Exactly! How is this supposed to jump-start the market for TouchPad apps when a desktop and a tablet involve completely different interaction models?

I remember Tog or another early Mac team member reminiscing about the lack of arrow keys on the original Mac keyboard. They were intentionally left off (so the story goes) to prevent companies from creating shovel-ware ports of their existing applications.

There is value in getting developers to write for a desktop variant of webOS if it gets them downloading the SDK and familiar with the development model, just as the iPad obviously benefitted tremendously from the existing iPhone development infrastructure, but I hope no one thinks that you can simultaneously optimize for both desktop and tablet experiences. (Unless you're the sort of person who says "very unique" or makes multiple things your "top priority.")

The thing I'd really like to see in a portable computer is a touch-interface/mouse-interface hybrid. For example, you dock your iPad in a keyboard docking station (with mouse), and the interface morphs into standard OSX, with all the power and abilities that come along with that. Take it out of the keyboard dock, and it's an iPad again, with the finger friendly iOS touch interface (and limited to touch apps). Desktop apps and touch apps could share data, but would ideally have different interfaces. E.g. OSX's Mail.app and iOS's Mail app.

For HP of course, substitute webOS "slate" for iPad and custom desktop Linux distribution for OSX (I wish).