Full review of HP’s never announced, never released, 7-inch TouchPad Go, the webOS-powered iPad competitor that could have been

Derek Kessler of our newly renamed sibling site, webOS Nation, has got his snarky, geeky hands on the krayt dragon of the gadget world, and done up a complete and proper TouchPad Go review.

For those joining our webOS tragedy already in progress, while HP allowed the 9.7-inch TouchPad to stay on the market for dozens of days before canceling it, they didn’t even allow the 7-inch TouchPad Go to enter the market. Could it have done better than RIM’s 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook? Could it have made Amazon’s 7-inch Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble’s 7-inch Nook Tablet seem inelegant by contrast?

Sadly, because of HP’s stupefying lack of testicular fortitude and mobile tenacity, we’ll never know. But, bittersweetly, Derek can offer us a glimpse:

The TouchPad Go is not a bad tablet. But it’s also not a great tablet. Like the standard TouchPad, it’s a good tablet. Better than okay, but also not mind-blowingly awesome. By virtue of its size it changes how you use it, but not in any fundamental manner. It sought to fill a void in the webOS tablet market, seeking the customer that wants something smaller than the ten-inch tablet but doesn’t want to compromise in the process. While any tablet comes with compromises, the TouchPad Go’s compromises (at least over the original TouchPad) are only directly related to its size.

Check out the full review: webOS Nation

Last week, TouchPad 4.0 for iPhone and iPad hit the App Store. This app works as a secondary trackpad and keyboard for your computer. One of the cool new features of the update is that you can use Siri to input text to the keyboard, and thus your computer.

Giveaway

Because we love you so much, TiPb is gifting copies of TouchPad to 5 lucky readers! For a chance to win, just leave a comment below!

Must have a US iTunes account to win. Apple’s rule, not ours!

• $4.99 – App Store link]

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

Edovia’s TouchPad for iPhone and iPad has just hit version 4.0 and brings with it some great new polish and performance, and some hints at the future of Screens as well.

This version took more time than planned and most of the work was made deep down in the app, mostly in preparation of Screens 2.0, which uses the same VNC framework we’ve developed for the past years and had to be revamped. The result is a super solid app that won’t give up!

TouchPad 4.0 includes the following updates:

• Modifiers toolbar now always visible
• More media players
• Use the Siri key on your device keyboard to send text to your computer
• Many new shortcuts (see 3 and 4 finger gestures in documentation)
• Improved support for international keyboards
• Improved help documentation
• Improved screen zooming gesture

TouchPad is perfect if you want a secondary multitouch input device for your Mac, Windows, or Linux PC, and especially handy if you have a Mac mini or Windows Media Center box across the room and want to control it without getting off the couch or out of bed. It’s anywhere your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad are, with means there’s a really good chance it’s exactly where you need it, when you need it.

You can find details on the update via the source link below, or head on over to the App Store and grab it now.

$4.99 – App Store link

Source: Edovia

While I can’t claim for sure TiPb was the first to say there wasn’t a tablet market, just an iPad market, we’ve been talking for a long time now about how the iPad has become so dominant, so fast, it’s left very little room in mainstream hearts and wallets for competitors. The latest cases in point:

• According to The Guardian, Lenovo director of consumer products, Andrew Barrow, said rival Samsung has only sold some 20,000 for the 1 million Galaxy Tab 7s they’d stuffed into channels last year. Also, due to Apple’s economies of scale and component pricing advantage, trying to undercut them with cheaper tablets “would be giving money away.” Will newer Galaxy Tabs that blur the lines between phones (5.5) and full on tablets (10.1) change anything?

• Meanwhile Android Central says the HTC Jetstream is now available on AT&T for… $699 on two year contract or $849 unsubsidized. The Jetstream specs and features look interesting, even the HTC Scribe stylus, but at that price I’m guessing not many people will even give it a chance.

• PCMag says Best Buy is cutting $150 off the price tag of the BlackBerry PlayBook 64GB. Again, with iPad starting at $499 and HP’s TouchPad having been on fire sale for $99, it’s tough for small tablets to justify big price tags. Will BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 turn that around, or will RIM have to suck it up and cut costs to gain share?

• Lastly, and sadly, while HP will be doing another limited run of TouchPad‘s to keep manufacturing partners happy, they don’t seem to be changing their minds about investing in webOS tablet hardware in the long run. They don’t even seem able to put out the larger capacity, different colored devices they had on the roadmap. And Derek from PreCentral.net so wanted one in white!

Is anyone besides Apple close to getting this right yet? When iPad 3 launches next spring, am I going to have anyone else even trying to tempt me away from it? Amazon? JooJoo? Who?

[The Guardian, Android Central, PCMag, HP]

While HP may not have killed webOS when it cancelled webOS hardware, it certainly stuck the knife in it and twister really, really hard — and every webOS user, Palm loyalist, and PreCentral.net reader felt it. Some might choose to stick with it, to see if HP’s incompetence can somehow be turned around by a forward thinking, hardware genius licensor, but others might have finally had enough. If you’re one of those, the dedicated, the abused, we think Apple’s iOS and iPhone and iPad hardware might be the perfect thing to salve your wounds and restore your sense of gadget wonder.

We’ve got 960×640 retina displays, easy-peasy FaceTime video calling, high quality 5 megapixel, back-illuminated camera that shoots 720p 30fps video, the massive update that’s iOS 5 just down the road. And hey, if you’re worried about moving over your personal data like contacts, finding apps, getting used to the differences, and wondering where to get help — Relax. You’re in the the right place. Here’s everything you need to know (more properly, everything the TiPb iPhone Forums have taught us) about switching to iPhone and iPad.

webOS to iPhone – home coming

When half of Apple’s original iPhone team left for Palm to make the webOS, maybe you went with them? Or maybe you’re a loyalist who stuck with Palm from Treo to Pre or Centro to Pixi or Veer and never even considered an iPhone until now? No worries. You’ll feel right at home. Mostly.

The biggest similarity between iOS and webOS is that they both share a sense of design — of taste and elegance, of great user interface and experience. webOS certainly handles many things better, including the brilliant Card and Stack metaphors, but overall iOS is clean, consistent, and arguably has the best fit and finish in the business.

But taste only matters if you can get your stuff done.

Moving over contacts, calendars, and email

Hopefully if you’re using something called webOS your personal info is all store up in the cloud. If so, you should have no trouble getting it onto your iPhone. Just like the pioneering Pre, iOS 4 can handle multiple ActiveSync accounts, including Exchange proper as well as Google Sync’s implementation for Gmail. Just tap the Settings icon on the Home Screen, tap Mail, Contacts, and Calendars, choose Exchange, and enter your credentials.

If ActiveSync isn’t to your fancy, you can tap Other and set up pretty much any POP3 or IMAP account you have in your collection, and MobileMe, Yahoo!, AOL, Hotmail, and anything else you can think of.

You can also load up any webmail account you like in the Safari web browser, including gmail.com, if that’s how you want to roll.

And you can access all of it in iOS 4′s unified inbox and threaded email client.

What about Synergy and Cards?

There’s nothing as stupendous as Synergy built into iOS — yet. Though the previously mentioned Exchange, Google, and MobileMe contacts, calendars, and email can live together in quasi-synergistic fashion, they’re still all masters of their own separate domains. If you install the Facebook app [iTunes link] you can get some contact sync going on there as well (as can LinkedIn and other social apps). Other apps, like Orbit [iTunes link] can pull together your Facebook, Twitter, SMS, email, etc. contacts and let you assign different “volumes” to them so you can manage the level of interruption.

iOS has a highly abstracted version of multitasking that, for mainstream users, would be indistinguishable from the real thing were it not for the great battery life and overall snappiness. Rather than Cards, you double click the Home button and the fast app switcher UI appears so you can quickly get to other apps (which can now save state so you go back to where you left them). But hey, if you find yourself missing Cards, just launch the Safari browser and hit the icon for Page view. It’s visually almost identical, though it lacks the ability to flick a page away to remove it.

And yes, since iOS 4, navigation, VoIP, and streaming music Pandora or Slacker-style can all multitask away blissfully in the background.

Finding other apps (and games)

HP webOS is the most developer friendly platform in the business bar none. They make Google seem closed and stodgy by comparison. But what Apple lacks in free-as-in-speech open App Store gates, they make up for in sheer tonnage of free-as-in-beer App Store goodness. And often at dollar store prices. Sure, there’s a lot of CrApps in with those apps, but with hundreds of thousands and growing there’s also a huge amount of incredibly good, incredibly native, apps and games.

As Steve Jobs himself will tell you, Apple also supports HTML5 as a second, completely open platform. And they support it better than any other platform — you can even add them as icons to the iOS Home Screen so they’re full on first class citizens, complete with no browser chrome and offline cashing. If you can’t find something in the App Store, chances are you can find it as a web app for the iPhone.

When it comes to apps of all kinds, TiPb looks at several a week and we’ve got a whole iPhone Apps and Games Forum ready to help you out as well.

Root meet Jailbreak

There’s no manufacturer supported rooting on iPhone, and no ultra-cool Konami code to enter developer mode, and no encouraged patching of any kind. (Apple says “stop it” and would give the EFF noogies if they could.)

If you want to get into the root jail of your iPhone, you need to break it — hence, Jailbreak. If you want to side load apps outside the App Store, you need to use the Jailbreak app store, Cydia. Now, if you don’t understand what any of this means, just skip along to the next section, we’ll be there waiting. If you’re a diehard themer and patcher, you’ll want to keep your eyes peeled to our Jailbreak section, and more importantly — our Jailbreak Help Forum, and Jailbreak Apps, Games, and Themes Forum.

No. More. Keyboard.

You won’t be able to shave or cut cheese with the iPhone keyboard — because it’s virtual. If you believe the urban legend, former Palm CEO, Jon Rubenstein, back when he was still a VP at Apple, vigorously disagreed with Steve Jobs about the iPhone not having a physical keyboard. Hence, the Pre and Veer both have physical keyboards.

And that’s okay. Just not on the iPhone. Apple likes their keys virtual so they go away when you don’t need them (without creaking, oreo’ing, popping batteries, or coming to the rescue when virtual keyboards just won’t do). On the plus side, if you’re multilingual or international, the iPhone keyboard can easily be switched to any alphabet, script, stroke, or pictographic symbol you want to use. It can also become optimized for numbers, games, or pretty much anything you (technically, a developer) can think of.

Best of all, if you really miss your physical keyboard,you can tether up a Bluetooth one and knock email — and yourself — out.

Welcome back, iTunes

Remember back when Palm was trying and ultimately failing to hack the Pre into iTunes? Us neither. Anyway, with iPhone, you’re a first (and only) class citizen with full keys to Apple’s media kingdom. Enjoy.

Oh, hi iCloud

You may have dismissed iOS before because of the iTunes tether. Come October, Apple’s cutting the cord to iTunes.

Now you’ll still be able to tether up for re-charging, or syncing giant movie files, but you don’t have to. Everything, from activation to backup, storing files to push them out, will happen transparently with [http://www.imore.com/tag/icloud/].

If that’s not enough, you can find apps that let you access your Google Docs, DropBox, Box.net, and other online storage. You can even convert and stream content on the fly with apps like Air Video [iTunes].

Combine that with the built in AirPlay and an Apple TV and you won’t believe what you can do…

Notification Center

webOS rules the roost with their elegant, non-interuptive, notification system. Compared to that utopia, iOS 4 notifications are some bizarre UI hell we’ll likely be immolating in until the next major OS update.

But iOS 5 is on it’s way, and its bringing with it Notification Center which should ease your transition a lot. (Hey, Apple stole the guy who invented webOS notifications to work on it!) If you’re switching today, you’ll have a few weeks of pain, but then things will get better.

More webOS to iPhone help and information

If you haven’t already, check out our complete iOS 4 feature walkthrough. There’s an incredible amount of stuff in iOS 4 and you can save yourself some serious time cribbing off of us.

If you need help, or have a story to share, check out TiPb’s iPhone forum — we’ve got a special switching from webOS to iPhone 4 thread going just for you!

And if we forgot anything or just plain got something wrong, let us know and we’ll add it or fix it.

Matt Brian from The Next Web has a source that claims, before canceling all webOS devices, people inside HP tested webOS as a web app on iPad 2 using Safari and the results were twice as fast as their own TouchPad hardware.

The hardware reportedly stopped the team from innovating beyond certain points because it was slow and imposed constraints, which was highlighted when webOS was loaded on to Apple’s iPad device and found to run the platform significantly faster than the device for which it was originally developed.

Which begs the question — why didn’t HP make better hardware? Even if the TouchPad hardware was already in progress when cash-strapped Palm was acquired, why didn’t HP scrap it and make something better, the way Samsung scrapped the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 after seeing iPad 2, and brought a thinner, lighter, and faster model to the table?

Or would that have conflicted with HP’s intent to surrender the consumer hardware market? Here’s hoping someone with some manufacturing balls picks up webOS and runs with it…

Update: PreCentral.net calls shenanigans: [PreCentral.net]

We don’t buy it. There are a few reasons why webOS seems so much slower than iOS, but the hardware isn’t one of them. webOS 3.0 still isn’t fully hardware optimized. It doesn’t take full advantage of the Adreno 220 graphics chip in the TouchPad, and despite being all HTML5 and CSS3 friendly, webOS doesn’t support things like CSS transformations. Instead it relies on more processor-intensive methods to make webOS looks slick. The problem with the performance experience of the TouchPad and webOS 3.0 is not the TouchPad’s problem – HP threw the best silicon they could at the problem, and were prepared to throw even more.

[The Next Web]

HP has just announced that they’re killing off webOS devices, namely the Pre, Veer, and TouchPad — or everything that competes with iPhone and iPad.

In addition, HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.

Derek Kessler, editor of our sibling site PreCentral.net pulls no punches:

So what does this mean? The statement was carefully worded to state that they’re “discontinuing operations for webOs devices,” not webOS as an operating system. If anything, this should add fuel to the second option we discussed earlier today when the shocking word of an HP breakup first surfaced: HP is more interested in webOS than devices. They tried to give it a go with hardware, but quickly realized that they weren’t going to be able to make it work without massive long-term investment and commitment. So less than a year after acquiring all of Palm for $1.2 billion, we’re looking at a hazy future for webOS.

My wish: Google buying Motorola to prevent against manufacturers turning away from Android leads at least one manufacturer with more savvy and stomach than HP to turn away from Android and towards webOS. An HTC ThunderBolt II or Samsung Galaxy S III with Cards and Synergy would be very, very interesting.

Keep your browsers locked to PreCentral.net for continuing coverage.

[PreCentral.net]

Kevin Michaluk, pinch hitting for our sibling site, PreCentral.net has done the perfunctory HP TouchPad unboxing, and towards the end shows it off against the Apple iPad 2 (and BlackBerry Playbook) by way of comparison. (No, none of that was a typo, Kevin loves all his gadgets now, and you’ll see him with Apples and Androids and HPs and more as the weeks go on.)

For more, fall back on Derek Kessler’s TouchPad review, but for now, hit the link below and watch the inimitable Kevin, in full fashion watch and glowing green table, do an unboxing the way it’s meant to be done.

PreCentral.net

• Our podcast feed
• Download Directly
• Subscribe via iTunes

Georgia, The Keith Newman, and Rene talk iPad 3 rumors, the HP TouchPad, Google playing Nortel patent auction pranks, comics on iPad, the Kindle standoff, iPad 2 Jailbreak, and the iPad App Store hits 100,000. This is iPad Live!

• Show notes

Hosts

• Georgia (@GeorgiaTiPb)
• Rene @reneritchie)
• Seth @sethclifford)

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPad Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Music Hear me Roar by iPad Live theme song contest winner, DieselJesus!

PreCentral.net‘s Derek Kessler, who’s rapidly become one of my favorite voices in mobile, has just released the his HP TouchPad review. Widely anticipated due to its super smart, incredibly elegant webOS 3.0 operating system, but uncertain due to Palm’s recent history of middling hardware and tepid launches, it’s been simultaneously heralded as the first real iPad competitor and decried as a me-too device, both before it even hit the shelves. Which is it?

If you already have an iPad that you’re satisfied with or think you’d be better served by an iPad, you probably shouldn’t get a TouchPad. But if you’re looking for a multi-tasking monster with fantastic web browsing, email, a growing app store, and oodles of potential, then you might want to consider the TouchPad.

As expected, the are issues with the software — it’s version one of webOS on tablets after all — and in the sheer quantity of apps available. Time, patches, and the phenomenal webOS developer community can fix all that. Issues with the hardware were also to be expected — Palm has struggled with that for a while — and there’s really no fixing those, just hopes TouchPad 2 gets it better. As to whether or not they “copied” iPad with the form factor, frankly they’d have been stupid not to. The Palm Pre Plus was essentially an iPhone 3GS and that made for easy game porting via the webOS PDK. If HP can get iPad games ported over just as easily, it’s worth any amount of teasing over the spec similarity.

No matter which way you slice it, the HP TouchPad is a contender for second place now in the tablet market, and that’s going to be the first great battle to win, and an important step in proving there’s a market for these things beyond the iPad.

HP has all the pieces in place, they just have the nail the execution. And soon. (Or, like RIM, preferably prior to launch.)

Check out Derek’s review and then come back and let us know what you think — is the HP TouchPad the best contender to date?

[PreCentral.net]

HP dominates the commodity PC market, selling more beige boxes and plastic laptops than anyone else on the planet, so what’s to stop their upcoming webOS-based HP TouchPad tablet from overtaking Apple’s number one selling iPad to become… um… better than number one? Nothing but wishing it to be so, according to Eric Cador, Senior VP of HP Personal Systems Group of the EMEA.

“In the PC world, with fewer ways of differentiating HP’s products from our competitors, we became number one; in the tablet world we’re going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus.”

We’re huge fans of webOS, and it’s great to see the company aiming high, but the iPad isn’t just “number one”, it’s still so far ahead there’s no clear “number two” at this point. HP first has to release one tablet, make sure that release is competitive with iPad 3 (it’s too late to compete with iPad 2), and offer features, functions, and apps that taken together are compelling enough for someone to buy it instead of an iPad (or for people intent on getting “not an iPad” to choose HP over Android Honeycomb or BlackBerry Playbook tablets).

Given that, and given the comments Roger McNamee made before the ill-fated Palm Pre launch, it might behoove the folks at HP to make sure the TouchPad speaks for itself.

[The Telegraph via PreCentral.net]

It’s ironic how the company that brought us the iPod has never really had great speakers (or earbuds!) but Apple might be about to change that in a big way by bringing in the man behind Lucasfilm’s amazing THX audio quality program, Tomlinson Holman. According to Chief TWiT Leo Laporte:

I have it on good authority that Tomlinson Holman (of THX fame) is joining Apple to run audio. Major upgrade.

With HP’s TouchPad getting Beats by Dr. Dre, and even BlackBerry besting Apple when it comes to speaker quality, this can’t happen soon enough. Let’s just hope this is about more than just iTunes audio meeting THX standards, but about giving iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch a complete speaker makeover as well!

Your audience is listening, Apple!

[@leolaporte, thanks Anthony!]

What’s your name? Luc Vandal

What’s your company? Edovia Inc.

Where are you based? We’re based in Montréal, Québec, the french speaking province of Canada.

What’s your web address? http://edovia.com

Where can we find you on Twitter? @edovia for stuff about Edovia and @lucvandal for everything else.

What apps do you develop? Screens, TouchPad, NumPad, Currencies and Warships.

What did you think when Palm announced their tablet would be called TouchPad, given that one of your apps has been named that for years? I actually found it amusing and TouchPad has actually seen a sales increase since then. On the other hand, it made me realize the importance of making sure you protect your brands adequately and took measures in that effect soon after, just in case things turned sour. But for now, I’m not concerned about it.

What apps, other than your own, are currently among your favorites? Twitterrific, Instapaper, Reeder are pretty much my most used apps besides my own.

How long have you been a developer? Started programming on a Commodore 64 back when I was twelve, so about 25 years but more officially for about 12 years, which about 5 of them have been pretty much iOS/Mac exclusive.

How long have you been an iOS developer? Since early 2008, when Apple released the iPhone SDK.

Do you develop for any other platform in addition to iOS? If so, which one(s)? We have some projects for the Mac going on and we’re currently porting Screens Connect on Windows but we have no plans for now to develop for other platforms.

What primary computer setup do you use for your iOS development? I used to rely on only a late 2010 MacBook Air. While I love the machine, it’s a little slow when using Xcode 4 so I’ve recently purchased a max-out i7 iMac (SSD/HDD combo, 16GB RAM, etc.), which is more appropriate for development purposes. So at the office it’s all iMac and at home I use the MBA with a 27″ Cinema Display but in clamshell mode. I don’t like multiple-monitors setups. Hurts my neck.

What iOS device(s) do you personally use most often? My iPad 2. I don’t use my iPhone 4 very much unless I leave the office or home.

What mobile devices, other than iOS, do you currently use? Does a calculator count? Seriously, none. Might be tempted to by a non-iOS tablet eventually, should there ever be one worth my time and money.

What’s your favorite thing about developing for iOS? The development tools are pretty amazing. I also love Objective-C (used to be a MFC guy while I was working at Corel) and just the quality of the OS and devices, the amount of time Apple puts into details. The community is also pretty amazing.

What’s your least favorite thing about developing for iOS? The 100 devices limit, which is pretty dumb since Apple releases at least 2-3 new devices each year and most people upgrade. You end up out of spots very quickly. I don’t understand the thinking behind this.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the iOS 5 SDK? Good question. A Bluetooth connection API to allow us to connect an iOS device to a Mac. TouchPad and NumPad would really benefit from it. Improved cloud and synching support. A solution resulting of a mixture of MobileMe and DropBox would be awesome.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the App Store? Upgrade system for current users but this will never happen. I think Apple’s philosophy on this is lower your price and charge the full price every new major version.

If we were to eavesdrop on you while you were coding, what curse word would we hear you use the most? “Tabarnak” or “Câlice”, which are pretty common french canadian swear words! Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabarnak for more info.

What do you do when you’re not coding iOS apps? I ride my bike, try to get back at skateboarding, watch movies, drink good alcohol with friends, spend time with the girlfriend and the dog, travel.

What should we look for from you next? We have no plans for the future, we’re screwed… Nah, a couple of our iOS apps will make it to the Mac. One of them is pretty obvious to guess really but the one is a surprise! It’s pretty much a small project to experiment with the Chameleon framework. As for new projects, we always have ideas but nothing concrete for now!

I tend to scratch my own itch when I develop a new app so projects are very spontaneous and unplanned at Edovia so it’s hard to tell what our next project will be!

Thanks Luc!

[Photo credit: Ken Aspeslagh]

The Motorola Xoom launched to sales that were okay but not breakthrough, the BlackBerry Playbook has gotten hopeful though mixed reviews, and now Digitimes reports other would-be iPad 2 competitors may be getting cold feet.

But sales of Xoom tablet PCs have been lower than expected, said sources at Taiwan’s notebook makers, citing brand image, pricing, insufficient applications and the unstable performance of Android 3.0 as reasons for the doldrums. [...] With Google unable to offer sufficient support to cooperation partners at present, many players have decided to delay the launch of Android 3.0 tablet PCs, the sources added.

Last year we debated whether Apple had created a mainstream tablet market, or simply an iPad market, and whether tablets would end up being like iPods with Apple dominant, or like Smartphones with many players in contention. It’s far, far too early to tell but it is telling that a year post-iPad launch the competition is still feeling their way out the of gate. (If not entirely flummoxed as Steve Jobs suggested at the iPad 2 event.)

We know some of you are considering the PlayBook, an Android Honeycomb tablet, or an HP/Palm TouchPad, what do you make of the struggle to get a strong competitor to market?

[Digitimes]

If it were possible for the iPad to own 138% of the tablet market it probably would, but competing devices have already launched like the Motorola Xoom, are about to launch like the BlackBerry Playbook, or will be launching later in the year like the HP TouchPad and more Android Honeycomb tablets.

Some will be smaller, with 7 or 8-inch screens. Some will be slightly bigger with 10.1-inch screens. Most will have Adobe Flash support to varying degrees. They’ll have more ports (and not require camera kits or AV adapter dongles). They’ll have webOS card view (even if they come from RIM) or a more desktop style UI. They won’t have iOS apps but they’ll have Android apps (even if they come from RIM) or webOS apps. They may have really fast LTE connections at some point. They won’t have iTunes but they probably will have wider native support for video and audio file formats. Even 3D. They may or may not be easier to hack.

But they’ll be different to Apple’s current Pad 2, in small or big ways. And for many people they’ll be not-Apple and that will be tempting.

Will it tempt you? Be honest now — let me know why! (or why not!)

Apple announced the iPad 2 today so — of course — the first thing we did was drag in our friends from PreCentral.net, Android Central, and CrackBerry.com and get them to spec up with the Android 3.0 Honeycomb-running Motorola Xoom, LG Optimus Pad, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10, and the HP TouchPad and BlackBerry Playbook.

The results are above, and all we can say is — what a great time to be a consumer! Also, given the hardware being thrown around Apple’s going to have to work hard on their integrated software model — that means iOS 5 — to keep the lion’s share of the market. The space is literally exploding with new, compelling devices.

Except from Microsoft and Nokia. Will they field something in 2011 or will we have to wait until iPad 3 or iPad 4 to add them to the spec wars?

Apple’s Steve Jobs took the stage immediately today as part of the iPad 2 event with 15 million sold and 90% market share. That’s more than every tablet PC ever sold.

Jobs said it “flummoxed” competitors. While some made fun of Jobs calling iPad magical, and others complained about the price, Jobs said to “ask our competitors now”. (Referring to the difficulty in matching iPad’s price point.)

Jobs showed off 65,000 apps for iPad and 100 — and they were being generous, he says — for Android 3.0 Honeycomb and then went into a video of Apple execs, users, educators, professionals, and others proclaiming 2010 the year of the iPad.

As a final shot, Jobs asked if 2011 would be the year of the copycats. With more Honeycomb tablets, HP’s TouchPad, and RIM’s Playbook all on their way it will be interesting to see how Apple’s iPad 2 holds up in 2011.

Every week a few of us from team TiPb will bring you our current favorite, most fun and useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they’re fair game.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

Ally and George’s pick: Tiny Wings

Ally: I tend to lean towards games that have a simple concept but keep you entertained for hours. Tiny Wings fits right into that category. It has beautiful graphics and backgrounds but the controls and game play are dead simple. You are a bird and you have one dream, to fly. But your wings are tiny.

You use the hills in order to make your bird propel himself high into the sky. You’ll tap and hold the screen to tuck his wings and make him dive down hills. If done properly, he’ll peak high into the sky after using hills to propel himself. The goal is to fly (glide) as far as you can before night falls.

It’s an incredibly simple game but the graphics alone are worth the $0.99 it costs. Check it out and let us know what you think!

George: This is by far the most addicting game I have played on my iPhone! Its so simple, yet quite difficult at the same time.

Gorgeous yet basic retina graphics, extremely easy, one button controls, and amazing original background music, makes this an even more fun game to play.

Simply race against the clock, and get as far as you can, but avoid ‘night fall’ as you’ll fall asleep, and see the end of your trip.

If you think this game looks too simple, you’d be wrong, as its packed full of bonuses, like ‘fever mode’ and speedboosts, and objectives, like, getting a certain number of coins, or having to play the whole game upside down!

Pick up this game, and watch time go by, but watch out for night fall!

[0.99 - iTunes link]

Alli’s pick: Soundrop

Totally free, totally mindless, totally entertaining.

The idea is to drop little balls onto tubes to make… well, sound. When the balls hit the tubes, they make a pinging sound. The pitch changes depending on the distance between the “drop” and where the ball strikes the tube.

You can change the length of the tubes to make a higher or lower pitched ping, and you can change the angle so that the balls will bounce up at a new angle where you can create new tubes for the balls to hit, thus creating more pings. If you’re good, you can get the right angles, distances, and number of tubes to create simple melodies. Or you can just make annoying pinging noises.

Either way it’s a nice break from anything productive!

[Free - iTunes link]

Andrew’s pick: Color Splash

Color Splash is a photo app that lets you turn any picture into a black and white photo so you can touch it up with some color, making your photos unique and artistic. The effect is really quite dramatic and can turn any old photo into an inspiring piece with a ‘splash’ of color, redirecting the viewers’ attention to the portion of your photo with color. The app also supports all of the bells and whistles of iOS 4 and the iPhone 4′s Retina Display with fast app switching and high-resolution graphics.

If you want a full rundown of how the app works then check our Chris V’s forum review to get a better idea of how fun it is to use. If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to give your photos a new and dramatic look then head over to the App Store and check out Color Splash now!

[$0.99 - iTunes link]

Chris O’s pick: Movie Player

This app offers one thing that I find really useful, the ability to create video playlists. I do not understand why the built in video player for the iPhone and iPad fail to offer this simple feature.

My 20 month old daughter uses the iPad in the car to keep her entertained on long journeys. With the built in video app, I have to stop and reach over, take the iPad out of the holder, start the next video and off I go again. Using Movie Player I can create a playlist and it automatically plays the videos one after the other. Stress free driving!

Movie Player also supports lots of formats like divx, avi, flv, mov, wmv, mpg, mpeg, mpeg1, mpeg2, mpeg4, mp4, m4v , mpv, vob, ts, ogv, ogm, mkv and a few others without the need for conversion. It can be a little buggy and fussy sometimes but it is worth it for the playlist feature.

The app is a universal binary, so you only have to buy it once and it runs on the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad

[$2.00 -iTunes Link]

Chris V’s pick: Weather Doodle

I am always on the hunt for nice weather apps. I don’t really know why, weather is weather, but I am always looking for apps that either have a really nice user interface/display or contain all the weather data that I want available too me.

Recently, I came across Weather Doodle, which fits nicely into the former category. Weather Doodle does not display pages and pages of weather information, severe weather alerts, weather maps, etc. Instead, it has focused on graphics, and really only shows you the basic current weather (temperature, humidity, etc) as well as a five day forecast. The graphical design is reminiscent of a child’s doodle (thus, the name), but it is not sloppy or poorly done. Simple but pleasing is the best way to describe it. The graphics are animated as well, so you see the rain and snow falling, the clouds moving, the sun shining. In addition, they have in app purchases available to buy other graphical schemes. If you want a simple weather app to replace the basic weather app on the iPhone, Weather Doodle is one that might be worth looking at.

[$0.99 - iTunes link]

Rene’s pick: TouchPad

No not the terribly iPad-looking new tablet announced earlier this month by Palm HP and set to ship sometime between now and the end of the Mayan calendar (or Summer, whichever comes first), but the wonderful iOS app by Edovia that predates it by… a lot. This TouchPad turns your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad into pretty much the best remote ever. It’s more functional than Apple’s, Boxee’s, VLC’s, and XBMC’s combined and far better looking than anything ever produced by the company formerly known as Sony. Seriously.

If you have a Mac Mini media center or a MythBuntu box you don’t even need any extra software. It just works. If you have a Windows Media PC then… well, you need to grab a VNC service but then it also just works. Well, works as in the opposite — being lazy. One crack at TouchPad and your butt will seldom if ever need to leave the comforts of your couch again.

It’s got full on gesture support, so iOS and Mac OS users will feel especially well at home. I’ve often asked-as-in-begged Apple for a Magic Mouse app for the iPhone. Embarrassingly, there was no need to. Edovia had already made it.

Good luck with your TouchPad HP. iOS already has a great one.

[$4.99 - iTunes link]

Your pick?

You’re part of the team as well, so jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

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Georgia, Chad, and Rene discuss iPad 2 and iPad 3 (with Retina Display!) rumors, free MobileMe rumors, HP’s new TouchPad, true multitasking myths, Apple TV gaming, and the week in apps. This is iPad Live!

Complete show notes for the week in iPad after the break!

iPad 2

• iPad 2 in production, coming soon?
• Steve Jobs still running Apple, working on iPad 2, iPhone 5
• iPad 2 might switch from IPS to Samsung Super PLS display?

iPad 3

• Apple preparing iPad 3 for September?
• Expanding the iPhone and iPad family

iPad competition

• HP (not Palm!) announces Veer, Pre3, webOS 3.0 TouchPad
• iPad competitors: Will the true multitasking please stand up?
• (Discuss price points – Xoom ~$800, TouchPad ~$700)

Free MobileMe

• UPDATED: More iPhone nano, free MobileMe rumors

Apple TV

• Games coming to Apple TV in iOS 4.3?

Apps

• Livestand from Yahoo! set to take on The Daily

Help

• Check out our awesome iPad Forum!
• Tips and how-to

Hosts

• Georgia (@GeorgiaTiPb
• Chad (@iChadman)
• Rene (@reneritchie)

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPad Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

One of the most persistent complaints levied against the iPhone and iPad were/are the lack of multitasking. This, of course, has always been silly. However, now that BlackBerry QNX PlayBook>, Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablets like Xoom, and HP webOS 3.0′s TouchPad are set to launch, “true multitasking” is again finding its way into the bullet points of competitively positioned slide decks and ad campaigns. It’s still silly but it’s also more complicated now.

Does iOS offer “true multitasking”, does its competitors? Let’s take a look, after the break.

The no iOS multitasking myth

Going back to the original iPhone’s introduction in 2007, Steve Jobs’ demonstration clearly showed music fading out as a call came in, staying on a call while browsing the web or sending email, and music fading back in as a call ended. Those of us who had Treo’s at the time were astounded at how smooth iPhone multitasking was, and how it didn’t crash or reboot the phone once.

From launch, the iPhone had great multitasking. It just didn’t have 3rd party apps. Fast forward to 2008 and iOS 2, the App Store launched and while Apple’s own apps continued to enjoy great multitasking, 3rd party App Store apps weren’t allowed any background processes at all. This kept things nice and simple and stable for a certain group of consumers but frustrated power users to no end.

Fast forward again to 2010 and iOS 4 (specifically 4.2 for iPad) and Apple set up a system to allow App Store apps limited multitasking. Not fake multitasking. Not untrue multitasking. But limited multitasking. Apps that were transferring data could keep the connection alive in the background for a short length of time after exit to finish the transfer (like a photo upload or status stream download). Music apps like Pandora could be streamed in the background. VoIP (Voice over IP) apps like Skype to keep a process in the background to receive or continue calls. Turn-by-turn navigation apps like TomTom could keep giving voice directions in the background. True multitasking all, it addressed a huge percentage of mainstream needs. (Not all needs mind you, persistent internet connections for SSH, etc. would have been nice for power users…)

In addition Apple added a few others things to enhance the “appearance” of multitasking from a user perspective. Instead of just leaving apps running forever in the background, using battery power and system resources and requiring user intervention to manage, Apple created a way to “save state” on exit. So, the next time an app launches it’s in the same place it was when last it was used. They also (re-)set double click on Home to launch a fast app switcher dock. Hidden behind the regular dock, invisible to users who don’t need or want it, it can be called up to quickly jump between recently used apps (or to expose controls for audio, brightness, etc). Not at all “true” multitasking but important when it comes to the perception of multitasking.

It’s a compromise solution, one that tries to address the aforementioned battery life and resource issues with ease of use and convenience and while it’s not perfect and could use some improvement, it’s pretty good. (Especially when you see how fast some competing devices chew through battery life.)

It’s also something that might be addressed further when iPad 2 — with more RAM and processing power — and iOS 5 are shown off sometime this spring.

Competitive multitasking

RIM’s QNX-powered BlackBerry Playbook, HP’s webOS 3.0-powered TouchPad, and the slew of Google’s upcoming Android 3.0-powered tablets, spearheaded by the Motorola Xoom, are all more or less touting “true multitasking” as a competitive advantage over the iPad. These are the same companies and campaigns touting Flash as the “whole internet/web” and both statements are, ironically, untrue. (We won’t touch on Flash here but suffice it to say that while Flash is the most popular plugin on the web, it’s far from the only plugin on the web.)

Lest you think this partisan or apologist, Kevin from CrackBerry.com was quick to point this out back during CES when RIM first spoke about true multitasking — what functionality does it provide to the end user?

Having a movie or video game continue to animate while in card view (webOS or Playbook variety) is great eye candy but isn’t functionally any better or truer multitasking than having it save state or pause and then resume when brought back to the foreground. You can’t interact with it when in background and more importantly — you can’t interact with multiple cards the way you can with multiple windows on a PC which really does offer true pre-emptive multitasking. To the best of my knowledge you can’t watch a movie and play a game at the same time, or drag and drop content between browsers and document editors, for example.

Cards (again webOS or Playbook) are a brilliant and elegant way to visualize multitasking for end users but until you can start dragging and dropping data between them the way you can on a Mac or Windows they’re functionally no better than the fast app switcher on iOS.

iOS, in fact, used card view before either webOS or PlayBook — Pages in Mobile Safari date way back to the original iPhone — Apple simply lacked the vision to (or chose not to) exploit them throughout the OS. (Even in Safari on iPad I’d argue a tabbing system would be more functional than the grid of pages we now enjoy.)

So while I’d dearly love for Apple repatriate cards/page to the iPad multitasking OS, I’d really only love it if it came with that multiple usage functionality. And when/if that comes, I hope Apple can figure out a way that isn’t at the expense of mainstream usability. (If part of the success of iOS is attributable to Apple ruthlessly cutting away everything and anything that wasn’t simple and easy for consumers to use, is complexity creep — while desirable to power users — the best thing for the platform as a whole?)

Android 3.0 Honeycomb seems to be bringing more of the desktop metaphor to the tablet space, including more multitasking. Their user interface and user experience, however, still seem to be on the back-burner. (Apple’s priorities are almost directly inverse to Google’s in that regard.)

The truth about true

The iPad multitasks fine. webOS and the strikingly similar BlackBerry tablet OS multitask with better visualization but it’s arguable about whether or not that’s “truer” and I’d argue it isn’t. Further, I’d argue that at this point it really doesn’t matter in terms of end user functionality. Android 3.0 Honeycomb may multitask more like a desktop but that’s neither more true nor proven better for a wide swath of users. Buried in all that, however, are a few important truths. The pad/tablet industry is still in its infancy and Apple, Google, HP, and RIM aren’t anywhere near done exploring interactions and interfaces on their devices. They’re all getting better. And since there are a few really strong players (and perhaps Microsoft one day as well), consumers get choice and the competition drives all of them to get better so we consumers choose them.

HP held their Something Beyond event today where they announced the new, tiny Veer, the beefed up Pre 3, and their iPad competitors, the TouchPad. (And I’ll note with sadness it was HP, and no longer Palm that announced them.)

The Veer replaces the Pixi as the mainstream fashion phone, only now it packs the Pre slider form factor shrunk down to credit-card size (don’t call it MiniPre!). I’ll miss the iconic front-facing QWERTY that made the Treo famous but for slider fans there’s a lot — read: a little — to like here. Check out PreCentral.net’s Veer hands on for more.

The Pre 3 is the Pre on Hulk serum. Bigger screen and far more powerful internals. If HP can nail the build-quality they could realize every dream original Pre-users have had. I’d have liked a slab form factor here, but I have an iPhone so HP is at least sticking to Palm’s guns on hardware keyboards. Check out PreCentral.net’s Pre3 hands on for more.

The TouchPad is HP’s answer to the iPad, with identical display size but quadruple the RAM, a front-facing camera, and webOS 3.0 which really shines on the big screen. The UI doesn’t scale automagically (it was unrealistic to think it would) but HP has moved some controls to the top, made notifications into a hybrid drop down, and cards and stacks just look gorgeous on a tablet. Check out PreCentral.net’s HP TouchPad hands on for more.

HP also promised webOS as an ecosystem on everything from printers to webOS PCs to devices, all tied into the cloud. (They even showed TouchShare, where they “bumped” a web page from Pre3 to TouchPad by touching the devices together.)

It wasn’t a home run — Palm-now-HP has to start delivering more, faster if they want to keep up. But it was a solid at-bat in a game that’s nowhere near the end yet. (2 hours was also long for an event, half the time would have made the highlights twice as dense.)

The lack of firm release dates or pricing info was disappointing, as is the nebulous state of webOS updates for previous generation Palm devices. And while the Pre3 and TouchPad specs look solid we’re weeks away from iPad 2 and months away from iPhone 5, so HP has a heck of a pace to keep up with. HP has money, however, and that buys time (see Microsoft, Nokia) and at the very least they’ve shown webOS isn’t dropping out of the race.

Check out all the videos linked above and then come on back and tell us what you thought of HP’s Think Beyond event, does it raise the bar for Apple’s 2011 iOS lineup? What’s the threat level?

A couple of great iPhone apps (for Jailbroken iPhones) came out in the past couple of days. The first is AppFlow, which lets you browse your applications (but not your Web Links, they’re a little different) via the sweet coverflow interface. – ericasadun.com » Introducing AppFlow [via tuaw]

The next one is Touchpad, which turns the iPhone into a trackpad for your computer. It’s a neat idea, though the only use I can think of is if you have a laptop with a “nub” mouse that you want to replace from time to time. If nothing else, though, it shows the power of the iPhone:

Cool apps like these are coming out all the time on the sly now, I can’t imagine what it will be like once this stuff can be official. There are, what, 7 days left in February? Apple: time to step up and either deliver or tell us it’s delayed.