“Former Palm CEO and current HP executive Jon Rubenstein sent a letter to employees addressing lukewarm reviews of its new TouchPad tablet, and suggested that criticism of its webOS operating system is similar to complaints reviewers had with early versions of Mac OS X,” Sam Oliver reports for AppleInsider.
The letter from Rubinstein, who is senior vice president and general manager of HP’s Palm Global Business Unit, came in response to reviews that characterized the newly launched TouchPad as a ‘mediocre tablet,'” Oliver reports. “Reviewers were impressed with the look of the TouchPad, but took issue with the device’s weight, bugs, and lack of applications.”
MacDailyNews Take: Reviewers must have been impressed with the look of the TouchPad because it looks just like a really thick iPad. More great originality from a bunch of printer ink peddlers.
Dear Apple legal dept., looks like you have yet another valid case of trade dress infringement should you desire to pursue it.
Oliver reports, “He then shared a trio of quotes from reviews from a different piece of software that launched more than 10 years ago: Apple’s own Mac OS X operating system. Those early reviews characterized the software as ‘sluggish,’ without any ‘quality apps,’ and ‘just not making sense.’ ‘It’s hard to believe those statements described Mac OS X — a platform that would go on to change the landscape of Silicon Valley in ways that no one could have imagined,’ he said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: With Mac OS X there was a need for a superior desktop OS, and, get this, an audience of millions of Mac users ready and waiting.
Just as with iPod, there is no need for a “superior” iPad. Just as with iPod, the only maker of superior iPads will be Apple. Someone ought to tell John Rubinstein, wheel re-inventor. You’d think, by now, he’d have figured it out.
Other than hopelessly-outclassed tech companies, a handful of Apple castoffs, and some tech magazines who like to concoct “shootouts,” exactly who’s crying out for iPad knockoffs? Nobody. Not in any meaningful numbers.
This whole thing is iPod redux: A bunch of inferior junk in search of Apple’s table scraps. HP’s quest to become the San Disk of tablets ought to be an embarrassment to a company where “invent” actually meant something a very long time ago.