HP tackles tablet market with WebOS-powered Touchpad, reports Apple’s iPad 2 is in production

Computer manufacturer Hewlett Packard has announced its latest entry into the ever-growing tablet market, with a 10-inch gadget that features an operating system built by handset maker Palm.

The announcement comes as new reports claim Apple has already started production of the second iPad, which is said to be lighter, thinner and contain a faster processing unit than the original version. Several reports suggest an announcement will be made within weeks.

Last night HP announced The Touchpad, along with two new smartphones – the Veer and the Pre3. It represents the computer manufacturer’s first foray into the tablet market, which is becoming more saturated by the day with companies like Motorola, Research in Motion and Dell all announcing their own gadgets.

The Touchpad will feature a 9.7-inch screen, a 1024×768 display and will be 13mm thick. It will come with a 1.3 megapixel webcam and will allow video conferencing. The Touchpad will be powered by a 1.2Ghz Snapdragon processor, the same rumoured to be powering the upcoming iPad.

The Wi-Fi version of the tablet will be available this summer in the United States and some international markets, and a 3G version will be coming later after that.

The Touchpad will be powered by WebOS, the operating system formerly used on smartphones manufactured by Palm, now owned by HP. However, despite Palm’s software being used to power the device, the actual Palm brand was nowhere to be seen during the event.

However, Palm general manager Jon Rubenstein – who was the brains behind the iPod when he worked at Apple – led the event, suggesting Palm still plays an integral part in HP’s infrastructure.

The company even said it wants to bring the WebOS platform to PCs later in the year.

“Today we’re embarking on a new era of WebOS with the goal of linking a wide family of HP products through the best mobile experience available,” Rubinstein said. “The flexibility of the WebOS platform makes it ideal for creating a range of innovative devices that work together to keep you better connected to your world.”

The Touchpad will come loaded with Quickoffice, and will support Google Docs and Dropbox. The company said its also in discussions with Skype about introducing a video conferencing feature. It also supports Flash and multitasking.

The gadget will also interact with HP’s two new smartphones – the Veer and the Pre3. When existing WebOS users login to their Touchpad, their existing contacts and preferences will be imported over.

And a new type of technology, called Touch to Share, will allow users to simply bump a WebOS smartphone against the Touchpad and then share information, including the ability to copy over whatever website they are viewing on the tablet.

But with any tablet, the real features people want are apps – a market in which Palm has fallen behind with only 5,000 programs available.

However, the company featured a number of different apps including Facebook, Kindle and several publications in a bid to show off the Touchpad can be as good, if not better, than existing platforms.

“This is just the start of HP’s plan to build the largest installed base of connected customers in the world,” Todd Bradley, executive vice president of HP personal systems group said. “Virtually no other company could put forward this goal. HP is uniquely positioned to achieve this goal.”

Bringing the WebOS platform to computers will be one major part of this strategy, HP said.

HP also featured two smartphones during the event – the Pre3, with a 3.58-inch screen, a 1.4Ghz processor and a 5 megapixel camera. It also featured the more powerful Veer, with a 3.58-inch screen, a 1.4Ghz processor, Wi-Fi, a Flash player and either 8GB or 16GB of storage.

But despite the fancy announcements, HP is the underdog in the tablet market. Analysts suggest it will have a long hill to climb if it wants to challenge Apple and its rumoured new iPad.

Morningstar analyst Michael Holt has told Reuters that he is confident HP will “put out a quality product… but whether they can get a lot of traction this late in the game remains to be seen”.

But Forrester Research tech analyst Sara Epps has told the Los Angeles Times that HP may have more of a chance than many people think.

“Collectively, Android tablets are huge; the market is already flooded with them. But if you’re looking not at the whole platform, but rather a one-to-one comparison, the Touchpad could make a good case for the No. 2 spot behind the iPad.”

“The Touchpad could outsell the Motorola Xoom or the Samsung Galaxy Tab or the BlackBerry PlayBook.”

However, the announcement comes as the Wall Street Journal has said Apple’s new iPad is going into production right now. The new gadget is set to feature a thinner design and faster processing power.