
An Android port for the Touchpad has just started development - srik
http://www.touch-droid.com/
======
jallmann
I'm all for hey-why-not geek cred, but the reason for getting a Touchpad is
WebOS. There is nothing intrinsically special about the hardware that deserves
Android (except that it is cheap right now).

I'd be more impressed with figuring a way to get WebOS onto other devices.

~~~
angryasian
just picked up one this weekend, some reasons are:

1\. WebOS international support is terrible. This is a huge reason to get
Android on it. They've completely ignored it.

2\. The browser while good, the card system is slow when trying to use it as a
tabbed browser. Opening a new link in a new card is quite slow. I don't care
for app support because their browser is good, but if you are going to rely on
the browser at least have a decent tabbed browser. Look at Dolphin browser on
Android to see how a mobile browser should be done. Also another limitation
seems to be I can't download files from the browser ex dropbox.

3\. Overall the system feels sluggish. Android has multitasking right, WebOS
doesn't. After the Android team optimizes and overclocks this hardware, I
imagine its going to be pretty good.

4\. Lack of Customization, I can't even make a picture fullscreen wallpaper on
the background. And since you can't place anything on the desktop/wall area..
a nice big picture would look good.

Overall its solid and feels polished, but WebOS is overall really lacking and
compared to Honeycomb I don't see it as better. The best thing is flash
support works great, and I can watch all the media I want from streaming flash
sites. The biggest benefit is getting honeycomb/Ice cream sandwich on a solid
tablet for $100.

------
watty
I picked up two TouchPads this weekend for my wife and I (but also spent half
my weekend tracking them down). I really like the hardware and webOS for
browsing, facebook and email but the app selection is severely lacking.

I would LOVE to put Android on it for the apps but have doubts that it will
come to fruition. There's an influx of new TouchPad users but it's reached
it's peak and can only go down from here.

------
petegrif
I am a little puzzled by this project because: a) there was a recent post on
techcrunch about how webos runs twice as fast on a hacked ipad, how the
hardware isn't that great at all and how this was a pretty widespread belief
in the HP team b) android hardware is evolving very very fast These two
observations would suggest that by the time android is ported to the touchpad
it will be an obviously obsolete piece of unsupported hardware

------
SODaniel
Just picked up my own Touchpad from Barnes and Noble ($100, 16GB) and look
forward to hacking around with it.

~~~
piranha
Have you got yours? If I go to 'my account' there it says 'unable to process
order'.

~~~
reemrevnivek
I ordered mine (without using a B&N account) an hour ago, and it went fine:
Email receipts and everything! Check with your bank to make sure it's not a
problem on your side.

------
aeontech
I wish there was a port to ExoPC. I have one laying around, completely
useless.

~~~
Osiris
Why is it useless? According to the specs you should be able to run Windows 7
on it. Of course, maybe that's exactly why it's useless.

------
drivebyacct2
Their first blog post is far, far, far from hope inspiring. <http://www.touch-
droid.com/2011/08/21/who-we-are/> (Edit) And indeed the sight of a certain
username causes me to be very unsurprised.

~~~
Osiris
I'm curious to know how they will deal with all the hardware drivers for the
Touchpad-specific hardware. I'm not keeping my hopes up. I'd be more
interested in people making tweaked/customized WebOS ROMs for it.

~~~
drivebyacct2
I assumed with the kernel sources available and access to the drivers
available on current Touchpad ROMs, that that wouldn't be the hardest part of
it, but I don't know what work it takes to get those drivers and kernel to
work with Android.

------
barista
Obviously fueled by HP's deep price cut, hope the momentum keeps going after
HP runs out of the stock.

------
gcb
I'd be more impressed getting linux to run on all of the above. Touchpad,
android phones, toasters, etc.

why have a dumbed down version where you must either a) have no control to
menial tasks like editing /etc/hosts or _gasp_ opening an ssh session; b) let
any app do as it whish with your data

I used to run linux with window maker on a 386 compaq portable. 1/100 of the
cpu of my phone. 1/3 of the screen pixel of my nexus one.

get away with those toy OSes. Enough is enough.

~~~
scotu
I think you don't know what are you talking about: Android is linux and you
can edit /etc/hosts as you wish.

You can even get in an ssh session as simple as an app...

And for b) : what an app can do is stated before install. "English, _my
friend_. Do you speak it?" (Or any other language fyi)

~~~
gcb
in another thread i'm downvoted when people says that multiuser is essential
for a desktop and i call it a minor annoyance for 99% of the setups.

here i'm downvoted because i want multiused on my mobile stuff.

And if you blindly trust android control model, i'm sorry. The non-rooted ROMs
google distribute over the air has some sandboxing control but then your
launcher and every other program is boxed out of basic functionality, such as
editing /etc/hosts and running ssh or loading a tun driver. If you allow your
stuff to run 'as root' then you can't believe any app until you coded it
yourself --which is fine with me, this worked well on the PC.

~~~
scotu
you can edit hosts without root with adb, if you don't want to root. If you
want to live in a post-pc world you can simply grant root privileges to one
single app for one single session...

I bet that if you don't trust any app on the market, you can simply write one
for yourself, pay someone to write one or find one that is open source (and
pay someone to audit it) and build it+sideload that app on your phone. Too
complicated? Sure it is. Make your trade off

