TouchDroid Project Bringing Android to HP Touchpad
by Andrew Cunningham on August 22, 2011 3:00 PM ESTThe open source community is wasting no time taking ownership of HP's orphaned Touchpad tablet: a new group called the TouchDroid team is looking to bring Android to the Touchpad, breathing new life into a product that died last week before people started buying it in droves due to heavy discounts.
The project's first goal is to bring Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) to the touchpad, either using the straight source code from Google or using the popular Cyanogenmod distribution that tweaks Gingerbread to make it more usable on larger screens. Once the new Ice Cream Sandwich version unifies Gingerbread and Honeycomb (Android 3.x) into one OS, the developers will focus their attention on the newer version, which should be better suited to the Touchpad's 9.7" screen.
It should be noted that the TouchDroid project is brand new - so new that, as of this writing, the project's is still using a filler image for its logo, and that many of its developers "don't yet realize they are going to be developers" - and that there is no current ETA on when (or if) the project will produce a usable version of Android for the Touchpad. Still, the open source community is nothing if not persistent - if TouchDroid can't get Android up and running on the Touchpad, someone else probably will.
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heymrdj - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
Now I'm starting to want one...darn it all.MonkeyPaw - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
I figured this day would come. If they can run CM7 so well on a nook color, just imagine what they can do with the specs of the Touchpad. As long as they get access to drivers, its just a matter of time.kmmatney - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
I had a Nook Color for a few weeks. I wouldn't say that CM7 runs "well". More like "just tolerable".MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
Not sure what you expect from a $250 eReader turned tablet, but it games fine, emails fine, browses fine. It helps to run it with a small OC. The only oddly sluggish thing is posting in websites. Keyboard gets a little slow sometimes, but its not exactly a device for posting novels.n0b0dykn0ws - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
I ordered one of the 32 GB models earlier today.I figured I had little to lose. Even when support for WebOS went belly up, I could still let my wife and son use it for entertainment purposes.
Now with the chance to run Android on it it's a double win in my eyes.
DanNeely - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
I ordered a 16GB model yesterday. As wretched as the various $100 chinapads that occasionally get imported I figure even if an Android port doesn't happen I should be able to recover what I spent on ebay be reselling it.26thandsouth - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
If you don't mind me asking Where did you find one, and do you think its still possible to find one for $100? Im dying to buy one, I can't imagine another deal coming around like this for a long time. And now that they are porting android over, wow I really want one badDanNeely - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
You can monitor the slick deals post, but it looks like the stock is largely purged at this point unless HP is holding out on retailer returns until they're back to their warehouses.http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3220...
LostPassword - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
Touchpad will dethrone nook colorjustinf79 - Monday, August 22, 2011 - link
Got myself the 16GB TouchPad to play around with. I'll probably be skipping 2.3 on it, and wait until ICS gets ported over to it before I install Android on it.