Thanks to HelloFresh for sponsoring today's video. Go to strms.net/hellofresh_actionretro2385, use my code RETROSEP10, and receive 10 free meals + free breakfast for life! One breakfast item per box while subscription is active if you’re in the US. The link and code are valid in all countries and the respective local discount will apply.
Wait until you find out that HP WebOS was actually LG WebOS... Which is nothing more than a modified scaled down version of Android from the same era. Just like how Kindle OS was on Kindle Tablets.
I’m the one who donated the Touchpad at VCF Midwest. I found it in the free pile of all things at last year’s VCF Midwest but it ended up sitting in my old tech drawer for over a year and I felt that it needed a better home. You’re welcome.
The Touchpad has a mildly amusing "easter egg" on it. Normally, you can dismiss (close) applications from the app switcher by swiping it up. However, in one of the two landscape orientations, you can pull down on an application which is accompanied by a "stretching elastic" sound, and let it go which causes it to fly off the top of the screen going "whee!"
My favorite WebOS Easter egg was, in order to unlock developer mode, IIRC you search for the Konami code... specifically "upupdowndownleftrightleftrightababstart" 😂
I actually worked for HP at the time and worked on the Touchpad. Web OS is actually an OS developed by Palm and was bought by HP. The touchpad was developed around Web OS. But unfortunately, that's the reason it didn't do well. Everybody wanted either and Apple or Android. There wasn't room for another OS. Sales plummeted, and then came the firesale. Once people got there hands on it, they loved it. But it was too late, the higher up canned it. There was a big community for custom Android distros which I was a part of. But many many moons go brother. Great to see one still working and running Web OS instead of Android. The touchpad even came up in my last show about right to repair. So it was cool seeing this video after it came up in our discussion.
webOS: the Amiga of mobile operating systems. Always imitated, never replicated, and all modern software now is built the way apps for webOS were: every app a browser (hence the name), which we do now through Electron. And you could spin up another X server and run a full Linux desktop in a card; you will recognize that as Microsoft's strategy for Windows 8. And it died just like the Amiga did: bought up by a large company that proceeded to run the platform straight into the ground.
The problem was HP was literally going through multiple CEOs at the time because all of them were getting exposed for unrelated scandals. The CEO that pulled the plug on webOS was the same one who originally wanted to sell off HP’s consumer PC division before that received heavily backlash from long time shareholders and he was fired quickly as well.
Palm was so ahead of the curve... so much about webOS in 2009-2012 is still only now showing up on Android and iOS ten years later. I absolutely still miss Synergy.
I'm a noob but I would love to have something similar to this or Linux mint for mobile ACTUALLY working and with simple apps to cut,record,store audio and video clips without the Nedd of giving cookie consent to corporations for every app
So, I knew of the official webOS being in LG TVs since it happened; the developers kept developing it as luneOS, and can be worth a look to mess around with..
Had one of these myself. The operating system was way ahead of anything anyone else was doing and really made the machine. HP reportedly had a difficult time sourcing the components because Apple had monopolized foreign supplier production runs with its iPad.
@@minty_Joe It wasn't bad for when i tried it, i think it was android 2.x for me. the thing randomly died in 2015 or so, and i tossed it. got it complete in box too.
WebOS was so cool. The first actual attempt on using web technologies to create local Applications. I loved my Palm Prë even though it had the oreo twist issue, even wrote some personal applications for it. With Continuum I had all my communication needs in one place, it was just glorious. But, it simply didn't had enough applications, leading to not interested end users, and then HP came. And WebOS was mutated into some Frontend for LG Smart Devices.
From what I recall at the time, people knew the Touchpad was pretty much DOA. It was originally supposed to be part of a family of devices but HP got cold feet. The other devices were cancelled but the Touchpad was too far advanced to do so. There were 'shenanigans' at HP.
I loved my Playbook. Very useful device that had a lot of potential, unfortunately Blackberry going back on its 'promises' soured a lot of support for it.
@@LuckyDucky72 People really don't give Palm the credit it deserves for single-handedly changing the way we interact with our touch-screen devices. Basically every single major UX improvement made after the initial release of iOS and Android were in some way built on WebOS.
Talking about Angry Birds, there's a Easter egg in the app switcher. Hold it upside down and pull a card down and the card will be slingshotted with the Angry Birds sound effect.
I bought an HP Touchpad *THE DAY* before HP cancelled it. I was livid, but it was really cool. Put Android Honeycomb, then later Ice Cream Sandwich on it. Loved webOS.
Mine went into the ewaste bin about six years ago due to the battery. I had picked it up at the bookstore for the college I was attending at the time, and they had them in stock well into Monday afternoon - the price cut was on Friday, so most were gone by Saturday, but the bookstore was closed all weekend at the time. I kept using it for a good long time as a PDF reader, for which I have yet to find a suitable replacement.
Fun facts: Palm spun off PalmOS to PalmSource which was then acquired by Japanese company Access, creator of the Netfront browser used as the core of the PS3's web browser, and as the iMode browsers on DoCoMo mobile phones in the pre-iPhone era. Netfront also acquired BeOS to be the core of their next OS. Palm in the meantime considered using Symbian OS before deciding on Linux, for which they bought a company called Lampdesk which had a solution for tunneling between javascript and the underlying OS, same basically as Phonegap AKA Apache Cordova AKA Adobe AEM Mobile, and that combined with Linux and WebKit became WebOS.
Please yes to another video on how you might still make productive use of a TouchPad today. I still have mine. It's been sitting in its original box for the last 12 years. I'd also love to dumbify my smartphone by going back to a Pre. I love those old Palm/HP webOS devices. Just wish I could reasonably use them.
I remember when they went on steep discount when HP canned them, I had a supplier who listed the 16gb for $50CAN a unit, I ordered 10 of them but sadly the order was quickly canceled and refunded and the listing disappeared off my suppliers site. I have wondered to this day what kinda fun I would have had with 10 of them.
Beats Electronics used to collaborate with HP before they were acquired by Apple. Back in the day I had a HP Beats 2-in-1 laptop that came with windows 8
WebOS so far is my favourite smart TV OS that isn't just Android. The homebrew scene is absolutely great, and once rooted it's great having SSH access to the Linux core in the background.
I still have mine running a dualboot of webOS and Cyanogen Android. Got mine for $150 with wireless charging stand during the firesale when they were clearing inventory.
It's reminding me of the Blackberry Playbook, actually. A lot of companies would up and copy the webOS paradigms of sliding gestures and card-ified task switching (nevermind the aesthetics, everything was skeuomorphic with gradients back then). webOS may be very different today compared to the Palm and HP eras, but its modern interpretation is almost the best I've seen for TV OSes.
I got one during the fire-sale, put cyanogenmod on it, and used it as an android tablet for years. The display resolution was bad (you could see the individual pixels), construction was all plastic. The battery ended up expanding, the display also had that pressure spot like the one in this video, and I think my case started cracking at the edges (speaker cutout & buttons). It's long gone now though. I definitely enjoyed using it, but the hardware wasn't anything to write home about.
I remember asking my mom to stop by the Best buy near her work and check if they had any touch pads in stock when they went on sale. She came home thinking I pulled a "blinker fluid"-style prank on her because she said the guy at Best buy just busted out laughing when she asked and never even answered her.
I owned an HP Pre 3 and used it all the way up to 2014, when I moved laterally to a Samsung Galaxy Note 4. WebOS was so advanced that it wasn't until 2014 that I felt it was an even trade for my WebOS phone. I miss those days...
I actually have one of the 'Opal' pre-production models of the Touchpad, which was to be released later in 2011 as the Touchpad Go. This model was a 7" tablet with a removable cover (which would make it easy to replace the battery) and was to feature built-in GPS and an AT&T compatible SIM. Neither of these is functional on my unit.
Actually i remember now that i was incredibly lucky to get one in the firesale. Best Buy historically was never in the UK but for about a year in 2010-2011, they opened a few stores here. One was on my way home from work, and they had touchpads on display. I couldn't really afford one, though. Being a total webOS fan, i was reading the forums daily and caught wind of the firesale. I went into best buy on my way home, but they hadn't heard anything and they were still full price, but the guy at the counter said they could hold one for me. That evening, the firesale was official, and i picked up my bargain touchpad on the way to work the next day.
WebOS was so cool!!! I have a friend who had one of those tablets with it. And the 2011 Android tablet experience was HORRIBLE. I ended up going with an iPad at the time lol. I now have a Surface running Linux. Lol. But I still run my iPhone. Lol.
@@Wzeyisbacklmao I’ve never tried BSD on there. I know there’s a specific Linux kernel for the surface tablets. I’m running one of the surface specific distros (fedora based) on mine. Of course I’ve tried to get into FBSD but I’ve always run into issues with my hardware.
Got mine in the fire sale. WebOS was terrific and it was improving too. Still have a Palm Pre 2 with that. I used the Touchpad for like a decade for reading novels, comic books, and watching youtube. Cyanogenmod Android ROMs were a godsend to keep it going. Only last year did i see it not being able to keep up so well with streamed video and crashing sometimes so I replaced it with a new Fire tablet. But my Touchpad still lives on displaying the time for me via a clock app.
webOS (before HP and LG had their shot with it) in general was too good for this world. If only it was still around as the third (or fourth if you count Mobile Linux) OS option. Thanks for the video!
I would LOVE to see further videos on this. I've had one in use daily since 2011, it was a weather station until the servers were shut down, now it's a "wall" clock on the wireless stand, but since it hasn't been able to connect to an NTP server for years, I have to occasionally manually set the time on it.
I worked for ArcSight at this time and we were gobbled up by HP. This was all a derivative from their Palm acquisition. In a period of six months I had a new Dell laptop from ArcSight, but then we were bought by HP, and HP employees can’t carry Dell equipment for obvious reasons, so another new laptop. They also gifted us Palm phones as a “welcome to HP” gift which were also WebOS. Amazing at the time. Wireless charging. An OS that just worked. You could “stack” apps for fast app switching. And then within months HP split into HP, HPE, and killed the remnants of Palm.
I had a Veer. It really needed a couple of major OS updates, but HP killed it basically the week after it came out, and we hobbled along with community hacks and mods for another year before it became too painful to use and. I switched ... to Windows Phone. I have a knack for choosing dead-end mobile OSes.
I had a Palm Pre when HP purchased Palm for WebOS and absolutely loved the operating system. I was a bit disappointed to not see it really become much going forward as it felt very intuitive, quick, and looked great. It felt ahead of the time and like it had a chance to be competitive but that's not the timeline that panned out It was really nice seeing WebOS again on the HP TouchPad here
WebOS as far as I know was started on the PALM PRE phones. And they were way more customizable than an Android of the time. Being Linux based, they had an app you could download that had our famous “ penguin “ as the icon if I remember right and you could download “ Patches “ to change the color of clock at the top of your phone, signal, and battery icons. Hide icons completely off of the front of your phone and make them come back with a gesture on the bottom of the phone. ( sound familiar?? ) Remove icon lettering, ect. And you could also download an app patch that gave you an on screen keyboard with a double tap ( again… sound familiar?? ) before that was a popular thing. I absolutely loved my Palm! Then my phone company MADE me upgrade my phone cause they said it was “ OBSOLETE “ , then I found out HP bought them out. I wish they could come back with WebOS on phones. I would go back in a HEARTBEAT!!!
I was working at OfficeMax at the time these were new and then discontinued. I was working the morning they went on sale and immediately grabbed one. It was absolutely brilliant with the touchstone dock and “cards” for multitasking. It even survived a flight off the roof of my car when I forgot to grab it and drove off. Still have the thing, just couldn’t bring myself to trash it. WebOS was miles ahead of iOS. Jon Rubinstein worked some magic at HP just like he did with Apple.
I'm new here and I just have to say the idea of using ice trays to hold screws and bolts is SO SMART. I don't know this is a popular thing people often do but I'm definitely going to start doing that!
Good times. I was working at Staples the day they Started the Firesale. I was second in the store, and the manager Told me about the Sale. We got one each and sold out before we could even open the store. LOL. This was on a Saturday morning. I remember ALL WEEKEND taking calls having to tell people these were out of stock.
I still have mine. Bought it in the fire sale with the stand and keyboard. It was great for a good few years after, until licenses and video codecs started to be updated on various websites and nothing load. I did dual boot with android which helped prolong its use for a while longer but even support for that fell off in the end. Still a beautiful experience though.
My mom had one of these back in 2011 when they sold them for $99 with a laptop. I loved that this had flash player, was great for watching UA-cam videos and playing those old Facebook games 😂
I got one the day of the firesale at the WalMart in East Norriton. Rolled up at like, 6:30am (I think it was still 24/7 then!) and there was 3 other people there waiting to get one. It was mediocre... just needed faster hardware and some refinement and it coulda been awesome. The OS had tons of potential, but the hardware was merely 'good enough' for the time.
Bought one new when they went cheap, along with the wireless charging dock, a couple of different cases, and a couple of the USB chargers. I still have and use all of it.
Cameron Sino really does make batteries for everything. Just last month I got batteries for my 20 year old Creative Jukebox and Fujitsu Siemens PDA from them.
I still have the awesome touchstone dock. Wish I could use it for something else. The tablet itself gave me many years of service as a cyanogen android tablet. Around 2016 in use as a clock the battery rapidly expanded, cracked the front glass, and seven years of fun ended.
I got one during the "fire sale" HP had. Still have it but lost the oversized charging brick so its on the shelf with my other tech items without chargers. Will have to see if it has the spicy pillow or not.
I remember driving 70 miles to the only Walmart that had one in stock. Sold soon after on eBay and regret it. The OS was quite special. Still have my blackberry Z30 though 😁
Thanks for inspiring me to find mine! It's been in the cellar since 2012. It wont turn on or charge but its otherwise in mint condition, battery not even swollen. I'm gonna get a new battery and hook it up!
I would LOVE to see a video on how to install the archived App Store. I forgot about my touchpad and it’s sitting in a drawer somewhere in my house, I can’t wait to try this!
I had (Might still have) one of those I got during the fire sale. There was some stuff to overclock (actually clock it at full chip speed) those which was really worth it. It made it a lot better to use. They underclocked those from the factory.
I was a webOS true believer when the Palm Pre came out. I was so excited then the touchpad was announced but knew that I would never afford one. Not for a couple months anyway. I used that thing way longer than any reasonable person should, and I am still sad every time I think of what could have been.
In answer to two of your questions: If you had a Pre3 (yet another cancelled webOS device) or a Veer phone, you could have them linked to the tablet. If you selected to dial a phone number on the tablet, it would dial the number on the linked phone. In regard to Exhibition mode: this was a means to display the clock when device was sitting on the inductive charger, where one could adjust the display able and use it like a clock on your desk when you weren't using the device. Exhibition mode was also extensible so other app developers could take advantage of it and display their app (like Spotify or a podcast app) in Exhibition mode vs. the standard clocks provided by HP.
I have one of these I got refurbised on Woot, though sadly for about $150 instead of the fire sale $99. I flashed it to run Android 4.0 and it served as my tablet for a fair bit of time, with Android having caught up to WebOS in most features by then. The tablet has gone fidgety and will not always charge from the USB port, but does usually work using the inductive charger stand for it, which I have it on now. Looking forward to your video on using the WebOS side nowadays (mine still has the option to boot into it).
You could buy an accessory dock/stand, that would wirelessly charge the tablet. It was what the display mode was made for with the clocks, etc. As for the ringtones, the tablet was designed to sync with your WebOS Palm/HP “Pre”phone I believe.
Excellent video of an abandonware! I absolutely recommend you review Blackberry Playbook, an absolute classic of a tablet which quickly became abandonware in just two years as a result of BB10 not being launched on this thing.
i managed to score a heavily discounted one in early october 2011 with the touchstone and case. I was initially really impressed by it and the OS was amazing. was also nice to have flash support. My satisfaction was short lived and by January 2012 i sold it and bought an iPad 2. For me that was a much better fit.
I was working at Future Shop when these were cleared out. I can't really remember why I didn't bother buying one, a lot of my co-workers did. I wish I had!
I not only had an HP Touchpad but also a Blackberry Playbook. Got both on firesales. Honestly enjoyed them both and wish they hadn't been overpriced to start then abandoned when they didn't magically go viral by force of will.
I still have the official keyboard they made for it. Never owned the touchpad but, that Bluetooth keyboard was a great deal on clearance thanks to the discontinuation.
I remember getting mine at a Walmart in San Antonio as soon as the price dropped. Absolutely loved it and even tried putting android on it, which I regretted because after as soon as the battery would die then I would have to open it up and supply power directly to the battery to get it to start charging. Such a shame that HP bought it from Palm and then sold it to LG instead of open sourcing everything
I worked for HP at the time and we got first dibs on them when they were cancelled. I bought the tablet and all of the accessories for £100! WebOS was really good, just needed some polishing and updates. Shame Leo cancelled it
I worked at Future Shop when these came out and I was there when we fire sold them for $99 bucks even. I regretted not buying one but I was a broke college student and needed food more than a defunct tablet.
Huehuehue... Don't mind me, It's just my Latam brain regressing to kindergarten like every other time that I heard "WebOs". Or like with those Mazda Laputa cars... Huehuehue.
Thanks to HelloFresh for sponsoring today's video. Go to strms.net/hellofresh_actionretro2385, use my code RETROSEP10, and receive 10 free meals + free breakfast for life! One breakfast item per box while subscription is active if you’re in the US. The link and code are valid in all countries and the respective local discount will apply.
Why haven’t you made a fedora video?
Wait until you find out that HP WebOS was actually LG WebOS... Which is nothing more than a modified scaled down version of Android from the same era. Just like how Kindle OS was on Kindle Tablets.
Basically LG modified Android in order to create WebOS.
I’m the one who donated the Touchpad at VCF Midwest. I found it in the free pile of all things at last year’s VCF Midwest but it ended up sitting in my old tech drawer for over a year and I felt that it needed a better home.
You’re welcome.
Thank you!!
@@Yeen125 not all heroes wear capes!
That’s kind of funny because I bought one at VCF Midwest last year for $5!
@@EverythingIsBrokenGarage Real heroes can spell, though.
@@encycl07pedia- of course your name is encyclopedia lol
The Touchpad has a mildly amusing "easter egg" on it. Normally, you can dismiss (close) applications from the app switcher by swiping it up. However, in one of the two landscape orientations, you can pull down on an application which is accompanied by a "stretching elastic" sound, and let it go which causes it to fly off the top of the screen going "whee!"
My favorite WebOS Easter egg was, in order to unlock developer mode, IIRC you search for the Konami code... specifically "upupdowndownleftrightleftrightababstart" 😂
I’ll have to try that! Thanks for the Easter egg!
Geez, I remember that now.... good times!
The easter egg is actually a reference to Angry Birds
I actually worked for HP at the time and worked on the Touchpad. Web OS is actually an OS developed by Palm and was bought by HP. The touchpad was developed around Web OS. But unfortunately, that's the reason it didn't do well. Everybody wanted either and Apple or Android. There wasn't room for another OS. Sales plummeted, and then came the firesale. Once people got there hands on it, they loved it. But it was too late, the higher up canned it. There was a big community for custom Android distros which I was a part of. But many many moons go brother. Great to see one still working and running Web OS instead of Android. The touchpad even came up in my last show about right to repair. So it was cool seeing this video after it came up in our discussion.
So shortsighted. It is the nature of business to never look beyond the current fiscal performance. Same goes for the media industry.
webOS: the Amiga of mobile operating systems.
Always imitated, never replicated, and all modern software now is built the way apps for webOS were: every app a browser (hence the name), which we do now through Electron.
And you could spin up another X server and run a full Linux desktop in a card; you will recognize that as Microsoft's strategy for Windows 8.
And it died just like the Amiga did: bought up by a large company that proceeded to run the platform straight into the ground.
*their hands (possessive)
they're = contraction of "THEY aRE"
there: for all other uses
I still won't forgive HP for what they did to Palm.
The problem was HP was literally going through multiple CEOs at the time because all of them were getting exposed for unrelated scandals.
The CEO that pulled the plug on webOS was the same one who originally wanted to sell off HP’s consumer PC division before that received heavily backlash from long time shareholders and he was fired quickly as well.
boy was that a messy messy time in HP history.
@@bobsaweyMessy was an understatement.
The mess was so big that the solution was ultimately to split the entire company into two.
Yeah. Me too. I used to be a palm stock owner. 🤦♂️
Palm was so ahead of the curve... so much about webOS in 2009-2012 is still only now showing up on Android and iOS ten years later. I absolutely still miss Synergy.
Fun Fact: webOS still lives on as the open-source LuneOS to install onto different devices.
Looked it up and it seems like fun to use for something. Shame I don't have my ancient Nexus 7 anymore and none of the other compatible devices.
The official version is also still in use on LG tvs.
I'm a noob but I would love to have something similar to this or Linux mint for mobile ACTUALLY working and with simple apps to cut,record,store audio and video clips without the Nedd of giving cookie consent to corporations for every app
webOS lives in a greatly modified form to this day on LG smart TVs.
So, I knew of the official webOS being in LG TVs since it happened; the developers kept developing it as luneOS, and can be worth a look to mess around with..
Had one of these myself. The operating system was way ahead of anything anyone else was doing and really made the machine. HP reportedly had a difficult time sourcing the components because Apple had monopolized foreign supplier production runs with its iPad.
I loved webOS so much. I kept my HP Pre 3 as my daily driver until 2017. I got an HP touchpad in the firesale. RIP webOS.
I had one in 2012/2013 when i converted it to Android to get a cheap android tablet off ebay.
Same. It was my first introduction to android actually
How was that experience?
@@minty_Joe for me - android on that thing was waaaaay slower than original OS.
@@minty_Joe It wasn't bad for when i tried it, i think it was android 2.x for me. the thing randomly died in 2015 or so, and i tossed it. got it complete in box too.
Mine is duel boot! I think android 4.4?
WebOS was so cool. The first actual attempt on using web technologies to create local Applications. I loved my Palm Prë even though it had the oreo twist issue, even wrote some personal applications for it. With Continuum I had all my communication needs in one place, it was just glorious.
But, it simply didn't had enough applications, leading to not interested end users, and then HP came. And WebOS was mutated into some Frontend for LG Smart Devices.
From what I recall at the time, people knew the Touchpad was pretty much DOA. It was originally supposed to be part of a family of devices but HP got cold feet. The other devices were cancelled but the Touchpad was too far advanced to do so. There were 'shenanigans' at HP.
the soundboard app and lightsabre app were peak early 2010's
That interface is giving me a different timeline Gnome vibe.
Yes also noticed that. Some of those apps look suspiciously like modern gnome apps
@@berdinskiybear I'd say "GNOME 3.0" more like "modern GNOME". Which is exactly from the same year. Really makes you 🤔
Next, the blackberry playbook. A criminally overlooked and overhated device. It was very good and pioneered a lot of those gestures everyone uses now.
I loved my Playbook. Very useful device that had a lot of potential, unfortunately Blackberry going back on its 'promises' soured a lot of support for it.
i have one it still works
They didn't pioneer those gestures. They copied them from webOS (the Pres all worked that way).
@@LuckyDucky72 People really don't give Palm the credit it deserves for single-handedly changing the way we interact with our touch-screen devices. Basically every single major UX improvement made after the initial release of iOS and Android were in some way built on WebOS.
Lol, I got both the touchpad and the playbook during the fire sale and converted both to Android at the time. Good times.
Talking about Angry Birds, there's a Easter egg in the app switcher. Hold it upside down and pull a card down and the card will be slingshotted with the Angry Birds sound effect.
I bought an HP Touchpad *THE DAY* before HP cancelled it. I was livid, but it was really cool. Put Android Honeycomb, then later Ice Cream Sandwich on it. Loved webOS.
Mine went into the ewaste bin about six years ago due to the battery. I had picked it up at the bookstore for the college I was attending at the time, and they had them in stock well into Monday afternoon - the price cut was on Friday, so most were gone by Saturday, but the bookstore was closed all weekend at the time. I kept using it for a good long time as a PDF reader, for which I have yet to find a suitable replacement.
Fun facts: Palm spun off PalmOS to PalmSource which was then acquired by Japanese company Access, creator of the Netfront browser used as the core of the PS3's web browser, and as the iMode browsers on DoCoMo mobile phones in the pre-iPhone era. Netfront also acquired BeOS to be the core of their next OS. Palm in the meantime considered using Symbian OS before deciding on Linux, for which they bought a company called Lampdesk which had a solution for tunneling between javascript and the underlying OS, same basically as Phonegap AKA Apache Cordova AKA Adobe AEM Mobile, and that combined with Linux and WebKit became WebOS.
Finally, I got one of these on Christmas 2023, I have it on HP webOS, and it is AMAZING!
Please yes to another video on how you might still make productive use of a TouchPad today. I still have mine. It's been sitting in its original box for the last 12 years. I'd also love to dumbify my smartphone by going back to a Pre.
I love those old Palm/HP webOS devices. Just wish I could reasonably use them.
I remember when they went on steep discount when HP canned them, I had a supplier who listed the 16gb for $50CAN a unit, I ordered 10 of them but sadly the order was quickly canceled and refunded and the listing disappeared off my suppliers site. I have wondered to this day what kinda fun I would have had with 10 of them.
Beats Electronics used to collaborate with HP before they were acquired by Apple. Back in the day I had a HP Beats 2-in-1 laptop that came with windows 8
WebOS so far is my favourite smart TV OS that isn't just Android. The homebrew scene is absolutely great, and once rooted it's great having SSH access to the Linux core in the background.
WebOS! I built a "Franken Pre 2" and used it well into 2015 when i simply couldn't run it any longer. What an absolute unit.
The last place I expected to see Freezepop is as a ringtone in an old HP tablet
Parlez vous freezepop?
I still have mine running a dualboot of webOS and Cyanogen Android. Got mine for $150 with wireless charging stand during the firesale when they were clearing inventory.
cyanogen was so cool. I remember my tablet one day went all red
A lot of buyers of this tablet choose it only for CM availability
It's reminding me of the Blackberry Playbook, actually. A lot of companies would up and copy the webOS paradigms of sliding gestures and card-ified task switching (nevermind the aesthetics, everything was skeuomorphic with gradients back then). webOS may be very different today compared to the Palm and HP eras, but its modern interpretation is almost the best I've seen for TV OSes.
I got one during the fire-sale, put cyanogenmod on it, and used it as an android tablet for years. The display resolution was bad (you could see the individual pixels), construction was all plastic.
The battery ended up expanding, the display also had that pressure spot like the one in this video, and I think my case started cracking at the edges (speaker cutout & buttons). It's long gone now though.
I definitely enjoyed using it, but the hardware wasn't anything to write home about.
I remember asking my mom to stop by the Best buy near her work and check if they had any touch pads in stock when they went on sale. She came home thinking I pulled a "blinker fluid"-style prank on her because she said the guy at Best buy just busted out laughing when she asked and never even answered her.
I had one and loved it. I used it for many years. I even had the Palm Pre.
I owned an HP Pre 3 and used it all the way up to 2014, when I moved laterally to a Samsung Galaxy Note 4. WebOS was so advanced that it wasn't until 2014 that I felt it was an even trade for my WebOS phone. I miss those days...
I had one of these as well as a Palm cell phones with WebOS. Was a cool device and used it for a while.
I actually have one of the 'Opal' pre-production models of the Touchpad, which was to be released later in 2011 as the Touchpad Go. This model was a 7" tablet with a removable cover (which would make it easy to replace the battery) and was to feature built-in GPS and an AT&T compatible SIM. Neither of these is functional on my unit.
Actually i remember now that i was incredibly lucky to get one in the firesale. Best Buy historically was never in the UK but for about a year in 2010-2011, they opened a few stores here. One was on my way home from work, and they had touchpads on display. I couldn't really afford one, though. Being a total webOS fan, i was reading the forums daily and caught wind of the firesale. I went into best buy on my way home, but they hadn't heard anything and they were still full price, but the guy at the counter said they could hold one for me. That evening, the firesale was official, and i picked up my bargain touchpad on the way to work the next day.
Thanks for sharing my piece, pal!
gospel library on there?! dead giveaway haha
WebOS was so cool!!! I have a friend who had one of those tablets with it. And the 2011 Android tablet experience was HORRIBLE. I ended up going with an iPad at the time lol. I now have a Surface running Linux. Lol. But I still run my iPhone. Lol.
Linux on a Surface Pro FTW!! My SP6 is a whole new beasty now it's cured of its Windows 11 disease..
@@MauriceM0ss nice! I think mine is also a SP6. Or is it a 5. I forget lol. Which Linux you running on yours?
@@AddieDirectsTV he told beasty so I guess no linux but bsd
@@Wzeyisbacklmao I’ve never tried BSD on there. I know there’s a specific Linux kernel for the surface tablets. I’m running one of the surface specific distros (fedora based) on mine.
Of course I’ve tried to get into FBSD but I’ve always run into issues with my hardware.
@@AddieDirectsTV ok
Every time this thumbnail comes up, it brings me such delight. It's one of my favorite things on the Internet! 😂💜
Got mine in the fire sale. WebOS was terrific and it was improving too. Still have a Palm Pre 2 with that. I used the Touchpad for like a decade for reading novels, comic books, and watching youtube. Cyanogenmod Android ROMs were a godsend to keep it going. Only last year did i see it not being able to keep up so well with streamed video and crashing sometimes so I replaced it with a new Fire tablet. But my Touchpad still lives on displaying the time for me via a clock app.
webOS (before HP and LG had their shot with it) in general was too good for this world. If only it was still around as the third (or fourth if you count Mobile Linux) OS option. Thanks for the video!
I would LOVE to see further videos on this. I've had one in use daily since 2011, it was a weather station until the servers were shut down, now it's a "wall" clock on the wireless stand, but since it hasn't been able to connect to an NTP server for years, I have to occasionally manually set the time on it.
I worked for ArcSight at this time and we were gobbled up by HP. This was all a derivative from their Palm acquisition. In a period of six months I had a new Dell laptop from ArcSight, but then we were bought by HP, and HP employees can’t carry Dell equipment for obvious reasons, so another new laptop. They also gifted us Palm phones as a “welcome to HP” gift which were also WebOS. Amazing at the time. Wireless charging. An OS that just worked. You could “stack” apps for fast app switching. And then within months HP split into HP, HPE, and killed the remnants of Palm.
I had a Veer. It really needed a couple of major OS updates, but HP killed it basically the week after it came out, and we hobbled along with community hacks and mods for another year before it became too painful to use and. I switched ... to Windows Phone. I have a knack for choosing dead-end mobile OSes.
It is awesome that you can see the home screen dock icons even on the app switcher. Makes accessing them feel a lot more cohesive.
I had 1 of those and it was a fun tablet to use, especially when you could multiboot with Android. However, the lack of a microSD slot is very painful
I had a Palm Pre when HP purchased Palm for WebOS and absolutely loved the operating system. I was a bit disappointed to not see it really become much going forward as it felt very intuitive, quick, and looked great. It felt ahead of the time and like it had a chance to be competitive but that's not the timeline that panned out
It was really nice seeing WebOS again on the HP TouchPad here
Aww I miss my Touchpad. I got mine off of Woot and used it for many years. Totally ahead of its time.
WebOS as far as I know was started on the PALM PRE phones. And they were way more customizable than an Android of the time.
Being Linux based, they had an app you could download that had our famous “ penguin “ as the icon if I remember right and you could download “ Patches “ to change the color of clock at the top of your phone, signal, and battery icons. Hide icons completely off of the front of your phone and make them come back with a gesture on the bottom of the phone. ( sound familiar?? ) Remove icon lettering, ect. And you could also download an app patch that gave you an on screen keyboard with a double tap ( again… sound familiar?? ) before that was a popular thing. I absolutely loved my Palm! Then my phone company MADE me upgrade my phone cause they said it was “ OBSOLETE “ , then I found out HP bought them out.
I wish they could come back with WebOS on phones. I would go back in a HEARTBEAT!!!
I loved my webOS phone too. The patches were super cool. One added a download button to the UA-cam app.
@@knorze1777 Yea!!! I forgot about that. Such a great OS.
The app you were saying is Preware
@@David20Craft YES!!! That was the name of it. Super cool phone/ OS!!!
@@justinhinson6504 glad that i helped you
I vividly remember these back in the day! WebOS was a big deal. Shame that it failed. I remember people used to give these away in UA-cam giveaways
I was working at OfficeMax at the time these were new and then discontinued. I was working the morning they went on sale and immediately grabbed one. It was absolutely brilliant with the touchstone dock and “cards” for multitasking. It even survived a flight off the roof of my car when I forgot to grab it and drove off. Still have the thing, just couldn’t bring myself to trash it. WebOS was miles ahead of iOS. Jon Rubinstein worked some magic at HP just like he did with Apple.
i had that TouchPad when I was a kid it's absolutely boosting-up nostalgia, tbqh.
Imagine what WebOS could've been if it had survived. Such a great mobile OS.
I'm new here and I just have to say the idea of using ice trays to hold screws and bolts is SO SMART. I don't know this is a popular thing people often do but I'm definitely going to start doing that!
Good times. I was working at Staples the day they Started the Firesale. I was second in the store, and the manager Told me about the Sale. We got one each and sold out before we could even open the store. LOL. This was on a Saturday morning. I remember ALL WEEKEND taking calls having to tell people these were out of stock.
I like how the system update icon is a wrapped gift box
Best Tablet Ever, still have 3, i got them for dirt cheap working for HP
WebOS is such a great developer experience. Qt on mobile is so underrated.
I still have mine. Bought it in the fire sale with the stand and keyboard. It was great for a good few years after, until licenses and video codecs started to be updated on various websites and nothing load. I did dual boot with android which helped prolong its use for a while longer but even support for that fell off in the end. Still a beautiful experience though.
I still have mine and it box .... loved it when new
still do...
My mom had one of these back in 2011 when they sold them for $99 with a laptop. I loved that this had flash player, was great for watching UA-cam videos and playing those old Facebook games 😂
I remember following someone that used to show Android builds for this. I couldn't believe it got so much community support.
I got one the day of the firesale at the WalMart in East Norriton. Rolled up at like, 6:30am (I think it was still 24/7 then!) and there was 3 other people there waiting to get one. It was mediocre... just needed faster hardware and some refinement and it coulda been awesome. The OS had tons of potential, but the hardware was merely 'good enough' for the time.
I grabbed 2 of these for cheap when they were discontinued. They were great tablets!
holy crap i love how the selected ringtone was tenisu no boifriendo by freezepop, what a throwback!
I was always curious about those. Tried to get one but they sold out too fast at $99. Thanks for being a fun part of my Saturdays.🎉
I got one of these during the Fire sale along with the Bluetooth keyboard. I used it for years then upgraded it to Android and used it even more
Bought one new when they went cheap, along with the wireless charging dock, a couple of different cases, and a couple of the USB chargers. I still have and use all of it.
Cameron Sino really does make batteries for everything. Just last month I got batteries for my 20 year old Creative Jukebox and Fujitsu Siemens PDA from them.
I bought one of these in the fire sale.
Honestly loved the little thing.
I loved, loved, my HP running the magnificent WebOS.
It sucked that HP gave up so quickly.
Thank you for making this video! I still own an HP Touch Pad, Palm Pre, and other Palm OS devices with the Tapwave Zodiac being my favorite
Inspired me to go looking through the attic to find mine. Hoping it still works after all these years!
I still have the awesome touchstone dock. Wish I could use it for something else. The tablet itself gave me many years of service as a cyanogen android tablet. Around 2016 in use as a clock the battery rapidly expanded, cracked the front glass, and seven years of fun ended.
I got one during the "fire sale" HP had. Still have it but lost the oversized charging brick so its on the shelf with my other tech items without chargers. Will have to see if it has the spicy pillow or not.
I remember driving 70 miles to the only Walmart that had one in stock. Sold soon after on eBay and regret it. The OS was quite special. Still have my blackberry Z30 though 😁
Thanks for inspiring me to find mine! It's been in the cellar since 2012. It wont turn on or charge but its otherwise in mint condition, battery not even swollen. I'm gonna get a new battery and hook it up!
I would LOVE to see a video on how to install the archived App Store. I forgot about my touchpad and it’s sitting in a drawer somewhere in my house, I can’t wait to try this!
I had the induction charger stand for my HP Touchpad. The expedition mode worked great with it.
I still have my one of these! What a time it was!
I had (Might still have) one of those I got during the fire sale. There was some stuff to overclock (actually clock it at full chip speed) those which was really worth it. It made it a lot better to use. They underclocked those from the factory.
I was a webOS true believer when the Palm Pre came out. I was so excited then the touchpad was announced but knew that I would never afford one. Not for a couple months anyway. I used that thing way longer than any reasonable person should, and I am still sad every time I think of what could have been.
In answer to two of your questions: If you had a Pre3 (yet another cancelled webOS device) or a Veer phone, you could have them linked to the tablet. If you selected to dial a phone number on the tablet, it would dial the number on the linked phone. In regard to Exhibition mode: this was a means to display the clock when device was sitting on the inductive charger, where one could adjust the display able and use it like a clock on your desk when you weren't using the device. Exhibition mode was also extensible so other app developers could take advantage of it and display their app (like Spotify or a podcast app) in Exhibition mode vs. the standard clocks provided by HP.
I was working for HPE at the time and was lucky enough to grab a couple for next to morning.
I have one of these I got refurbised on Woot, though sadly for about $150 instead of the fire sale $99. I flashed it to run Android 4.0 and it served as my tablet for a fair bit of time, with Android having caught up to WebOS in most features by then. The tablet has gone fidgety and will not always charge from the USB port, but does usually work using the inductive charger stand for it, which I have it on now. Looking forward to your video on using the WebOS side nowadays (mine still has the option to boot into it).
I had one of those, and a nook color, both running custom android roms. They were great!
You could buy an accessory dock/stand, that would wirelessly charge the tablet. It was what the display mode was made for with the clocks, etc. As for the ringtones, the tablet was designed to sync with your WebOS Palm/HP “Pre”phone I believe.
yeah, the Touchstone, very neat idea at that time.
Excellent video of an abandonware! I absolutely recommend you review Blackberry Playbook, an absolute classic of a tablet which quickly became abandonware in just two years as a result of BB10 not being launched on this thing.
I had one, it was a great little tablet. I worked for an HP reseller, and I think HP would loan us a jig to open them up.
i managed to score a heavily discounted one in early october 2011 with the touchstone and case. I was initially really impressed by it and the OS was amazing. was also nice to have flash support.
My satisfaction was short lived and by January 2012 i sold it and bought an iPad 2. For me that was a much better fit.
Got one during the fire sale too. Haven't touched it in ages. I wasn't even sure where it was. Found it, and yep, looks like the battery is toast.
Ha!! I totally forgot soundboards were a thing!! Happy days 😁
I was working at Future Shop when these were cleared out. I can't really remember why I didn't bother buying one, a lot of my co-workers did. I wish I had!
I not only had an HP Touchpad but also a Blackberry Playbook. Got both on firesales. Honestly enjoyed them both and wish they hadn't been overpriced to start then abandoned when they didn't magically go viral by force of will.
I own 10 of these for no reason besides just loving the design.
I still have the official keyboard they made for it. Never owned the touchpad but, that Bluetooth keyboard was a great deal on clearance thanks to the discontinuation.
I remember getting mine at a Walmart in San Antonio as soon as the price dropped. Absolutely loved it and even tried putting android on it, which I regretted because after as soon as the battery would die then I would have to open it up and supply power directly to the battery to get it to start charging.
Such a shame that HP bought it from Palm and then sold it to LG instead of open sourcing everything
I worked for HP at the time and we got first dibs on them when they were cancelled. I bought the tablet and all of the accessories for £100! WebOS was really good, just needed some polishing and updates. Shame Leo cancelled it
Also it did have a standing wireless charger called the touchstone that yes exhibition was used to display it as a desk clock
I worked at Future Shop when these came out and I was there when we fire sold them for $99 bucks even. I regretted not buying one but I was a broke college student and needed food more than a defunct tablet.
I couldn't stop staring at the suspicious black dot in the intro... Reminds me of Ipod nanos....
I've been watching your videos using web os for years
looks like a cool tablet
i want it now
Huehuehue...
Don't mind me, It's just my Latam brain regressing to kindergarten like every other time that I heard "WebOs".
Or like with those Mazda Laputa cars... Huehuehue.
jajajaja