Before HP canceled its webOS hardware line of products including smartphones and tablets, the company was working on a 7 inch TouchPad tablet to compliment the 10 inch model that hit the streets in July. Unfortunately now that HP is pulling out of the webOS tablet business, the HP TouchPad Go 7 inch tablet will likely never see the light of day.
But that didn’t stop it from showing up this week at the FCC website.
It takes a while for a company to get regulatory approval for tablets, phones, laptops, and other wireless devices. So there’s a good chance that HP had submitted an application to the FCC before pulling the plug on the tablet, and it’s just now showing up on the website.
In other words, we probably shouldn’t read too much into the FCC listing. While gadgets often show up at the FCC shortly before going on sale in the US, in this case we’re probably just looking at a product that slipped between the cracks of the system.
This is the second time we’ve seen the tablet at the Federal Communications Commission website. A few months ago a model with 3G and GPS capabilities passed through. This time we’re probably looking at a WiFi-only version.