The Fall of the HP TouchPad
HP's TouchPad tablet never sold much in the few months that it was out. But, when HP announced that it was ceasing production of the device, that changed.
Consumers have cleaned out the market's $99-$150 per-unit inventory of TouchPads.
At a time when Apple is selling all the iPads it can make and companies are launching new Android tablets that are increasing in market share every day, why did the TouchPad crash and burn?
Many factors play into the answer, falling basically into four categories: 1) issues with HP's management, 2) a lack of apps and developer support, 3) the competition, 4) patience - or the lack of it.
Issues with HPs Management
Issues at the top level of HP management may have impacted the TouchPad's future.
First, there was the companys previous leadership.
The TouchPad runs on Palm's webOS, which HP acquired when it purchased Palm under the leadership of then-CEO Mark Hurd, who left under a cloud of scandal.
Second, HP's leadership, both high-level executives and its board of directors, seem intent on moving the company away from client products, including tablets.
That combination essentially made the TouchPad the Ugly Duckling of tablets".
A Lack of Apps and Developer Support
Further, HP's leadership may be struggling to map out a new strategy in the post-Mark Hurd era.
There's no (TouchPad) app for that. Perhaps the most critical error HP made with the TouchPad project was not ensuring that there were enough apps for the tablet.
Tablets are essentially consumption devices, and they rely on apps for their appeal.
For example, Apple was able to rejuvenate what was a very stagnant tablet market to the point that it almost became a new market because of apps and iTunes. If you want to take on Apple, you must have the apps.
There are more than 90 thousand apps for the iPad, according to Apple's website.
There are reportedly about 300 apps for the TouchPad.
To go along with that, HP didn't make it easy for webOS developers to create apps. The website for webOS developers is difficult to figure out, many webOS developers say.
The Competition
Announced in February, the TouchPad hit retail shelves in July, four months after the iPad 2's March launch.
That's equivalent to an eternity.
This is a very fast-paced market. Apple has built up such incredible momentum and demand for the iPad.
Should HP perhaps have rethought going into the tablet market?
One would have thought that a company of HP's experience, stature and access to market research would have been able to make an informed decision on whether or not to enter the market and how best to compete against already strong competitors like Apple, Google, Motorola and Samsung. But that didn't happen.
It's possible that both the TouchPad and HP, were not yet ready for prime time.
There were complaints about the TouchPad itself, with some users reportedly returning it and demanding refunds.
Also, marketing for the TouchPad was unproductive at best.
HP put a lot of money into TV marketing here in the states, and what was that message? That entertainers and celebrities can operate a tablet. That really did not make a whole lot of sense.
There was little that set the TouchPad apart from the competition. Users need a reason to select one manufacturer's product over its competitors, and HP failed to make a clear distinction between the TouchPad and other tablets.
Patience
Could the TouchPad have succeeded if HP had gritted its teeth and hung on? It might be possible, but we'll never know.
It takes time to build a market.
For example, the iPad wasn't an overnight success. It leveraged many of the time-tested technologies used in the iPhone and built on that device's success, brand recognition and distribution channels.
It seems that US vendors have become too sensitive to immediate market reaction, to the point that any product that isn't an immediate success is deemed to be a failure.
As a result, most products aren't given the time or support that many require to become a success. I came up with a term for this, IT-style ADD -- Advertising Deficit Disorder.
There may be life for the TouchPad yet -- open source enthusiasts have launched projects to port Android and Ubuntu (A Linux distribution) to the TouchPad.
At $99-$150 a pop, the TouchPad is an inexpensive product with which to experiment.
Conclusion
When a company has issues with management, lack of support for people who want to make it better, very stiff competition and an increasingly short sense of patience it is no wonder why an all-in-all pretty good product lived such a short life.
Amazon Cloud VS Google Music VS iCloud
Amazon Cloud Player
Lets look at the first cloud music solution brought to us by Amazon. Cloud Player works hand in hand with Cloud Drive, the web-based storage platform created to deal with its cloud offering. With the service offering a browser based user interface, any internet connected PC or Mac will be compatible. At present Android seems to be the only mobile device platform supported by Amazon, although other platforms could be added shortly. The service provides customers with 5GB of storage space to get started, but users who make a purchase at the Amazon US MP3 store during 2011 will automatically be given a 20GB upgrade for a single year. Not bad. Perhaps this deal is some kind of incentive to sway consumers away from Apples iTunes and over to Amazons MP3 store. Im not sure that it will work like Amazon hopes, but its certainly a nice offer.
Also, Amazon has claimed that it will keep all your stored music online for a lifetime, which where we come from means until youre dead. Again, this is a nice feature unless you plan on leaving your cloud storage to a relative, that is.
Unlike Apples determination to sign the big four record labels, Amazon released the service without obtaining any sort of legal deal with them. One stunned music executive was quoted saying that many in the industry questioned the services legality. The anonymous executive said: "I've never seen a company of their size make an announcement, launch a service and simultaneously say they're trying to get licenses," said the executive.
Unlike iClouds offering, there are no additional costs to upload your music sourced from elsewhere. Amazon simply charges if you need to expand on your cloud drives free capacity. The service will also allow you to re-download your MP3/ACC files to 8 devices.
Music Beta by Google
Just like Amazon, the current beta seems to have no legal backup from copyright holders. Launched at the Google I/O conference, the service hasnt really set the world talking. With Adobe Flash powering the Android-centric platform at present, iOS devices go unsupported. It also seems, however, that Android devices are also the only method of re-downloading your content. In terms of storage, Google approaches capacity by the number of songs instead of storage space. With the ability to upload 20,000 songs theres plenty of room to hide your embarrassing guilty pleasures. Just like Amazon, both MP3 and ACC files can be uploaded, with the lesser used WMA and FLAC formats also supported too. Unlike its rivals, users cant purchase music via the system as Google has no music store to compete with iTunes or the Amazon MP3 Store, which could be a bad thing for the search giant depending on how you look at it.
iCloud and iTunes Match
The major difference between the iCloud service and its opponents is the lack of browser support. Apple once again has kept the walled garden gate shut by requiring users to be running iTunes (yeseven the Windows version) or an iOS device.
The idea behind iCloud and iTunes Match clearly leaves out streaming from the agenda, your music must be fully downloaded to play. This process is made much easier by the automatic syncing between the iCloud and your devices.
A big advantage Apple has over its rivals is that iTunes Match will literally match your non-iTunes music and download a high quality 256 kbps AAC version of the songs. Once again the iCloud service is free (replacing the paid-for MobileMe) with iTunes Match setting you back a yearly fee of $25.
By matching your files up with the limited 5GB, iCloud will then use an already in the cloud file (from the iTunes server) to push this to up to 10 of your iOS devices. This saves the hassle and time of large amounts of data being uploaded to the iCloud servers via end-users limited internet connection.
Conclusion
Without knowing Googles future pricing plan it is hard to tell which one of these services I will use in the future but for right now I will stick with Music Beta by Google. I am doing this mostly because of the massive storage space allowed. I have around 4,000+ songs. Googles offering allows me to upload 16,000 more songs. I uploaded all of my music to Amazons Cloud Player and have only 3 GB of space left. I cannot test out Apples offering because I do not have an iOS device. But Apples lack of streaming or being able to play my music in a web browser is a major buzz kill on the product for me.
But as the saying goes, to each his (or her) own. Let us know if you try any of these out and which one you like the most.
Nubio
Jeffery was this week's Yamodo winner. Here is his version of Nubio.
Amazon Cloud Player
With Googles announcement last week that it would be coming out with a music store that would rival Apples iTunes, Amazon.com has just announced its Cloud Drive and Cloud Player.
Amazon Cloud drive is a personal hard drive that sits in the cloud and Amazon Cloud Player is a web-based music player. With the Cloud Drive you can upload any file you like and access it anywhere. This can be music, movies, audio or e-books, etc. With the Cloud Player you access it from any browser and the music that you have uploaded is accessible to play.
Amazon is giving users 5 GB of free storage with a special in which you buy any mp3 album from Amazon.com and save it to your Cloud Player and they will automatically upgrade you to 20 GB of storage for 1 year. I bought a $3.49 4 song EP and they upgraded me so you dont have to buy full albums.
Any music purchase that you make from Amazon and save to your Cloud Player does not count against your storage quota. I thought this was a nice touch from Amazon. I uploaded most of my music collection, which is 17 GB, in a matter of about 20 hours total.
The thing that I am excited about is that Amazon has also implemented the Cloud Player in to its Android app. So, instead of having to buy a 32 GB microSD card, I can access my entire music collection on my phone from this free app. It even lets you download the songs directly to your phone. This is very useful if you are going to be in an area with no cell phone coverage (ex. On a flight) and want to listen to some funky grooves.
The pricing for additional storage is as follows:
Storage Plans
Get all the online storage space you need.
PlanPriceDetails
5 GBFREEFree of charge to you
20 GB$20.00 / Year
50 GB$50.00 / yearLess than $4.25 / month
100 GB$100.00 / yearLess than $8.50 / month
200 GB$200.00 / yearLess than $16.75 / month
500 GB$500.00 / yearLess than $41.75 / month
1000 GB$1,000.00 / yearLess than $83.50 / month
All storage plans are billed on an annual basis.
I am excited to see this idea mature and to see what the competitors (Google and Apple) come up with to fend off Amazon from becoming the king of the mp3 download realm.
iPad vs iPad 2
Apple announced its new iPad 2 on March 2nd and I figured I would do a comparison with the original iPad to let you decide if this is what you have been waiting for, or, if you already own the original, if it is worth upgrading.
The Improvements
The iPad 2 is both thinner and lighter than the original, weighing in at just 1.3 pounds and measuring .34 thick. The device now sports dual-core processors, a 2X faster CPU and 9X faster graphics. The tablet also has App mirroring (so you can play Plants vs. Zombies on the big screen), and also adds both front- and rear-facing cameras, and applications such as iMovie and PhotoBooth that take advantage of them. The iPad 2 will also offer iOS 4.3 which offers improved support for AirPlay, iTunes home sharing, and the ability to customize how the lock switch works on the side of the device.
A new native Garage Band application is also an outstanding addition to the iPad 2 from a musicians standpoint. Instruments can be plugged into the side of the tablet, allowing musicians to record and mix up to 8 tracks of audio on their device.
The fact that Apple will be selling the new iPad for the same price as the original makes the iPad 2 a clear winner.
How the Battle Plays Out
Want to see how the battle between the two tablets looks spec by spec? Ive created this awesome chart to let you see how the iPad 2 looks next to its older brother.
iPad vs iPad 2 Comparison Chart
| | |
Display | 9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology | 9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology |
Processor | 1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed, high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip | 1GHz dual-core Apple A5 custom-designed, high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip |
RAM | 256 RAM | TBA |
Capacity | 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash drive | 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash drive |
Wireless and Cellular | Wi-Fi model | Wi-Fi model |
Battery and Power | Built-in 25-watt-hour rechargeable lithium-polymer battery | Built-in 25-watt-hour rechargeable lithium-polymer battery Up to 9 hours of surfing the web using 3G data network |
Sensors | Accelerometer | Three-axis gyro |
Cameras | None | Back camera: Video recording, HD (720p) up to 30 frames per second with audio; still camera with 5x digital zoom |
Other Features | 3.5-mm stereo headphone jack | 3.5-mm stereo headphone minijack |
Price | WiFi only: 16 GB $ 399 32 GB $ 499 64 GB $ 599
WiFi + 3G: 16 GB $ 529 32 GB $ 629 64 GB $ 729 | WiFi only: 16 GB $ 499 32 GB $ 599 64 GB $ 699
WiFi + 3G: 16 GB $ 629 32 GB $ 729 64 GB $ 829 |
Conclusion
I feel like the features you get for $ 100 dollars more are indeed worth getting the iPad 2 over the original iPad if you dont already own the original iPad. If you do own the original iPad, unless you can sell it for what Apple is selling it for now I do not see the need in paying $ 500+ for these new upgraded specs.
That said, I still cannot find myself in the market for any tablet devise just yet. One of the main reasons I would buy a tablet is to watch movies and listen to music. I have transferred all of my dvds and cds to digital versions and require at least a 500 GB hard drive or support for an external usb hard drive. Since none of the popular tablets out on the market have this large of a hard drive or external usb hard drive support I find myself still playing the waiting game.
These are very nice devices with applications that give it a vast amount of functionality. I highly recommend both of them.
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