Our colleagues at CrackBerry.com have posted the above video from the Meet the BlackBerry Playbook developer sessions in NYC, and linked to another video from BGR posted a new video showing what purports to be a hands-on with the upcoming BlackBerry Playbook tablet from RIM. CrackBerry points out a few highlights of the "new" interface:

• The entire bezel is used for navigating. Swipe the sides to get around system-wide. The top is available for specific actions within applications
• There are "views" much like BlackBerry 6 for navigating that can be swiped through
• Swipe to move between views and apps, flick up to exit an app
• Looks like you can open the keyboard by swiping up from the bottom left on the bezel

We put "new" in quotes because, obviously, we’ve seen most or all of these features before, as integral or homebrew elements in webOS. Navigation swipes, gesture areas, live apps even in minimized (card) mode, the list goes on and on. The PlayBook’s interface is startlingly, or perhaps frighteningly, similar to webOS, and while we are pleased to see how good it looks on a tablet (hurry up with that PalmPad!), we’re not so happy to see it on an actual, working, competing device from a rather well-funded and strong competitor like RIM. (The comment near the end of the video that developers whose apps are accepted for the PlayBook’s marketplace will get a free PlayBook serves to emphasize the power of RIM’s resources.)

We don’t know whether HP intends to take any legal action against RIM for this "faithful reproduction" of webOS, or whether it might even have the necessary patents to do so. For that matter, RIM is known for its own aggressive patent cases (both offense and defense). Even if HP thought it could and should bring an infringement case, it might decide against to avoid getting countersued by RIM, or because it might then seem like it had to compete in the courts rather than the marketplace.

We’re with you, webOS faithful: it’s painful to watch the competition, especially when it looks so much like our own favorite OS. We, like you, are more than ready to be blown away by whatever Palm/HP is going to announce whenever it is going to do so. Meanwhile, let’s try to imagine that the BGR video was actually a sneak peak of a webOS tablet…but that it’s going to be even cooler.

Source: CrackBerry.com; BGR

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Currently, consumers in America can waltz into their nearest Sprint store and pick up a Samsung Galaxy Tab for use on the CDMA network. But it only works on EVDO, not Sprint’s speedier WiMAX network. According to Sprint President of Business Markets Paget Alves in Forbes, they’ll be rectifying that in 2011, with the launch of an unspecified 4G-capable tablet.

The big unknown is what exactly this tablet (or tablets?) will run as an operating system, a specific Alves was mum on. He did at least admit that Sprint will soon have tablets running different operating systems than the Android-powered Tab. There are a number of options, including BlackBerry’s upcoming playbook, any number of Windows-powered tablets, but oh, could it be, an HP webOS-powered PalmPad? Don’t get your hopes up, because we have no way of reading any further into Alves’ words: there are several options, of which webOS is only one. Then again, we’d like to think that HP is going to go all Samsung here and make their webOS tablet available on all carriers. Wouldn’t that be something?

Source: Forbes; Via: Engadget; Thanks to everyone for the tips!

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If HP is betting big on webOS, chances are they’re going to be placing some very large orders for their next generation devices. If sketchy record owner DigiTimes is to be believed, HP and Palm are doing just that with the expected webOS tablet for next year. Apparently Inventec is anticipated to land the contract to build the device (contrary to earlier rumors pointing at Foxconn), with an order of 6-7 million units. Inventec is also the builder of Barnes & Noble’s Android-powered Nook Color, of which they’re expecting to ship over one million by year’s end.

Is this plausible? Sure, but we’re going to take this one with prodigious salt. We want to believe that HP expects they’ll be able to sell several million PalmPads in the first year of its life (that’s assuming that it even ships early in the year), but we still have yet to even see the device. Either way, the rumors are swirling that the device is coming, hopefully it won’t be too long before it’s actually formally announced.

Source: DigiTimes; Via: Electronista; Thanks to Zen00 for the tip!

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Interested in winning the next Palm device (whatever it may be)? Then consider this a reminder to kick your keister into gear and get that mock-up you’ve been pondering finished and into our inbox. You’ve got until midnight Eastern time on October 15th to get in your entries, and in spite of the leaks we’ve seen recently, we still want you to be exercise your creative juices and get us something unique. So get in your entries, we’ll dig out the best and put it all to a vote to decide who wins the next device (with two more getting a $50 PreCentral store gift certificate).

Above is a sliver of some of our favorites thus far – it was hard to pick, we’ve received a lot of fantastic entries and there’s still time left! After the break check out a few of the above entries in more detail.

More: Contest: Mock-up the next Palm device… and win it!

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CRN brings a report that HP’s channel partners, who help sell and integrate HP technology in industries such as healthcare, are both anticipating and working with webOS tablets, which have been announced for "early 2011."

In the article, John Convery of Denali Advanced Integration reported having already been working with prototype webOS tablets along with "Slates" (likely the Windows 7-based tablets, notwithstanding CRN’s slight misuse of the term to include the webOS tablets too). Convery explains HP’s advantage over competitors in the tablet space:

"HP has the resources and the R&D clout to do anything," Convery said. "It’s all part of their converged infrastructure. They’ve got the powerful tech teams and powerful marketing and products and services across their entire portfolio."

We appreciate hearing that HP is not only talking about future webOS products, but priming its powerful channel partners to understand and share the value they represent.

Source: CRN (Thanks to ilovedessert in our forums for the heads-up!)

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You know and love @MrKal_El on Twitter, now know and love him here as he gives us his opinion on how Palm and HP need to make a splash, and soon.

Recently I’ve been engaged in a bit of a debate (on Twitter, naturally) regarding Palm and HP at CES 2011 and potential for the reveal of the much-rumored PalmPad. If you were to ask me, I’d say that January of next year is too late to reveal the PalmPad in what is fast becoming a crowded tablet market.

So I’m going to take a moment to expand a bit on what I feel would be a agressive (but possible) release schedule for webOS hardware and software to succeed in the current market.

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We’re sort of in limbo right now, waiting for Palm to announce, well, anything. We’ve had rumors, minor leaks, and insinuations here and there, but not a full-on iPhone 4-style leak. So what the next Palm device might look like or do is still kind of up in the stratosphere.

As such, we’ve decided to have a little fun. We want you to show us what you want the next Palm device to look like. And we want you to be creative. It doesn’t have to be a Photoshop job. You can make a video, whittle a model out of pine, shoot us telepathic visions of what you see (bonus points for that, by the way), or whatever else your heart desires.

Just two requirements. One: be visual. Two: be creative. To encourage this creativity, we’re going to make this whole deal a contest: show us what you think the next Palm device should be and we’ll put the best up to a vote. The top vote getter wins… drumroll please… the next Palm device. Whatever it is. Sweet, eh? Head on past the break for the sweet hot details.

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HP is in the midst of their Securities Analyst Meeting right now and we’re awaiting a presentation by Personal Systems Group Executive Vice President Todd Bradley, who yesterday told the world he didn’t want HP to try be Apple. He’ll be on at 3:15 Pacific and we’ll let you know if he drops any news.

Before he does, though, it looks like his presentation slides are out and available for download and so we did, gleaning the information you see above. Looks as if Bradley is confirming our earlier rumor that they had sent more than 200 employees over to Palm. Additionally, he’s noting an acceleration in the number of apps available for webOS since the acquisition and promising "accelerated investments in product development." 

As you might guess, it’s impossible for somebody from HP to discuss webOS without mentioning Tablets and (sigh) printers and so the next two slides make it clear it’s on the agenda: HP apparently sees webOS as being in the center of a whole slew of different types of devices and believes that webOS is "Built to grow beyond smartphones," noting that it "scales seamlessly across multiple screen sizes and devices." That’s a point we’ve been making for some time now, but knowing that HP believes it after (presumably) using it on something other than 320×480 (Pre) or 320×400 (Pixi) is heartening.

We’ll be listening in live and update you if and when Bradley fills in the gaps from these powerpoint slides – the rest of which you can see after the break!

Source: HP Data Central

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Sprint Pre users are the founding fathers of the great webOS community. Yet they have been left out in the cold while everyone else (i.e. Verizon, AT&T, and O2) has gotten a better version their beloved hardware. As they watch in envy as everyone else can open more than a couple cards without getting a too many cards error, they have been chomping at the bit for any morsel of news; something, anything about new hardware. Sales reps in the stores are notably forthcoming with the information. The trouble is the news they dish is like snowflakes; no two are ever alike. The release dates they provide range from never to just around the corner to a year from now.

PreCentral Forum member Idudiaz reported that a "high level Sprint person" told him a new phone would be introduced the first or second week of September. Obviously, that hasn’t quite panned out, but we’ll give him an extension to the end of the month. An HP marketing person allegedly told teejay69 that the Windows 7-running Slate would be out very soon, with the Palm tablet following just a couple weeks after that. Moderator Blaize said her trusted Sprint rep told her the release date will be the beginning of the new year, meshing with what we’ve heard out of HP. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Socoot1 was told that Sprint rejected the new Palm phone. And Mikeydcomment said a Sprint rep recently told him not to expect any new Palm devices on Sprint until third quarter 2011 at the earliest, and probably not until fourth quarter.

These are just a smattering of the rumors we have heard about Palm devices, mostly from Sprint reps. There are also reports of Verizon mall kiosk and big box retail reps telling customers all manner of blatant misinformation to sway them toward a Droid, including DoobieDoo who was told that Palm did not exist anymore and there would be no updates for the Pre.

Just how credible this information is really depends on a lot of things. How much inside information is a retail sales rep privy to? Probably not much. We all know salesmen will say whatever they feel is necessary to get you to buy what they want you to buy (yes, there are plenty of good and honest salespeople out there – but it only takes one bad apple). However, people do like to brag when they have special access to insider information that everyone wants. It’s human nature. So it is always possible that some of this information borders on accurate. The only safe bet is to believe none of it and be pleasantly surprised when the truth finally comes from Palm.

We do know for a fact that there is some fantastic hardware coming our way thanks to Rahul Sood. While it would help us make some buying decisions if we knew an approximate date, for the time being there’s so little clarity in the webOS rumor space that Palm newness could be later than most of us would like.

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We’re waiting with baited breath for any news from Palm, and it seems we may have it. An email supposedly sent to developers (we have not been able to independently corroborate) from HP’s Peter Helm (now part of the Palm Developer Relations team) mentioned “tablet-style” devices. Here’s the excerpt published by Engadget:

“Now that we are officially part of HP, we are going full speed ahead with our applications initiative. Our proprietary operating system, webOS, is now the OS that will be used in HP’s mobile devices. This includes mobile handsets as well as tablet-style devices similar to the iPad. We will accordingly leverage Palm’s ability to innovate and the scale of HP’s vast install base and distribution network previously unavailable to us.”

Ignoring the strange wording here and there, it’s pretty clear what Palm and HP have in mind. But the iPad has set a very high bar, and despite being the most “tablet ready” mobile OS out there (our not so humble opinion), there are still significant hurdles facing webOS to properly make the jump from handheld smartphone to tablet. Then again, HP did say early 2011 for the webOS tablet, so maybe they’ve got those hurdles figured.

Source: Engadget; Thanks to everybody that sent this in!

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