"Instead of making that happen with a console controller, I’m imagining that sort of game-like functionality in your phone. So why is everyone rushing out to buy one?īack in June at E3, the HP blogger responsible for the hilariously over-the-top PR copywriting on the company's site wrote, in what appears to be all seriousness, the following words, referring to the HP TouchPad's potential as a console game motion tracker:
It's got a Time Magazine app.Įssentially, and let's not beat around the bush here, it's fucking shit. It's got a bespoke version of EA's Need for Speed Hot Pursuit for HP TouchPad. It's got a smattering of vaguely interesting music apps such as TuneIn Radio - which you already have on your iPhone or Android phone if you give a flying one. It's got the HP App Catalogue, something of which it is probably best to just ignore and never speak about again. And why wouldn't it have? Move on gamers. It's got the internet, it's got Facebook, it's got Rovio's Angry Birds. It's got a Kindle app, so you can read all those books that you will likely never get round to reading on this device as well. To be at least slightly fair, the HP TouchPad does have some genuinely useful apps and half-decent games to help keep your brain from shutting down completely. Yet why would you want to? Can you play games on the thing?
And not even quite as interesting as the hundreds of slightly-better Android tablets sitting on the next shelf.Īnd now - less than two months on - HP has pulled all support of webOS and you can pop down to PC World and pick up a HP TouchPad for £89. On July 1, starting at $499 (£307), it finally arrived! It was like the Apple iPad, but around the same price point and without any particularly interesting games or apps to speak of.
Hp touchpad latest android version full#
If you saunter over to the HP Palm blog, you’ll get the full word and pricing and availability from my man, Jon Zilber," reads a post on the HP blog from back in June 2011.Īnd Lo. I mean, we all know that consumer technology is advancing at a nonsensical rate these days, but the story of the HP TouchPad launch - and what it means for gamers and games developers - is nothing less than total and utter insanity. "Is the HP TouchPad of any interest to gamers?" Pat asked the Twittersphere void earlier this week, with his online news-writer's four-nanosecond attention span no doubt jolted by the news that HP has given up on its long-failing webOS operating system and, as a result, has been forced to announce fire sales on the tablet.
Hp touchpad latest android version portable#
Is the HP TouchPad the new Atari Lynx? Or is that doing Atari's (at the time) impressive portable handheld console a massive disservice? Adam Hartley answers the question.