HP TouchPad Gets CyanogenMod Android First Boot [Video]

HP's $100 fire sale of the TouchPad led to the webOS slate dropping into the hands of several developers, not least the CyanogenMod team, and they've been hard at work getting their customized version of Android running on the tablet. Already there's a video demo (which you can see after the cut) of Android booting on the TouchPad, and the team says it's hoping to release a multiboot ROM which will allow the users to choose between webOS, CyanogenMod and potentially other platforms too.

That would mean you could keep the slick webOS interface for use with your existing TouchPad apps – or indeed the Facebook app, which is better than what you get on Android – but then flip over to Google's platform for the greater choice of software. The video shows what the team claims is a slightly older version of their current efforts; since then they've apparently added in lvm support and various other tablet-tweaks.

Outstanding, however, is the touchscreen driver, without which actually using the TouchPad as an Android tablet is somewhat less fulfilling. That's now "the focus" of the team's attention, though they also need some spare TouchPad units since the sell-out success of HP's drastic discounting means there are developers wanting to contribute but unable to as they don't have the actual tablet.

"It will certainly be a long while before our goals become reality" CyanogenMod warns, and so we probably shouldn't expect anything too quickly. It's also worth noting that, currently, the ROM they're using is Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, not Honeycomb. Still, if you managed to grab a $100 TouchPad, this could end up being a great way of repurposing it.

[via Android Community]