Update: The first alpha release of CyanogenMod is now available for the HP TouchPad. You can follow our step-by-step instructions for downloading and installing Android on your HP TouchPad.Â
As the CyanogenMod team continues its work to port Google Android to run on the HP TouchPad tablet, it looks like the team has crossed another item off the to-do list. Bluetooth is now working.
That means you’ll be able to use a Bluetooth keyboard or possibly other devices such as Bluetooth headsets with the TouchPad once Google Android is made publicly available.
There’s still a lot of work to be done. Video drivers are still a work in progress, as is compass support. There are problems with using the tablet after resuming from sleep. Power management is still problematic, and if you turn on airplane mode it’s stuck on unless you reboot the tablet.
According to a post from DarkRedFlame at the RootzWiki forum, the CyanogenMod Android build for the TouchPad is about two thirds complete at this point.
On the one hand, that’s pretty great news since it shows how quickly the independent developers are making progress. Work on the project only began about a month ago.
On the other hand, CyanogenMod developers have been showing videos for the past few weeks showing Android on the tablet, and it certainly looks like Android works pretty well in those videos. That probably raised a lot of people’s hopes that the team would release software for the tablet soon. But the videos only show the things that are working, not the bugs that still need to be squashed.
The HP TouchPad is a tablet with a 9.7 inch, 1024 x 768 pixel display and a 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon dual core processor. It originally shipped with webOS 3.0 software, but after HP discontinued the tablet and sold of remaining inventory for prices as low as $99, interest in an Android port for the tablet grew.
The TouchPad’s hardware is similar to that of many other Android devices and some tablets were even accidentally shipped with Android, suggesting that the manufacturer had tested the operating system on the tablet. But HP only officially supports webOS for the tablet.
Hopefully the fast progress the CyanogenMod developers have been making will continue, in which case we could see a public release of unofficial Android software for HP’s tablet in the next few months.
You can keep up with the development progress at the CM TouchPad Google Code project page.
Update: The CyanogenMod team has also posted a new video showing how the install process will work. It looks like it takes just a few minutes to load Android onto the TouchPad and create a dual boot system that can switch between Android and webOS.
In installed Alpha 2 and it works great generally. I am having a problem with the camera. It won’t work at all. It seems that most people say this was fixed with the last build but that’s not my experience. Any advice from anyone?
Also, is there a way to install incremental patches, or do I just have to wait for the next release?
You can follow the instructions for installing Alpha 2 for applying most patches:
https://liliputing.com/2011/10/how-to-install-cyanogenmod-7-1-alpha-2-on-an-hp-touchpad.html
I’m not sure about the camera. Are you sure you’re using Alpha 2? Have you tried plugging in headphones while playing music to make sure the speaker shuts off?Â
Thanks fro the quick reply. I checked and I am using Alpha 2. The speaker shuts off when I plug in headphones. It’s just the camera that has problems. It works under WebOS.
Now… are you saying that you can’t see any picture at all in the camera? Or just that you can’t take a photo — because the latter is normal.
You should be able to open the app… but you can’t use it to record any pictures or videos as far as I’m aware.Â
I just noticed your reply. That’s right: I can open the camera, it just doesn’t record photos or videos. Is that expected to change? I upgraded to Alpha 3 and the problem persists.
Yeah, it’s a known issue. I’m sure someone’s working on it, but since this is all unofficial, unsupported software there’s no guarantee that it will ever work.Â
I installed the alpha 2 on my touchpad about 4 days ago. It has been working great, a few glitches here and there, but nothing major. I am really looking forward to the Beta release.Â
I have an issue now though, I put my tp on the touchstone last night to charge, and it was working great, this morning the touchscreen will not work. All the buttons work, but I cannot get anything to happen when I touch the screen. Is there a way to reboot the touchpad, without using the touchscreen? I cannot seem to find any support info from HP.Â
Thanks Guys.Â
Jamie
Press and hold the power and Home buttons at the same time for about 30 seconds.Â
Hi guys would you mind if I post a link to the Italian version of the installation guide?
waiting for the android release and holding kh touch pad in a protecting cell, as the vultures are really getting close for my HP pad’ it was a real bargain interns of cash and but plzplz I do t like webOS it is too much limited in softwares. Ppl should work for converting the android softwares into webos.
“…That probably raised a lot of people’s hopes that the team would release software for the tablet soon…” Well, if they are two thirds done as they say and if the project started a month ago, they should have about two weeks or so to go.  That IS soon!  I’ve just installed their ROM on my rooted Android phone and I’m impressed.  These guys are really good.
In the meantime, they’ve added some tablet-specific tweaks
including on-screen navigation buttons. And the truth is there are
hundreds of thousands of apps that can run on Android phones or tablets
right now.
tv vanavond
God DAMN this is going fast. Â Can’t wait for the final product.
As much as I am curiously following the developments on this, I don’t see myself using it unless they manage to port a 3.X version that is actually made for tablets…
The CM team only works with open source Android code, and since Google hasn’t released Honeycomb source they’re working with Gingerbread for now. Once Ice Cream Sandwich is made available they’ll start working with that.
In the meantime, they’ve added some tablet-specific tweaks including on-screen navigation buttons. And the truth is there are hundreds of thousands of apps that can run on Android phones or tablets right now… but just hundreds of apps designed specifically for Honeycomb tablets.Â
You’re not really missing that much by sticking with Gingerbread at this point.Â
oh come on as someone who can’t find an HP touchpad this is sheer torture.
you know, they best hurry. TouchPad owners are loving webOS and some awesome apps are still being released…Spashtop for example.
I hate webOS. It is just so Damon slow on my 64g touchpad. Plus captive portal WiFi is not implemented properly so most folks can’t use public WiFi. Way too many limitations for my taste.
Problem from the beginning was HP released the TouchPad before WebOS could be properly optimized for the hardware.
This is a issue that generally effects most ARM tablets because of the hardware fragmentation and closed driver support many have to deal with. This is why some release a Android update up to months after Google officially released it for example. A straight port to many devices would perform terribly and have lots of features disabled and would be true of any OS ported to a ARM devices with proprietary hardware.
So WebOS doesn’t run as fast as it could have if they took the time to optimize it for the hardware. WebOS is actually more capable than Android and had lots of potential as it is based on a patched version of Linux. While Android was based on a striped down separate fork of Linux.
In other words, hate the half baked job HP did in deploying WebOS and not the OS itself.