It's Not Qualcomm's Fault: Dispelling TouchPad Myths
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on August 19, 2011 6:40 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- HP
- Snapdragon
- OMAP
- Qualcomm
- Smartphones
- touchpad
- Mobile
webOS Needed Work
From the very beginning, webOS needed work in the optimization department. The hardware wasn't at fault, it was the software that always needed tuning, and as we saw with the Pre Plus even throwing more RAM at the problem didn't speed things up enough. We mentioned a number of places where webOS 2.0 still needed work to improve performance and smoothness in the Veer review. First among those really were the criminally long boot times:
"Unfortunately loading times on the Veer are still incredibly long due to some mismanagement of the linux boot process. Unfortunately it appears that WebOS increases the sleep time that apps send to the caller during the boot process from an already crazy 60 seconds to 120 seconds. There's discussion of this on WebOS Internals, but the situation is even worse now, at 120 seconds."
What Palm managed to develop was an excellent UI and front end to an OS, but there's little doubt that the underlying Linux code needed (and still needs) work. Simple tricks like disabling logging and implementing the boot process properly would result in noticeable performance gains. There's little dobut that other similar simple things could dramatically improve performance.
The fact of the matter is that Palm needed a lot of development time to turn webOS into a mature product. The HP of today is trying to turn itself into a fully focused enterprise company and as a result, webOS wasn't going to get the support it needed. An internal source at HP told me that the sales targets for the TouchPad were between the best selling Honeycomb tablets and the iPad. When that didn't happen, HP saw no reason to continue down the webOS hardware path.
As an enterprise company the move makes sense for HP and its shareholders. As consumers, we're disappointed. But the blame doesn't fall on Qualcomm or any chip vendor in the TouchPad, just on HP itself. The TouchPad needed more work, and webOS as a whole needs more work. You can either scale a project out by taking more time to get it done, or you can scale its width by committing more resources to it. The latter (and more efficient development) is what Palm has needed since day one, what HP promised to bring to it, and sadly exactly what it ultimately failed to receive at HP.
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casteve - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
Anand:A ZDNet article on 8/21 by James Kendrick claims "..There is so much event logging in the background that it seriously impacts the TouchPad’s performance, as it is constantly doing things it doesn’t need to do." He then goes on to show how to disable the logging mechanism. Here's the link:
http://tinyurl.com/4xwkuat
How about a quantitative analysis to compare before / after performance? :D
pwcee - Thursday, August 25, 2011 - link
I agree, would love to see this done then tested and compared.tipoo - Saturday, December 10, 2011 - link
Thirded but probably too late for them to test it. Lots of people have said disabling logging makes it pretty zippy.ABR - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
Amusingly in the context of the reports of these being sold in stores for $100, the true market value right now seems to be $280. This whole thing is a very dumb move by HP. They had a reasonable thesis when they acquired Palm -- vertical integration within the enterprise. As with Apple, they could and should have started by targetting consumer market first. Now they'll sell it off and give up one of the few legs up they could have had on IBM. Advantage Google/Motorola.GotThumbs - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
I've been wondering if anyone has already tried this.tipoo - Saturday, December 10, 2011 - link
Android is being worked on and there is an alpha out for the Touchpad. iOS is not and will never be open source, so we have no way to port it.Omid.M - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
Anand & Brian,Would be nice if you could get some devs to speak about working with WebOS and what they think the platform would need to take off, just as an "outsiders' " perspective. You know?
-Omid
@moids
sooper_anandtech12 - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
I still fail to see how this is HP's fault. Maybe it's HP's fault in name because they acquired Palm and all its webOS engineers. However, I still feel the issue and problem was an inherent issue of Palm's that HP took on when they acquired them. As mentioned in the article, there are simple ways to have improved the performance of webOS and yet for the past how many years has that not been done precisely? I don't expect a company like HP that's not a software company to be able to step in and say, "Yep, yep. See there Mr. webOS software engineer. Here's your problem."If there's anyone to blame, blame Palm and all of the legacy engineers that HP inherited. How much more resources did HP need to commit to webOS when one author of an article on AnandTech can discern a few that would bring notable performance improvements? Scaling the project out by taking more time was not an option, especially when HP is being crucified by the media for taking their sweet time bring a webOS tablet to the market. Then, when they do, they get lambasted because it's undercooked.
This was a losing proposition for HP no matter how they swung it. Saying that "consumers" were disappointed is giving consumers too much credit. No one mourns the death of webOS. If we did, we'd have been picking up webOS devices from the start, fueling its development. HP was smart by getting out while it still could. Especially in this crazy patent litigating industry, they might even be able to off-load those patents at a profit to el Googs.
The0ne - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
Anand, I appreciate you taking the time to explain some of these rumors and talks but as I read through your explanations I'm asking myself why in the world would you need to. You're basically telling people that because it is a different OS it will require different drives, encoders, decoders and what not. Having to explain this to your audience here is quite pathetic imo. Sure they may be some that are too worked up to see the reasons you've outlined but still, it should have been expected from a more knowledgeable crowd.It feels as though you are schooling many of the users here and that is just quite sad. I thought many here were professional enough to have thought this through, pass the drivers and basic necessity that an OS requires. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing you, I'm just saying I'm disappointed in the audience because you had to take the time to clear some of these basic issues up. Quite sad.
The0ne - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
Edit:Ok, I just read Anand's own Jason Mick's article on WebOS. Yea, great headliner to have people start arguing alright. Do us a favor and fire his stupid a** reporting. If you need brain dead reporters that just pick things without thinking first, go to a pet shop and find a bird or rabbit.
So with that adding to the confusion and rumors, you're here defending that idiots' reporting. And yes, that was one God aweful thread as well ending with his "I really don't know and I think it's this and that..." comments. Jesus Christ.