RUMOR: HP TouchPad to start at $699, launch in June

HP TouchPad“It’s been communicated to us that HP is (or was — it’s not clear if things have recently changed) planning on having the TouchPad in market before the end of June,” Jonathan S. Geller reports for BGR.

“We’ve also been told pricing should be $699,” Geller reports.

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Too much money and too late, especially since it’ll be going against Apple’s next-gen iPad and its attendant ecosystem, of which HP has none to speak. And, yes, Apple should sue HP for trade dress infringement for the principle of it, at the very least.

Related article:
HP unveils iPad clone called ‘TouchPad’, new Pre phones; to bring webOS desktops and laptops – February 9, 2011

43 Comments

    1. I gotta say, even though I still think Apple’s iPad is superior, the TouchPad seems more compelling to me than the stupid Android tablets.

      At least Palm tried to do create something special with webOS instead of just blatantly and excessively copying iOS.

    2. Because you have a Palm Pre phone and like it, but also want a tablet that uses the same OS you know and love. You know, like the iPad for iPhone users.

      Despite the rantings on this tiny little website; there is a larger world out there that contain other people with other likes and dislikes.

      Really, questions like this are so goddamn silly.

        1. If you don’t have a WebOS phone you probably wouldn’t. Besides, I thought this was an article about the device not a sales pitch…

          goddamned…lol.

        1. Yes this is “Mac” daily news. So why even post a WebOS device article and then everyone start jacking each other off over it?

          I’m here because I’m a long time Mac and iPod user and like to get “Mac” info. But the comments and takes are really sickeningly stupid a lot of the time.

        2. Agreed. I can’t even make a simple statement that the notification system on android and webOS tabs are better than the current system in iOS without getting butt raped.

          BTW. Typing this all from my iPhone 4 while watching Netflix on my
          Apple tv.

        3. Don’t read what? Posts like yours? Don’t make judgmental or superior sounding posts like your post? Welcome to the Internet buddy. I’m free to do what I want where I want when I want.

  1. It seems that in the future, one of Apple’s key advantages will be the ability to beat the competition on retail PRICE. So even if they manage to do a “good enough” copy of hardware and software, Apple will undercut the competition on price. And if the competition cannot make a worthwhile profit copying Apple, they will eventually run of the desire (and funding) to even make the effort.

    Apple, the leader in BOTH price AND value… that’s quite a change.

    1. agreed. The so-called apple tax is just a myth.

      This is not the phone game with subsidies. They all have to compete on a level playing field. And even going beyond the OS / Hardware configurations (or compromises which is as a designer myself is crucial) they still have to compete with the battery chemistry, the A4, A5 processors custom-designed for the iOS and backed up their own power management. You also include the apple ecosystem, iTunes, airplay, and the third-party vendors, the competitors have an insurmountable challenge.

      They would have to sell with no-profit margin to compete on the retail price against the iPad. The chinese knockoffs are just sad. To think a little over a year ago there was no market, now apple’s ipad is not only the market leader, there is no answer to it, if ever.

      These guys are still playing catchup with the iPad, what happens when iPad 2 comes out, an iPad Pro designed around media creators i.e., photographers, graphic designers, architects, sculptors, video producers, musicians and other creative professionals?

      At price and the endless possibilities app programmers keep given us, the iPad is sure to be the value buy for many years.

  2. I’m glad HP is moving away from windows. The Touchpad is a solid competitor to the iPad. I bet Dell is hating their decision to go the Android route. WP7 is decent, Android is good, WebOS is really good, but iOS is outstanding.

    1. Agreed. I think the whole WebOS ..er.. OS is pretty compelling. I was really sad when Palm went under, because I’ve always thought that WebOS was the only true potential competitor with iOS.

      Good competition is good for us consumers. It drives even the innovation leaders (Apple) to keep moving forward.

  3. It’s a full blown clone. They’ve even modelled themselves on Apples hardware platform bundled with its own integrated OS.

    After decades of pointing the finger at Apple and labelling them ‘closed’ they’re now doing exactly the same.

    1. I’ve been saying this about MS for a while. They want to play both sides. Calling Apple “closed” yet they want to provide their own integrated hardware solutions.

      All it does is vindicate APple’s approach.

  4. We can’t wait to get our hands on These gems
     in our offices. After playing with some demo units last week, our HP rep has promised to keep us on tap for first dibs when these are released into the wild. These will compliment our fleet of Z200s quite nicely. Our sales staff will be able to turn it up to 11 all the while flicking through apps like no ones business. Multitasking.. for real, folks. For real!

  5. I think the decision to sue these flagrant shameless copycats companies is a waste of time and money since their fake iPads copies are DOA from the beginning. It isn’t worth bothering.

  6. If you don’t believe that Apple’s competitors are clueless drones, observe how they present slavish copies of Apple’s products again and again without the slightest trace of embarrassment. Then they have the gall to take credit for these “innovations”. Give me an f’n break! The biggest joke, as others have noted, is that these ripped-off “innovations” are usually copies of products that Apple has already taken to the next level. When Steve Jobs said at the original iPhone introduction that Apple’s technology was five years ahead of the competition, he was making an extraordinarily conservative estimate.

  7. He thang looks like it has rubber bumpers, it will probably feel cheap too. Judging for how many of the Palm phones were returned for cracks etc… you cam expect these to to be toy like and too fragile. The OS wil lag but will probably have better appeal than Android and the ecosystem will suck. They won’t use iTunes to sync again, so maybe by now they’ve figured out how to do that on their own. $ 699 means user taking a huge risk on an unlikely reliable real thing…does not compute, compete or have meat.

  8. Im always reading how much all the tablets are copying the ios….. i just dont see it. Ios is my preference BUT after looking at the honeycomb os I see almost nothing that is a copy of ios, multitasking widgets etc etc the are very much different. If by copying you mean the form factor, its a TABLET hence square and thin ala stone tablets that came out just before apple came out with the ipad.

    1. Agreed. I’m a big Apple fan myself (iPhone, iPad, iMac, Macbook owner), but this tablet in particular looks pretty promising and not at all a clone of iOS. Completely different sensibilities in the OS itself.

      It’s like berating every car company after Ford as worthless copy-cats. It’s where the industry is moving folks, Apple just got there first (as usual).

      I for one hope WebOS explodes with popularity. If nothing else, it’ll push Apple to improve their products to stay ahead of the competition (*cough* notification handling *cough*).

      HP isn’t stupid. In fact, they’re quite brilliant for buying up the only really innovative mobile OS besides iOS, instead of just partnering with (and getting screwed by) Microsoft.

  9. I don’t know, looks really nice. But iOS already has a lot of really great apps I use daily, and iOS is all around a polished OS. For the price why not get the king of hill…. Not if the HP was say $300 or $350 I might check it out, looks pretty sweet…

    Needs a year or two to get some good apps in..

    And it’s not like iTunes is all that great. I thought the zune software was better at recognizing the album name and art work.. iTunes is really bad at this. So I wouldn’t miss iTunes at all! lol

  10. @G

    Of course thoes our your own thoghts and you can say what you will, but with my Setup I have never had any problems with iTunes, over 375 movies, 3,124 individual television shows (includes series shows) and 12,235.00 song titles.

    Now, this my lifes library, I am close to 50 years of age and have eveything now digital all the Dvd’s & cd’s tapes & ect have been placed into iTunes and it (iTunes) handels them all fine and very fast, with my Aople Tv2 it’s even better so I don’t see what the problem is with iTunes other then some people just live to complain about it.

    So many users have said they love iTunes while just a few and mostly the windows & Linux users are more vocal on the dislike and so is the problem, but with a good free metadata app you can remedy all the problems very fast and this goes fir all platforms Mac,Windiws,Linux & then have iTune’s take control once you get use to it and the many addons you can use it’s a very powerfull media control center.

  11. So far HP is the only real competition Apple has. Even though the touchPad is not going to be sold until June, it is a strong alternative to the iPad 2. WebOS is a new operating system that can scale to the desktop (at least according to HP) and HP makes it’s own hardware. It remains to be seen if it will be a viable alternative to OSX/iOS, but it is the only alternative to the Apple ecosystem. Windows/Phone and Android/Honeycomb/Chrome are still just unintegrated software solutions based on license fees or advertising/search revenues to prosper. Consumers will gravitate toward consistent, reliable products and only Apple and HP are in a position to control that experience right now (well by the summer anyhow).
    Every Apple user should be thrilled with this announcement as it will force Apple to consider some of the criticisms of the iOS user experience and evolve it a bit.

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