UPDATED 13:46 EDT / AUGUST 01 2011

HP Addresses Glitches, Consumer Adoption in First Major TouchPad Software Update

The expected end of July release for the HP TouchPad software update is finally releasing today.  HP is starting to roll out the software update to all the users. HP’s Vice President of Worldwide Developer Relations (for webOS) Richard Kerris tweeted this development. There is no news of the contents of the updates but we would expect it will bring a number of bug fixes and enhancements.

HP TouchPad received a mixed review after its launch date, and most mobile technology experts provided a thumbs down compared to Google’s Honeycomb tablets.  Performance and stability issues led reviewers to uniformly berate the TouchPad at launch.

An improved auto-correct option for the on-screen keyboard, improved Email, the inclusion of a calculator and clock, faster video performance, device rotation, web browsing and tweaks in its messaging system would be some noted issues that HP is planning to fix in this software update.

The TouchPad comes with a 9.7-inch LCD IPS panel display with 1024 x 768 resolution, measures 9.45 x 7.48 x 0.45 inches and weighs 1.6lbs making is slightly shorter and wider than the iPad 2. It has Qualcomm’s 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon APQ8060 processor, believed to be faster than Apple A5-based iPad 2 and the Tegra 2-powered Android Honeycomb tablets.

HP is heavily investing on webOS platform to build the next generation of Tablet computers. HP CEO Leo Apotheker at last month’s D9 conference meeting hinted at plans of providing end-to-end consumer products, including hardware and software around webOS.

“We want to create a holistic ecosystem around webOS,” Apotheker said. “We’re putting it on phones, on our TouchPad tablet which will debut as scheduled this summer. And we’ll put webOS on PCs….It will go on every PC that we’ll ship.”

HP recently signed an exclusive contract with AT&T for the TouchPad 4G, which features a 1.5GHz processor, 32 GB internal storage, integrated GPS and the built-in wireless mobile proficiencies.

HP is the market leader when it comes to manufacturing computers. But HP is now leaning more and more towards the software market.  One of HP’s biggest challenge in this consumer-facing transition would be to persuade developers and users to adopt webOS. iOS and Android have already drenched most of the market share for the emerging mobile industry, and Nokia’s investment in Windows Phones leaves three tough rivals against webOS.


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