And also probably the touch handling? From what I heard the Touchpad was terrible at eg straight line scrolling out of the box.

I have my Touchpad just two days, and already have tablet-optimised clients installed for Twitter, Facebook, Box.net, an excellent video 3rd party video player for divx, and a comic book reader for reading my .cbr files. Combined with an excellent e-mail client and a Webkit web browser, I'm covered for my media and web browser needs.

The only thing missing right now is document editing, but that is due in an OTA update from HP which they have promised to deliver shortly (let’s hope they stick to these promises in order to try to restore some confidence in this very shaken webOS community).

So frankly as an owner of both a pre3 and a Touchpad, the whole "but webOS does not have enough apps" argument just does not ring true for me. If I want to do real work, I’ll fire up my PC. But as a web and media tablet, the Touchpad has me covered and then some.

Actually, webOS app devs are reporting increased sales due to the massive increase in webOS devices out there, due to the firesale. With regard to the long-term future and your point about APIs changing that webOS is using, I have thought about this and three things give me hope for the platform:

1. HP have stated publically that they will continue to develop webOS and the app store.

2. HP are looking for a hardware partner, and rumours are already emerging that Samsung may be that partner (webOS + Samsung hardare = win for me).

3. There are now hundreds of thousands of webOS devices out there now since the firesale. The majority of those new users are not going to install a replacement for webOS, lets be honest most people are not that technical. This new market that HP has created with the firesale will be nice to sell into for app devs and hardware makers alike.

When I'm looking for a replacement for my Pre3 and Touchpad in 1-2 years, I'm going to look at webOS devices first because that is where my cloud profile and app purchases live. If I have to jump ship to another platform because webOS really does die in the next 1-2 years, then that is a small risk that I am happy to take, especially if the initial investment for a 10" is only a hundred bucks.

is the essence of what you are saying. I thought it was silly to play on a tablet but then a friend showed me games like Fruit Ninja. And then we sat opposite eachother and played what I would call "modern boardgames" on it, silly arcade stuff, turn based strategy, etc. It was a revelation.

edit:asking a legit question, from a user experience pov.. tablet optimized os, in this case webos works in the same way as Android 2.3. What makes webos specifically tablet optimized. Just asking for clarification if he means the stock apps are optimized for tablet, the only ones making any difference would be email and calendar. On webos non tablet optimized apps show up as cards in the middle of the screen ( Pandora), its terrible.. where as on Android at least they will stretch.

Phones give you one view and only that view. You open an application and get a list, you click an item in the list and you get the details, you click on an item in the details and you are taken to a completely different window. Need to change a preference? Click a link and you are presented with a list of preferences. Your application is no longer there (it is, but you can't see it).

A real tablet application can give you multiple views, you aren't booted from that view to change the preference. And in the case of Android those views are SW-rendered. Scrolling a very long list skips and stutters as more information needs to be loaded into framebuffer.

Stretching is just a hack, instead of being more informative its the same 480x320 information blown up to scale.