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Searching for a new lease of life, Mozilla is joining forces with Spanish operator Telefónica to build handsets that have web technologies at their heart. But can Mozilla succeed where Palm failed? And is there room in a difficult market for more players? Read More »

On this week’s audio podcast, Matt and Kevin share more about the Galaxy Nexus and Google Wallet experiences, plus OnLive; a cloud-based game service. There’s talk on the fate of webOS now that HP has open-sourced it. Will it matter in the long run? Read More »

 
 

After on-again, off-again news about the webOS mobile platform, HP has made a final decision: WebOS will be offered to the open source community. HP will still be involved to help platform progression, but it’s not clear if any HP hardware will ever run webOS again. Read More »

MobileTechRoundup podcast episode 250

Matt and Kevin are back for their 250th weekly mobile tech podcast. This week, Matt shares firsthand impressions from the Nokia World event in London and the Lumia 710 and 800 Windows Phone handsets. Plus a listener question about Gmail features on Apple’s iOS platform. Read More »

The HP TouchPad tablet isn’t quite dead yet: a new software update is available today that adds a new Camera app, improves performance and supports Bluetooth pairing with non-webOS phones. After the update, TouchPad owners will be able to answer phone calls on their tablet. Read More »

The race in mobile has defaulted to Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems, but that hasn’t stopped Samsung from thinking about open-sourcing Bada, or Microsoft from pushing ahead with Windows Phone 7 and a partnership with Nokia. But do we need another mobile OS? Read More »

Tablet sales will continue to rise from 17.6 million sales last year to 326.3 million by 2015, says Gartner, but the iPad will still dominate the market. There’s good reason to believe Gartner’s iPad estimates, but some of the other platform numbers don’t quite make sense. Read More »

Not only does Samsung not want to buy HP’s PC business, it also says it wants nothing to do with buying webOS. Samsung’s CEO made that clear Friday while talking with reporters at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. Read More »

HP may have canned the TouchPad, but at least the company is trying to make things right for current webOS owners. The official HP Palm blog is serving up a free software six-pack to all TouchPad owners now through the end of the month. Read More »

Tech savvy users may be snapping up the $99 HP TouchPad for a reason nobody thought of: You can turn the slate into an Ubuntu Linux tablet with these instructions. The TouchPad will still run webOS, so this solution offers two operating systems for one price. Read More »

Since 2007, Apple has led the way in a tightly integrated mobile product, combining hardware, software, ecosystem and IP. Competitors have taken notice because four of the six main mobile platforms have followed; the latest is Google’s purchase of Motorola. So where does this leave Microsoft? Read More »

Matt and Kevin are back with the weekly podcast, this time sharing hands-on impressions of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Mango software update. Plus thoughts on the new Acer A100 7-inch Honeycomb tablet, HP’s TouchPad and Research In Motion’s smartphone strategy with several new handset models. Read More »

More Must Reads

HP’s next webOS tablet looks to be the TouchPad Go, known internally as the Opal. Due to a prior HP roadmap leak and some detective work based on a recent FCC filing, the Go could be more mobile due to a smaller 7-inch screen size. Read More »

Following a temporary $100 price cut on its TouchPad tablets last weekend, HP today made the reduced list price permanent. While this surely cuts into the margin for HP’s TouchPad, the company can afford a short-term profit gap in order to spur sales and attract developers. Read More »

The web is buzzing with several HP TouchPad price discounts on the webOS tablet in the U.S. That’s leading to many “doom and gloom for the TouchPad” conversation, but I disagree. There are several solid reasons why this strategy is exactly what HP needs to do. Read More »

HP hasn’t introduced the rumored music store and streaming service for its line of webOS devices, but it does have an application that currently syncs music to the HP TouchPad tablet and Veer smartphone. HP Play, for Windows and OS X, shows promise and works well. Read More »

The HP TouchPad may currently lack third-party apps and access to video and music stores, but the basics are pretty solid, if not exceptional in some cases. Here’s a few of the standout features that I’ve grown to like in my short time with HP’s tablet. Read More »

After returning from a Vegas vacation, I found one last jackpot on my doorstep: An HP Touchpad and Touchstone wireless charging dock. I’ve only just started looking at these review units, but see much to like. But will consumers wait for webOS apps on the Touchpad? Read More »

As a platform, webOS has impressed nearly every reviewer who’s touched it, but it faces a few hurdles. One of those hurdles, the device’s hardware choices, could be cleared easily if the licensing talks HP CEO Leo Apotheker says are underway bear fruit. Read More »

The market for enterprise tablets shows enormous promise as end users take their own devices to work and IT departments begin to deploy the new gadgets. But a small army of manufacturers is vying for a slice of the market, and competition will be fierce. Read More »

Hewlett-Packard’s TouchPad tablet launches July 1 using the same pricing scheme as Apple’s iPad. Early looks at the device show an elegant, effective user interface, but a relatively lack of third-party applications could make it difficult to convince consumers to buy HP’s tablet instead of Apple’s. Read More »

The debate over whether the future of mobile data lies in native applications vs. Web-based offerings is often depicted as a Darwinian contest where only one will survive. But the truth is much more complex than some pundits would have you believe. Read More »

The HP Veer 4G, Hewlett Packard’s first handset since it acquired Palm, launches on May 15 in the U.S. as an AT&T exclusive for $99. The handset bucks the trend of large-screened smartphones, but could be a nice addition to HP’s upcoming tablet, the HP TouchPad. Read More »

Quanta has reportedly received orders to build up to 800,000 Amazon tablets per month. Only Quanta knows what Amazon’s new tablet will physically look like, but it’s easy to see how such a device might be used and how it can stand out from the crowd. Read More »

RIM will launch its much vaunted and eagerly awaited Blackberry PlayBook on April 19. In this review, I take a look at the 7-inch tablet and how it stacks up against its rivals, the iPad and the Honeycomb Android family of tablets. Read More »

Think HP’s TouchPad doesn’t stand a chance in the tablets wars? It’s early yet, and this video walkthough of webOS 3.0 via a leaked emulator may change your mind. The user interface borrows from Apple’s iOS, but adds a number of compelling features sure to impress. Read More »

A leaked image of an alleged HP webOS handset design shows something missing, and that’s a good thing: the phone appears to drop the physical keyboard. Palm never implemented a software keyboard on their otherwise excellent webOS platform, but HP looks to be making the change. Read More »

When the largest computer manufacturer in the world pulls the PC out the printing equation, you know there’s a mobile shift afoot. HP today enabled Google Cloud Print support for ePrint-enabled printers which are linked to a user’s Google account through the printer’s unique email address. Read More »

Hewlett-Packard’s introduction of new webOS handsets and tablets has gadget geeks’ hearts a-flutter, but the happiest folks may be those at Qualcomm: Their new Snapdragon chip is powering HP’s tablet, and they won the chip business away from TI for new webOS phones. Here’s why. Read More »

Hewlett-Packard launched a series of Palm devices today, which are powered by a new, upgraded and, according to them, a much-improved mobile operating system, WebOS. But without an app ecosystem, the company is fighting an uphill battle. Read More »

iPhone owners are the most satisfied with their mobile platform, but Android owners are the most likely to stick with their handset OS for their next phone. Better Google apps may be the reason, but regardless, it’s potentially bad news for Apple and Google smartphone competitors. Read More »

HP’s webOS with its revolving task manager is just plain cool. Interacting with the cards that represent running apps is intuitive and fun; it’s too bad other platforms don’t use a similar method to work with tasks. Android phone owners have one available, and it’s free. Read More »

HP put rumors to bed with the official announcement of both HP webOS 2.0 and the Palm Pre 2. The evolution of the platform and handsets designed for it are the result of HP’s acquisition of Palm earlier this year for $1.2 billion. Read More »

We’ve been closely following HP since its acquisition of Palm to determine the direction the company will be taking with the webOS platform. A company official has confirmed that HP will be producing phones early next year to capitalize on the webOS platform. Read More »

HP has indicated since acquiring Palm that it will be moving forward with devices running webOS. This week, key HP executives let bits of information slip out about its plans, and it paints a good picture if you round all of them up. Read More »

HP has closed on the $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm. With that the honeymoon phase is over and time to get down to business. Mobile market has a small window of opportunity and HP needs to capitalize on by launching new WebOS devices — fast. Read More »

The HP/Palm merger hasn’t taken place yet and Palm is acting to keep interest in the webOS platform. The company quietly mentioned on its blog a couple of days ago that for a limited time all apps in the App Catalog are now half price. Read More »

The webOS platform has lagged behind Android and others due to the lack of available apps. Palm has been working hard with app developers to get them producing apps for the platform, but a big question looms — what will happen after the merger? Read More »

Palm Pre and Pixi owners may be wondering about future updates to the webOS platform, given the looming takeover of Palm by HP. The “merger” won’t take place for a few months but it’s reasonable to wonder if existing Palm customers will receive phone updates. Read More »

Critics of Apple’s iPhone intrusive notification system have new hope for more efficient and less bone-jarring alerts — Rich Dellinger left Palm to rejoin Apple last month. Among other UI contributions, Dellinger invented the superbly elegant and highly effective notification system used by Palm’s webOS. Read More »

ZumoDrive for iPhone, Android and webOS all get an upgrade today. New features make it easier to share files and media with friends directly from a handset and the music streaming appears faster too. Read More »

The tech world was taken by surprise by the news that computer giant HP has initiated a purchase of beleaguered Palm for $1.2 billion. The merger is probably the best possible scenario for Palm, and here’s my take on what should happen to make this work. Read More »

The list of potential bidders and partners for Palm is dwindling each day. With the recent rise of mobile social networking activities, perhaps Palm needs to consider a non-traditional partnership by turning its webOS handsets into Facebook phones. Read More »

Anybody noticed how quiet it is on the Palm front? The time for incremental changes at Palm is over. No more minor updates to the phones or incremental updates to webOS. It’s time to shake things up if Palm intends to make a run as survival. Read More »

This might be hard to believe with today being April Fools Day and all but Verizon appears to be giving away 3G tethering with the purchase of a webOS phone. The $40 monthly fee is currently $0, essentially giving customers a free 5 GB for tethering. Read More »

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