HP TouchPad

Killed 49 days after launch

Shut down
19902026

The HP TouchPad was an iPad competitor running webOS, the operating system HP bought with Palm for $1.2 billion. It launched on 1 July 2011 and was cancelled 49 days later along with all webOS hardware; the $99 clearance sale that followed made it briefly the best-selling tablet after the iPad.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2010
  2. 28 April 2010 Acquisition
    HP buys Palm for $1.2 billion

    The purchase is about webOS, not the phones.

  3. 2011
  4. 1 July 2011 Launch
    The TouchPad goes on sale

    $499 against the iPad, with sluggish software and few apps.

  5. 18 August 2011 Shutdown
    HP cancels all webOS devices

    49 days after launch; the PC spin-off plan is announced the same day.

  6. 20 August 2011 Incident
    The $99 fire sale

    Clearance stock sells out instantly; the TouchPad briefly becomes the number two tablet in the US.

  7. 9 December 2011 Revival
    webOS is open-sourced

    The operating system outlives the hardware.

  8. 2013
  9. 25 February 2013 Acquisition
    LG buys webOS

    It survives today in LG smart televisions.

The site through time

Browse hp.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2011 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Hewlett-Packard 2011–2011 Founded webOS came from the $1.2B Palm acquisition; sold to LG in 2013

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: HP announced on 18 August 2011 that it would discontinue the TouchPad and all webOS devices, 49 days after the tablet went on sale, as part of a plan to exit personal computing hardware.

Our analysis: HP paid $1.2 billion for Palm to get webOS, shipped one tablet, and cancelled the entire hardware line seven weeks later when a new CEO changed strategy. The $99 fire sale that followed proved the product could sell at the right price, which made the decision look worse, not better.

History [edit]

$1.2 billion for an operating system

HP bought Palm in 2010 for $1.2 billion, mostly for webOS, an operating system widely admired for its card-based multitasking and notification design, ideas Apple and Google both later borrowed. The TouchPad, launched on 1 July 2011 at $499, was supposed to be webOS's flagship: a genuinely pleasant tablet with sluggish software, a thin app catalogue, and the iPad's price.

Sales were dire. Best Buy reportedly sold a small fraction of its stock and asked HP to take the rest back. HP cut the price by $100 in early August.

Seven weeks

On 18 August 2011, new CEO Léo Apotheker announced that HP would discontinue all webOS devices and explore spinning off its entire personal computer business. The TouchPad had been on sale for 49 days. Employees learned along with the press.

Then the fire sale: unsold TouchPads went to $99, and they vanished. Stores were mobbed, sites crashed, and the TouchPad briefly became the second-best-selling tablet in the United States, at a price far below cost. It was a strange, expensive proof that the product was not hopeless, just badly priced against Apple.

HP kept the PC business after a board revolt that cost Apotheker his job. webOS was open-sourced in 2011, sold to LG in 2013, and now runs on millions of LG televisions, the only part of the $1.2 billion purchase still alive.

Similar projects

Microsoft Kin Dead in 48 days 2010–2011 Zune Microsoft's answer to the iPod, five years late 2006–2015 iPod 1,000 songs in your pocket 2001–2022 Google Glass The face computer the public rejected 2013–2023 Pebble The smartwatch Kickstarter built, and Fitbit buried 2013–2018 Apple Newton The handheld that was right, ten years early 1993–1998

Sources [edit]

  1. HP announces it will discontinue TouchPad, Pre phones, stop webOS device development The Next Web 18 August 2011 [archived]
  2. HP webOS in limbo after TouchPad is killed CBS News 19 August 2011 [archived]

Last verified: 11 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).