We all know that the HP/Palm Feb. 9 event will unveil webOS tablets but we haven’t heard when these devices will actually ship. New CEO Leo Apotheker told the BBC that the company will ship the products announced a few weeks after the introduction.
“HP will stop making announcements for stuff it doesn’t have. When HP makes announcements, it will be getting ready to ship,” Apotheker told the BBC.
This would be a great shift for HP, which is well known for showing off the HP Slate tablet at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2010 and not getting the device to market until about eight months later. Not surprisingly, the Windows 7 device fell flat.
The HP webOS tablets appear to be a different story though, as these devices may be able to legitimately go toe-to-toe with the Apple iPad and the slate of Android tablets like the Motorola Xoom.
A few details have leaked about what to expect from the HP webOS tablets, as we’re looking forward to a 10-inch version and one with a 7-inch screen. It will run the latest version of the Palm platform and it is also expected to have multiple cameras for pictures and video chatting.
Some of the other details aren’t guaranteed but make a lot of sense. First of all, it should be compatible with the Touchstone dock to turn the device into a photo frame or alarm clock when docked.
One of the other interesting things being floated out for the HP webOS tablet is the idea of giving users a lot of cloud storage. We’re not just talking about a Dropbox on steroids, but the company could give you tens of gigabytes of storage built in to the operating system which will let you stream music and not have to worry about which device you’re trying to access your information.
[Via BBC]