It seems like the mismanagement of webOS is something we’ll be hearing about for a long time going forward. The webOS system has been celebrated by tech pundits and users, but just can’t seem to find its way onto quality hardware with reasonable marketing and support behind it. WebOS started out life on dying Palm hardware running on the bottom tier US carrier, Sprint. Out of death, it was bought by HP and put on the TouchPad, which we knew wasn’t the best hardware, but it may have been worse that even we expected.

TheNextWeb is reporting now that HP tested webOS on an iPad 2, and it ran “twice as fast” on the iPad than on the TouchPad. It’s unclear exactly how the testing was done, or how the conclusion was reached as it seems devs tested webOS framework Enyo apps on the iPad, and also tested the full OS on the iPad. Still, it has been confirmed by webOS developers that they were forced to scale back features, and not innovate too far because the TouchPad hardware was so slow and had so many restrictions.

It’s always sad to see promising software mismanaged, and never find a hold, but at the very least we can hope that Matias Duarte can bring some of the webOS magic to Android.

source: TheNextWeb

Digitimes reports that in order to boost sales and clear inventory due to weaker than expected demand, Android, webOS and QNX tablet makers are planning across-the-board price cuts by the end of September.

We don’t see it as much of a surprise that the tablet prices will be falling about six months after launch, and the process had even started with some manufacturers. HP recently made the $100 price cut for its HP TouchPad permanent, and now we are seeing the Toshiba Thrive appearing for $368 at Walmart, and the Acer Iconia Tab A500 $322 at Amazon.

The sources believe that prices will gradually slide to $350 on average by October, and go down to $300 in time for the holidays.

If quality Android slates, like the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, or the Acer Iconia Tab A500, which used to command pretty decent $399 price tags already, get slashed 25%, this will certainly increase the market share of Android’s tablet OS, which is still quite low compared to the iOS slates.

source: Amazon & Digitimes

Our digital news stands are about to get quite a bit better. Time Inc. has promised that by the end of this year, it will bring all 21 of its magazine titles to the “leading tablet platforms”. Although, by “leading platforms” apparently Time only means iOS, Android and WebOS. Sorry, BlackBerry and non-existent Windows tablet users.

The best part about this news is that Time has promised that the magazines will not simply be scans of the print versions, but will be apps designed specifically for each platform. Currently, only Sports Illustrated is being released on multiple platforms, while Time, People and InStyle are all iPad only. The other 17 titles on the way are: All You, Coastal Living, Cooking Light, Entertainment Weekly, Essence, Fortune, Golf, Health, Money, People en Espagnol, People Style Watch, Real Simple, Southern Living, Sports Illustrated for Kids, This Old House, and Time for Kids.

This should be impressive if Time can pull it off, because digital publishing is a completely different beast to that of print. It will be very interesting to see how this all works out, because the lure of tablet specific apps definitely sounds much better than just glorified PDFs.

source: Time Inc. via Mashable

Gartner is a well-trusted tech oracle, but when it comes to predicting events in a 5-year timeframe, predictions become largely equivalent to palm-reading. Well, there might be one exception – tablets. Apple has basically created the tablet market with the original iPad and Gartner’s latest prognosis says that Cupertino is to remain the dominant company. But even Steve Jobs won’t be able to sustain the overwhelming popularity that the iPad is enjoying nowadays – the tablet’s share will slip to some 69% this year and continue falling to around 47% in 2015.

Google’s Android Honeycomb has the support of pretty much every other manufacturer out there, but this – in Gartner’s views – won’t prove enough for a quick start. Honeycomb tablets are to conquer the market gradually, starting from a 14% share in 2010, to reach nearly 20% this year and sprinting to the finish to close the gap with almost 39% in 2015.

The other major contender out there seems to be RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook. The 7-inch tablet holds ground with its business allure and QNX-based platform, but it will encounter one major obstacle on its way – apps. Nevertheless, Gartner forecasts bright future for the tablet which will supposedly occupy 5.6 of the market this year, only to reach the healthy 10% in 2015. But finally, HP’s TouchPad will face the most difficulties. Gartner’s predictions speak for a slow start for the tablet which will finish 2015 with a weak 3% presence.

Just last week, the analysts from Gartner presented us with their 5-year perspective on the cell phone market, but it was a whole different story with Android on top of the charts and Windows Phone picking up pace. Microsoft’s OS, somewhat surprisingly, is not even in the forecast here, which makes us think that we might see a whole new model to reflect the three-horse race that Redmond wants to stage. Whatever the future brings, one thing is certain – the market will be a very competitive one and this is always good for the end-user.

source: Gartner via mocoNews

In the very near future game creator Rovio will be releasing an update to the Angry Birds Seasons game with special levels designed for St. Patrick’s Day that includes the pigs wearing green Irish hats.

This edition of the game is called “Go Green, Get Lucky.” In the preview trailer posted at the bottom you will see that the levels more closely resemble that of the original Angry Birds than those found on other seasonal variations such as Valentine’s Day and Christmas. Guess you can only do so much with a St. Patrick’s Day theme.

The game should be available shortly considering St. Patrick’s Day is March 17. As always, the update will be free and will find its way to iOS, Android, WebOS and Symbian. Check out the trailer and tell us what you think in the comments below.

source: Slash Gear

Though many have jumped on the tablet bandwagon with devices like the successful Apple iPad, 99.7% of the world’s population still has not seen the need for a tablet and therefore have not purchased one to date.

The research was conducted by RBC Capital Market analyst Mike Abramsky who managed to create an 88-page report on his findings. He also focused on the market for TV subscriptions, newspaper circulation and more but we will just focus on the tablets for now.

The fact that only .3% of the world’s population has purchased a tablet can be attributed to the lack of selection, fairly new technology or the fact that there is no real need to own one. There is a flurry of tablets on the horizon, so these numbers could surely change by this time next year

Abramsky believes that these numbers will skyrocket within the next few years. In fact, he predicts that 185 million tablets will be sold in the year 2014. That is a huge difference from the numbers reported in 2010.

With Android getting ready to hit the tablet world by storm, BlackBerry and HP getting ready to make a plays their own and an already established successful tablet in the form of Apple’s iPad, what do you think of Abramsky’s prediction? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

source: Slash Gear

The battle of the heavyweights has officially been staged – the Apple iPad 2 is the successor to the original iPad, which dominated the tablet segment in the last year, but the new contenders appear with an equally mighty dual-core muscle and tailor-made Android Honeycomb not breaking a sweat under its power.

The iPad 2 comes with a lot of swagger – Cupertino is saying that with it the company aims to retain a nearly 80% market share in 2011. Honeycomb on the other side comes in a variety of tablets like the already released Motorola XOOM and the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. But it’s not the only one who wants a piece of the tablet pie as the webOS-based HP TouchPad is expected to make an appearance in the Summer months.

We shouldn’t omit the rest of the tablets out there, but it seems that most of them fall in a slightly different category by either having a smaller screen or not having the type of carrier support these heavyweight will get. That – of course – doesn’t make them less of a capable rival to the iPad, but for the time being let’s focus on the biggest ones and see who wins in the first round where we clash the specs!

HP CEO Leo Apotheker recently shared some of his thoughts and hopes about HP and it seems his major point is that HP should become “cool” like Apple. Just how cool? Reportedly, Apotheker called on his Bangalore employees to “get rid of their iPhones and iPads.” The main reason – of course – is the new webOS software, but HP’s head honcho also mentioned that the hardware is ready and will ship within weeks of their announcement.

Apotheker asked 4,500 HP employees to raise their hands if they considered Apple cool and after the majority of them did, he actually urged them to get rid of their Apple products. HP’s CEO also pumped expectations for new products launched in the US on February 9th. No surprise about this, right ?

Apotheker is on a three-day tour in India meeting with employees reportedly to get some feedback about HP’s progress. But hold on as HP’s February webOS event will be followed by a March 14th event where he will announce his vision about the company’s future. Is HP finally going to bring hardware to match the exciting capabilities of the webOS platform? Let us know in the comments.

source: PreCentral via BBC Mobile

The October smartphone OS numbers are in, and not everyone is pleased. The statistics from comScore measure the change in U.S. smartphone OS market share from July, 2010 to October, 2010. Google’s Android is the big winner, while RIM’s BlackBerry continues to falter.

Android has continued its ascent, going from 17% to 23.5%, which amounts to a 38% increase in only 3 months. Apple meanwhile has enjoyed a 3.3% rise from 23.8% to 24.6%. Even though iOS’ market share is still growing, we imagine Steve Jobs is upset about Android being so close behind.

BlackBerry has declined even further, from 39.3% to 35.8% (an 8.9% decrease). RIM will need some fresh ideas if they want to regain some market share. Their BlackBerry OS 6 only seems to be slowing the bleeding.

Palm’s webOS has declined from 4.9% to 3.9% (a 20% decrease). But we think that’s more due to marketing and availability, rather than interest. The debut of the Pre 2 and Palm’s other upcoming devices should give them a healthy bump in 2011.

Microsoft will be disappointed to see an 18% decline, from 11.8% to 9.7%. They’re waiting to see an increase from Windows Phone 7, but that will take more time. Place your bets, folks. It’s anyone’s game in 2011.

source: comScore via Engadget

HP executive Jon Rubinstein sat down with Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs at the Churchill Club last night, to discuss the future of mobile technology. Rubinstein practically conceded the first top two spots in the battle amongst operating systems when he was asked to rate the current crop available. After admitting that iOS and Android are obviously selling like hotcakes, he said that the real battle will be for third place and, “We’d sure like to be that,” Rubinstein said.

Qualcom’s Jacobs noted that the limitations in battery life and bandwidth have held back smartphone development as the two have not kept up with all of the other things that are being accomplished. When it comes to bandwidth, Qualcom’s CEO said, “We don’t have enough spectrum right now. We are just going to have to be more creative about how we get content to the devices.” He did point out that both the industry and the government are working on ways to solve this problem. As for battery life, Jacobs noted how today’s smartphones can do all of these cool things but then the battery dies three-quarters of the way through the day. As a solution, he self-promoted Qualcom’s low power display technology it is producing with Mirasol.

Other topics of discussion included carriers. Rubinstein commented that the carriers will not be the only distribution point for wireless devices in the future. Both Rubinstein and Jacobs did agree that Augmented Reality is going to be big. The technology can be used to translate signs in foreign countries among other things.

Sticking to what they see in the next five years, both agreed that the smartphone will become a digital wallet with Jacobs predicting an end to all check-out lines. He also sees digital networked textbooks and a bigger role for smartphones in the healthcare industry,

source: AllThingsDigital