"Surprisingly"

Shall we sort the list by profit?

number 2, eh? Don't forget to wipe afterwards

buntz: HempHead: I love my HP Touchpad!

But what are you doing with it (beside what I listed it's good for). Not being snarky, I'm always looking for something I didn't know it could do.

Another thing I'm upset about: Once a week they send the WebOS Newsletter with 4 free app codes.

Every week I get the email and enter the codes, honestly, within a MINUTE. And each week I'm told "Sorry, that code has reached its limit. No longer available!"
I talked to HP about it and they said "Yeah, it's first come, first serve"
I said "Well, first of all, it's not a physical item, there aren't 'limited' quantities. Second, I JUST got the email within the past minute!"
They said "Yeah, you're just not fast enough!"

/that's BS to me. It's not the apps. it's the principle.

Root it.

Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion: I loved the idea behind WebOS, but it was too little, too late and then HP screwed the pooch. When I finally threw Cyanogenmod Android on my Touchpad, it suddenly became useful.

i don't have strong feelings one way or the other re: WebOS, but I will readily admit that after throwing the dual boot option on my Touchpad, it became my new favorite toy. And I have the 64g version, so I have lots and lots of room to add all kinds of stuff.

buntz: How did you do it? I'm not tech savvy and I hear about people doing that but I don't have the slightest on how!

Check out the cyanogenmod forums. There is lots of information there. I would, however, stay away from the mod until they release the stable version (right now they are on the 3rd test release). Thankfully, they usually do a pretty good job of simple instructions to walk you through the process.

bsharitt: I think it's probably the best mobile OS I've used

i should probably clarify my previous post. i do like webos as on os in and of itself, but the lack of apps is a real buzzkill for me. it's really hard to separate the two for me. i actually bought my tp strictly because i knew the cm mod was coming out.

bsharitt: And that lack of support is the reason I got rid of my TouchPad despite loving the OS.

and that lack of support is the reason i got the cm android boot.

Unless you can easily hack the thing to run Android I don't think I'd get one even at $99.

My boyfriend just got me a Toshiba Thrive and I've been loving it. I just bought the Caustic synth app and today I bought Sketchbook Pro for it. Both apps were only something like $5. I've been enthralled with tablet computing. For me, it captures that raw excitement of the early days of home computers when you had things like Commodore 64s and TI99/4As and all these different machines with different features and competing platforms. The desktop and even laptop PC market have just become uninteresting. There's the predictable jump in memory, jump in CPU speed, etc etc but it always feels like more of the same. The software is expensive and bloated.

The constraints of the tablet computer has created some very elegant interfaces (and some clunkers) and I find when software is priced at under $10 a program I'm much more excited about purchasing it. Like I said, I just bought Sketchbook Pro today and for the first time in a long time I've actually become excited about drawing again. I've been loving drawing on my tablet and the software is simple, elegant, yet surprisingly powerful and it only cost $6. A similar program for my PC would have probably started at $100.

I can't explain exactly why but tablet computing just excites me about computers in a way I haven't been excited about computers since the 80s.

And for people who dismiss tablet computers strictly as media consumption machines. I drew this in a very short period of time after purchasing the app. And it was actually fun to draw it and it has actually made me excited about the prospect of returning to comics again and using my tablet computer to produce the work.

RoyBatty: Ghastly: The constraints of the tablet computer has created some very elegant interfaces (and some clunkers) and I find when software is priced at under $10 a program I'm much more excited about purchasing it.

The gap between "full blown pc/mac apps" at $29 - $299 a pop version "barely useful/limited android/apple apps" at $.99 - $14.99 a pop is hard for me to put my mind around.

It seems both these pricing arrangements must be wrong and must be limiting either number of sales or minimizing profits. But most of the tablet apps I've played with are barely useful, poorly tested, shadows of what they should be.

If this post makes no sense -- I plead lack of sleep.

You do have to wade through a lot of shovel ware with the apps, but when you find a gem, you really find a gem. Caustic for example is a very powerful softsynth package and a similar PC program would probably be close to $100. The other nice thing about the tablet apps is when the developer makes an update, you get the update for free. There are a number of PC programs I use which I was using back when I was still running Windows 95. Why do I use it? Because it still works and I don't feel like shelling out a big wad of money to buy the program all over again.

Most of the "new" PC software I buy is the stuff in the delete bins for around $10.

If I pay $10 or less for a program I'm a little more patient and understanding waiting for them to patch a bug in the code. When I pay $100 or more for a program then the damned thing better work flawlessly. Frankly I'm amazed at just how much crap gets pushed out on the market in high end software that's buggy as all hell and is full of bugs.

There are a few problems with the Android platform. There's a tonne of excellent photography software out there but almost nothing useful in the way of videography software like there is on the iPad. I figure it's probably just a matter of time before that sort of software begins to be developed, just like drivers for USB ports. Right now the USB port seems to only be used for data storage but it will probably only be a matter of time before some boffins start writing drivers for audio/midi devices and digitizing tablets and other assorted USB devices.

RoyBatty: Ghastly: The other nice thing about the tablet apps is when the developer makes an update, you get the update for free.

The other thing I like about android apps is that it's buy it once, get it on all your (compatible) android devices for no extra charge.

I didn't know that. How do you do that?

RoyBatty: Ghastly: I didn't know that. How do you do that?

Oh, you don't do anything.

If you bought app on Android device A under Google Account B, then you merely sign into Android device C, under Google Account B, and the app appears as "Purchased" and you can install it on the new device (assuming compatibility.)

This takes a bunch of $2 apps and turns them into $0.66 apps. That was a very pleasant surprise when I found out about that. And now, Android Market allows supports multiple accounts, so it works out even better than before.

Hmmm... it seems you can't log out of the market once you log into it without doing a factory reset of your phone. I had set up a google account for my phone that was different from my main google account and now there's no way I can log onto that account on my phone without having to reset my phone. How annoying.

RoyBatty: Ghastly: There's a tonne of excellent photography software out there but almost nothing useful in the way of videography software like there is on the iPad.

A Xoom Honeycomb tablet I'm playing with has something called Movie Studio which is a very simple iMovie / Windows Movie Maker.

I'm talking about things like 8mm Vintage Camera and other live video special effects software. That's one area where the iPad really does shine.