HP may be one step closer to launching a WebOS-based tablet. An application recently filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office shows that HP has applied to trademark “PalmPad”, a name that is remarkably similar to iPad.
WebOS is the suspected operating system for the rumored tablet due to HP’s recent acquisition of Palm, creator of the operating system that has been used on Palm smartphones.
Reports are beginning to leak about the possible hardware capabilities of the PalmPad. GadgetReview has posted a rumor that the tablet will include digital pen support for handwriting recognition and content creation, and may also have a widescreen design. The current generation of iPad lacks both of these features.
Eric Zeman of InformationWeek seems to think that a WebOS tablet could be a strong contender. He calls the operating system, “A strong platform from a usability angle,” and states that, “It does an amazing job of bridging disparate systems and ties them together in a way that makes sense and is useful.” He also reports a very capable multi-tasking ability after having nearly 48 applications running simultaneously on a Palm Pre.
Can the third try be a charm for HP? So far this year, the company has announced, and subsequently killed, two tablet PCs in development. The slate was anticipated to be big competition for the iPad, but HP scrapped it after reported performance issues with the Windows 7 OS on the Atom processor. The company is also said to have bailed on a rumored Android tablet.
To be perfectly clear however, HP has not yet confirmed any specifications, though they did confirm back in May that a WebOS tablet was in the works. We’ll have to wait and see if the speculated PalmPad will become a reality.
