.920 become a success in the consumer market, and it was 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:08.520 depending up. I don't want to say it's clear that 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:12.640 Microsoft Windows was not a good operating system for tablets. 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:15.079 I'll say that a lot of engineers did not like 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:18.720 using Windows for tablets. They found it to not be ideal. 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.960 Plus the form factor for tablets to previous tablets the 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:30.440 Microsoft operating system, tablets were primarily essentially notebook computers for 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.160 which the screen would flip inside out and you could 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:36.320 snap it down. So it was more or less the 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:41.760 size and heft of a laptop computer, a smallish laptop computer, 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.560 but not the same form factor the small size of 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:50.960 a of an iPad. Then, yeah, so HP starts working 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:54.760 on on actually are they been working but they they're 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:58.760 developing the touch pad. That's their their tablet, and the 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:05.280 touch pad launched officially on July one, yep, July one, 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:13.600 and we're recording this, uh towards the end ish of August, 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.000 when we're sitting down in the studio. We know that 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:18.320 you guys are listening to this later because you're not 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:22.680 in here with us, right. But the thing is, UM. 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.280 In July they announced, you know, they released these and 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:31.960 on August I heard of a story in which Best 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.760 Buy was saying, these things aren't selling. We want HP 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:40.120 to take them back. Uh. It was a rumor because 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:42.680 you know, the companies aren't really gonna do that. But 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.800 basically what happened was they had they had purchased a 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:49.320 lot of inventory, and the inventory wasn't moving. They weren't 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.679 moving them. Yeah, and they were priced about the same 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:53.559 as an iPad, and they were around the same amount 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.760 as an iPad. And and so you're talking tablets, Yeah, 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:02.160 you're talking about the five to eight dollar range, depending 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:06.440 upon the tablets. UM. So the touchpads were not really moving. 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:13.199 And then HP dropped a bombshell on the world, uh, 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:17.200 in a in a call on August nine, and that 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.080 was when HP said that the executive said that they 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:24.000 were no longer going to support the developing web os products. 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:28.200 Now the software will, according to HP, continue to be 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:30.960 supported in some way that wasn't really addressed in that 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:37.320 particular discussion. But so there's no immediate indication that webOS 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.679 itself is really going away, but the HP is no 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.920 longer going to be building products for web Os, and 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.640 that means no more smartphones or tablets running the web 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:50.520 Os operating system, which is you know, only a few 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.760 weeks of the tablet being out there, forty nine days 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:57.720 to be specific, And in fact, forty nine days means 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:01.760 that the HP Touchpad did out pasked one other electronic 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:06.320 device that was famously launched and then abandoned soon thereafter, 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:10.360 and that was the Kin from Microsoft sow. The Kin 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:15.200 was the the the follow up to the Sidekick. You know, 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:19.800 Microsoft purchased danger yes, and then UH decided to introduce 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:23.760 the Kin, which was running on on the the Dangerous servers, 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:28.800 and that lasted forty eight days from launch to abandonment. 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.120 So the touchpad survived a day longer than the Ken did. 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:34.920 These were not, by the way, just I don't want 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.960 to give the indication that both of these stories happened simultaneously. 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:43.840 The kN that that happened before the touchpad story. But anyway, Yeah, 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.880 so this ended up making some waves in technology circles. 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.680 People were starting to talk about does this mean that 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:54.000 Palm is officially dead now that webbos has essentially been 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:57.640 abandoned uh, And then there were other people saying, no, 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.720 no, no no, let's not jump to conclusions, because, as HP 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:02.680 has said, they will continue to support at least the 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:08.160 software side of web os UH. My question is that, UH, 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:13.880 is there enough of an incentive for developers to continue 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:17.680 developing applications for web os knowing that there are no 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:22.400 plans for any future hardware that will run the operating system, 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:24.840 at least not any from HP. I mean, there's always 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.560 the possibility that HP could license out operating system to 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:31.760 some other hardware manufacturer, right right, so we might see 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:35.240 some other branded UH device come out with the web 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:39.080 Os on it. Yeah. Now let's pretend, for for for 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:43.960 just a moment, that the story stops right here. UM, 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:46.240 I think the podcast would pretty much stop right here, 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:50.480 because I think, UH, speaking for myself anyway, I would 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.520 say it's unlikely that HP is going to do anything 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:59.480 with it. It's unlikely, considering the difficulty with which Palm 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:05.320 UH fund itself trying to be purchased, that anybody will 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.400 want to pick it up. So I would say that 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:13.200 this is the death of the web os. That's if 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:19.360 the story stops here. But weirdly enough, so it doesn't. 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:22.840 The touch pad became the most popular obsolete device I 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:27.960 have ever heard of. It's it's very strange. Now, it's well, 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:32.880 it's that's completely strange. But well, so we have we've 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:35.400 we've already uh, you know, touched on the fact that 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:37.040 there are tons and tons of them out there right 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:41.000 they're not selling. Um. Yeah, the article I had, um 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:44.280 I read about was Eric Hesseldahl from All Things d 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.160 who who he was going on rumors that Best Buy 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.800 had bought two hundred seventy thousand touch pads and it 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:56.200 only moved twenty five thousand of them. She actually mentioned, well, 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:58.360 I mean you talked about the discounts. There was a 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:02.120 discount for fifty dollars and then a hundred dollars on 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.080 on the touch pad that ended up being a permanent discount. 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:07.680 After they still weren't selling. They said there was a 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.080 deal on woot dot com for a hundred twenty dollars 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:14.960 off the sixteen gigabyte model six D twelve. People went 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:17.960 in for it. It's not really a lot of people 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.439 showing interest in it. Again, no one's gonna pick it up. 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:25.280 They've killed it off. It's not except at this point, 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:29.359 with all these touch pads in the marketplace, HP and 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:33.520 all these retailers decided to put it on a steep discount. 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:35.760 So there are two models, the sixteen and the thirty 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:39.760 two gigabyte, and they started going for as low as 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.919 ninety nine dollars. Yeah, and and include there was one 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:47.960 place where you could get it for forty because here's Staples, Staples, Staples, 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:53.000 because Staples was running a promotion, whereas fifty dollars off 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.800 a tablet for the back to school promotion. So if 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:59.720 you bought the nine dollar sixteen gigabyte touch pad from 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:01.720 stay Poles, you would get the fifty dollars back. It 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:04.600 was a forty nine dollar tablet. If I had seen that, 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.440 I same here. Okay, I do not own a touch pad, Chris, 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:11.040 you do not own a touch pad, but both of 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:14.280 us at a hundred dollars. That's this is This is 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:16.440 where the story really gets interesting because it could mean 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:21.320 huge changes coming up in the tablet market going forward, 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.840 because people have taken notice when HP reduced the prices 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:27.560 for the sixteen gigabyte down to and the thirty two 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:29.879 gigabyte was down to a hundred and forty nine dollars. 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:34.040 People started sweeping them up. People were buying them in bunches, 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:38.720 because you could buy five sixteen gigabyte touch bad tablets 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:43.440 for the same price as and iPad. Yeah, and they've 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.600 started showing up on eBay for more than that for yeah, 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.119 some in some cases more than what the retail price 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:53.000 was when they were in stores. But the that was 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:55.199 the the interesting thing was that people started jumping on 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.080 these deals, and in fact HP was soon out of stock, 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.760 although of course lots of other type pads are still 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.920 on their way back to HP. So by the time 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:05.960 this podcast goes live, I can't say for sure that 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:08.160 there will be more sales because I don't know the numbers, 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:10.800 but I do know that between the time we're recording 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.000 and then there probably will be another sale on HP, 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.199 and and that HP even invited people to sign up 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:20.440 for notifications when it would go on sale again. Yeah. 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:23.240 And and the thing is to HP has said we're 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:26.720 temporarily out of stock, we will be getting more of them, right, 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.480 and and there are all the other places that we're 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:34.600 selling them for the nine dollars. Very quickly sold out, 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:38.280 and there were websites dedicated just to tracking these deals 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:40.560 and letting people know when the deals were active and 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:43.360 then when the deals had had expired, like when all 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:46.280 the inventory was sold out. And I was watching these 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:47.639 for a while because I was thinking, you know what, 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:49.960 maybe I'll pick one up because a hundred dollars, that's 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.320 that's tempting. Um. And even though knowing that the web 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:57.240 os operating system may be obsolete, you know, there may 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.320 not be that much more developed before that operates istem 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:02.679 just because again, if you're a developer and you're going 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:05.800 to spend the time, money, and effort to build something, 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:07.919 you want to hit. Uh. You want to build an 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:09.959 application it's going to as many people as possible, and 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:12.440 you don't do it for an operating system that's obsolete, right, 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:17.280 one would guess. But because these sales have gone so 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:21.760 crazy all over the place, now there's a renewed interest, 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:26.800 at least in the journalism sphere, of where could webbos 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.639 go after this, because it's shown that people are willing 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:33.960 to buy this product at this price. Uh, Now it 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:37.960 may not go anywhere for webOS. Well, it is important 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:40.879 to note, um. I read in the Christian Science Monitor 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:45.440 an article by Chris Gaylord who pointed out that apparently 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:50.720 the parts cost for a touch pad. Actually he quoted 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:54.800 I supply, um, the parts inside a touch pad cost 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.920 about three six dollars. So if you're wondering if HP 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:02.560 is gonna go, huh, well, we can sell these, but 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:05.959 we're gonna have to deeply discount them. They're gonna have 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:07.600 to if they want to make a profit on it. 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:10.280 And they would make a profit on the hardware, not 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:13.320 on the software. You know, other other companies can do that, 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:16.240 you know, people like Sony with the PlayStation. They're gonna 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:19.840 make some money on the games. HP is not really 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:22.400 going to make money on the software side, so they 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:25.959 would have to price it above three d seven dollars. 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:30.720 I'm sounding like the prices right one dollar? Um, so yeah, 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:33.120 a hundred dollars. They're not going to make any money 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:35.840 on it. But the thing is now there is an 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:39.200 entrenched base of users sort of. I mean there there 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:42.679 weren't people before. Now there is an incentive to develop 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:46.280 software for the web os because there are a lot 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:48.639 of people now, not not as many as with the 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:52.040 iPad or with the Android tablets. But there are people 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:55.040 using the web os. The question is is it worth 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:59.640 catering to that audience or is it worth just exploring 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:03.000 options of catering to the Apple and Android audiences, which are, 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:06.359 like you said, much larger. Um, I think and and not. 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:08.840 And to complicate that a little more, I know that 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:13.520 there are people furiously working on ways to uh to 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:19.200 essentially white webOS off the tablet and replace it with Android. Um, 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:23.320 I've I've seen, I know, I've seen reports about early 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:30.160 Gingerbread builds, Gingerbread being that the in the smart No, no, 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.840 that's Honeycomb. Gingerbread is the old smart Point. There's the 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:37.280 smartphone operating system. Yeah, and there's plans of incorporating the 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:41.280 Honeycomb operating system, assuming that you know, the hardware can 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:43.280 can run it properly and all this kind of stuff. 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:46.800 By the time, by the time this podcast goes live, 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:50.240 there may very well be a Honeycomb build specifically geared 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:52.440 so that you know, you can replace your webOS with 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:55.440 Honeycomb if you wanted to. So there's that problem, because 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:57.479 you know, there might be developers saying, yeah, they're all 0:22:57.520 --> 0:22:59.680 these there are all these tablets that are out there, 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:03.040 but there's a certain percentage of tablet owners who don't 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:04.800 even want that web os in the first place, So 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:08.880 why would I develop for it? Then? But beyond that, 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:12.840 this shows that there is a demand for tablets. Uh. 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:14.920 There are a lot of people who want a tablet, 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:17.159 but who are not willing to pay the prices that 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:21.040 you find on your your average tablet on the marketplace. 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:24.320 And they want a tablet that's of a certain quality, 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:27.679