Report: Best Buy tells HP to take back its TouchPads
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Don't ship broken hardware.
I have a tech journalist friend who knew I was extremely interested in the TouchPad prior to launch, and let me play with his review unit for a bit. I was ready to drop $500 on one at launch, and walked away crushingly disappointed. The software clearly wasn't ready and with the product launch only a few days off, it was clear that HP was pushing this thing out the door too soon.
Here's the thing - I could tell that the problems were software-related and could be fixed by HP down the road. But HP went from a willing customer with $500 cash in hand, to one that two months later says "eh, maybe I'll pick one up if I catch one of those $350 sales." And I'm sure it's cost them sales since my tl;dr when people ask me about it is "absolutely brilliant interface, awful performance. I wouldn't buy one yet."
If HP had left the TouchPad in the incubator another couple of months and sorted out the performance issues before kicking the thing out the door, the reception would have been very different. I really, really wanted to like the TouchPad, and HP blew it.
You don't get do-overs on first impressions. Apple gets that. If the rest of their competition would figure this out and push out complete products rather than rush them out on an arbitrary time scale, Apple would be a bit less dominant than they are now.
"We're too small to compete" was the Palm motto towards the end, and HP buying them was seen by the faithful as a way of "getting it right" - more money and resources behind them, they'll be able to really get webOS out there.
And they did the exact same stuff they'd done two years earlier.
Announce and briefly demo a product at start of the year? Check
Delay getting SDK to developers? Check
Ship poor hardware with buggy software to retailers later than anticipated? Check
WHAT THE HELL? The entire webOS unit got a do-over, and still hosed it, with the budget/muscle of one of the largest companies behind it. Of course, that doesn't mean HP actually was really supporting it as much as people expected.
The TouchPad (and webOS stuff in general under HP) seems to have been treated about the same as every other model of HP laptop/desktop rollout they do. Just another SKU on the balance sheet, it'll be on the shelf for a few months, then retired and shifted to overseas support.
Amazingly infuriating to watch company after company claim to want to be a player in the mobile/tablet space, and fail continuously against Apple. It's far less that Apple's doing so much right, but everyone else keeps getting it so wrong, even with successful competitors to copy (this isn't revolutionary groundbreaking stuff any more, launching a tablet).
Why is it that companies like HP think that getting it out the door is more important that putting out a polished product? Just look at the white iPhone 4. Apple wouldn't release it until it was perfect, despite the fact that people were knocking down the door begging for it.
I've never owned an Apple product, but if I were going to get a tablet it would be an iPad. Everything else is just a cheap imitation and no one has proven to be anything other than that. I was really hoping the TouchPad would be the one device that could finally compete on polish and style with the iPad.
A lot of people waited on ipad 1 for v2 because of the things it didn't have (camera, etc) But... perhaps closer to your point, what the ipad v1 did, it did very well. Better to leave a feature out altogether than do it half-baked.
I've been wanting a webOS device for a couple years, but I'm not going to pay the premium for it when I know out of the box it'll be less useful to me than the ipad these days (volume/variety of apps, third party products/etc).
I said this a couple times before - a touchpad - 7 or 10" - at $249 or $299 would KILL. HP could take the money from lame commercials and airport branding and magazine ads and such, apply it towards subsidizing cheap tablets, and own second place, possibly even the tablet first place in certain verticals. But they keep approaching this with marketing ideas that pretend that the iPad is 'just another product in the marketplace'. It's not. It created a marketplace. It defines the marketplace. So... quit trying to play in that market, and define your own.
Consider the folders thing. Or background tasks. Apple usually releases things that work. I'm shocked how rare this is.
You can keep the features to a low though, just make sure they are tight. Like the Kindle.
This is basically Apple's modus operandi; they'll take the hits from the nerds on not having every feature under the sun in return for being able to entice people with a small, well chosen set of features that "just work".
The HP's, Acer's et al are stuck in the mindset that they simultaneously need to shoe-horn in every idea they can think of while "ship ship ship"ing by throwing the product out the door as an unfocused, half-baked mess.
Aggressive curation of your feature set is a powerful strategy for nearly every company.
Ship bad hardware? Well, you end up with things like partners demanding you take back a quarter of a million unsold units.
It isn't easy to make a successful tablet. Apple made it look easy, but it really isn't.
Apple came into the tablet market with:
- A core OS that's had over 20 years of work put into it.
- A touch UI layer with five years of development.
- A large developer ecosystem primed and ready to start making software for the new platform.
- A worldwide online software store with a gigantic existing customer base. (Do not estimate the difficulty of making it possible for developers anywhere in the world to sell software to customers anywhere in the world without forcing anyone to jump through the hoops of international tax law!)
- An online media store selling music, movies, and TV shows.
- A brand new ebook store.
- A worldwide network of physical stores to demo and sell the new devices.
You can't build that overnight. Apple has spent over a decade making smart decisions and putting themselves into the position where they are today.
That said, there's been some staggeringly dumb things the webOS team has done with respect to getting stuff out to developers (like, you know, functioning handsets, SDKs, updates, information). Apple can afford to be tightlipped about this sort of stuff, but others can't. Developers will be the earlyvangelists for new products if companies will let them be. That means supporting them, and Palm and then HP both dillydallyed around way too long in both cases. I say this as someone who'd signed up for the SDK for the original webOS launch, and waited, and waited, and waited, then was rather disappointed with what was eventually released.
Yes, Apple does have a lot of stuff in place, but what is stopping other companies from doing this? It won't be overnight, sure. It takes a long term vision, and perhaps Apple really is the only large company that can execute on this. I don't see HP, Dell, Lenovo or any other PC/electronics company having even a medium term vision, let alone a long term one, when it comes to consumer electronics and computing.
MAYBE Google could fill this? Maybe. But really only if they get in to the hardware and retail game. Apple controls the hardware and software and sales channel, and can create a strong, consistent and cohesive experience. No one else can do this - the hardware guys point the fingers at licensed software, retail chains push whatever they get a big check for, etc.
So, yes, Apple makes it look easy, and it's not, but it's certainly possible. Year after year we see lackluster 'me too' stuff from companies that are only addressing one portion of the end-user experience. Can MS ever get in to this game? Not without some serious long term vision from the top, a restructuring of their business, and a willingness to piss off some long-term partners. I don't see it happening...
That touch UI still can't get notifications and multitasking right.
Nobody asks "is the product ready to ship to customers?".
I mean, I tried the TouchPad. It's good in a lot of ways but mediocre in other ways. It's a lot like how the G1 launched. Die-hards bought it, the tech-savvy liked it but weren't 'flocking' to it, and the average consumer just thought of it as another electronic device. HP needs something like a 'Droid' campaign to really spark interest in their products. You have to make it appear cool. Unfortunately, HP has never been able to do that and they're only just learning about the cool-factor with Beats by Dre.
I see a lot of Touchpad, Playbook and Xoom ads on TV. Atleast the Xoom ones seem to be on the level of the Droid ads(it's Motorola again, of course). The ads seem ok and cool but if the current sales figures are something to go by, don't seem to be very effective. As I said in another comment, it's easier to get people to buy a phone when their old ones gets too old or when the contract expires but it's hard to push people to a completely new kind of device where the use case is harder for the average consumer to see.
- The Touchpad's commercials are boring and tell me nothing about the device. Like others are saying, they tell me jack crap about the device, and the Russell Brand commercials that actually do? They might not be my tea, but at least they have some personality (comedic value debated). Haven't seen them on TV. Brilliant strategy there, HP!
- Apple's commercials are so well-received that rolling a commercial out based on a feature (see: Facetime) can generate sales because they know just who to market to and, by focusing on one device per form factor, have a history of trusted quality through said long-term focus on each of them. People actually know the models as opposed to the ton of "ManufacturerName Droidbot AspirationalPhraseHere" models being cranked out. They know the history. And, well, Apple's products "Just work" 99% of the time.
Disclosure: I own an Android tablet and an HP Touchpad. Fanboys amuse me.
With tablets, it's very different, many people just don't see the need for one yet. While the iPad is shipping very well, much of that growth would be from iPhone and word-of-mouth publicity. Then there's the whole issue of apps and 3rd party support/corporate support.
While MS dissed tablets [1], with Windows 8 they're coming out with a strategy to make tablets of all flavors with a fresh UI, including x86 ones with backward compatibility. Let whether that can make a dent in the market.
[1] http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/microsoft-exec-questions...
I've seen this many times when I try to explain to normal people what I do for a living. When I explain we create tablet apps, I get blank stares.
If I say we create iPad apps, they reply "oh I saw the commercial for those".
iPads are mainstream. Tablets in general, not so much.
yes and no. Going back to the MP3 analogy, their were many MP3 players that were much better deals on paper; a fraction of the cost for more memory. But they didn't have a scroll wheel or iTunes, so consumers found them to be cheap knock-offs.
neuroelectronic: it looks like your posts are auto-dead. Posting as a sibling comment since there's no contact info in your profile.
There were 'misconceptions' that Java was slow too. And Java was slow. And still is in some use cases. But somehow that's the fault of the user, not the technology?
Frankly, if you're gonna have error for reviewers, I'd put in as many cheap, unmaintainable perf hacks as I could.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/08/best-buy-wants-t...
My point is that the price of the HP was obviously wrong. It's not an Apple product...people don't expect to pay Apple prices. There's an assumption (right or wrong) that Apple imposes a stiff Apple tax on every product they sell, so I expect any non-Apple product to be much cheaper and have better specs. When that expectation is not met, I feel like the non-Apple product is over-priced. Apparently the TouchPad also sucks, while the iPad is apparently awesome, which makes the TouchPad an even harder sell.
The TouchPad campaign still has yet to make a solid case for choosing WebOS over iOS (or even Android). WebOS is a more flexible environment than iOS, and it's more consistent and seamless than Android; why can't HP marketing figure out how to vocalize that?
The Apple display section at our local Best Buys are always loaded with functioning units that are open for people to explore - not locked down with crappy "BUY GEEK SQUAD SERVICE!" screen savers.
The table with all the tablets at multiple Best Buy stores I've been in to recently are all filled with multiple tablets that are just sitting there with black screens. Not plugged in, not running on batteries, not in demo mode. Just... sitting there.
If Best Buy sold TVs like they sell tablets, they'd have 3 LG units running full color shows in HD with surround sound, and 85 empty screens just hanging on the wall, then they'd be sending all the TVs back to Vizio, Mitsubishi, Sony, etc, complaining that they're not selling.
Additionally, they need their employees to go around and reset the devices to ensure a proper functioning system instead of the ones bogged down by apps/content downloaded by random kids onto the device.
Except of course for the Apple display. All working. All looking good. All the time.
But if that's the case, why does no other company seem to use this approach?
Retailers always demand a fee from the manufacturer before they provide special displays like the Apple section at BB. The contract likely specifies that BB employees will keep Apple's products charged up and functional at all times. This is only possible because Apple's products command high margins that can easily cover the marketing fees.
Apple's tablet competitors obviously don't have that level of relationship. I've yet to see so much as an end cap for an Android tablet.
The iPad is the only tablet that passes both tests in terms of performing the tasks easily.
Best Buy has plenty of long-term relationships with manufacturers. Any time you see fancy merchandising in the store, say an endcap with fancy graphics pimping the latest Whirlpool front loading washer, it's because the manufacturer has paid for that positioning.
So it's entirely possible that HP made a merchandising deal with Best Buy to promote their new product – and that the terms for the deal included some sort of buy back provision to mitigate the store's risk. Even absent such a provision, HP needs retail distribution channels for their business to work. It's in their interest to keep their partners happy and not leave them holding the bag on an experimental flop of a product.
Sent from my iPad