HP TouchPad Dual-Booting With Android, Ready For Download Now

You've heard the rumors – the sold-out WebOS HP TouchPad tablet, now running Android! But did you know that you can make such a thing happen for yourself? Truly, the process has become as simple as it might ever get, courtesy of those lovely developer hackers on XDA Developers Forum. The great thing about the process we're reporting here today is that you can keep your original WebOS mobile operating system in-tact while you allow access for yourself to Android, a much more diverse operating system at this point, this therefor giving you the $100 dual-core tablet you've always wanted, no holds barred!

For those of you wanting to get in on the process for installing this system, head over to the original XDA thread where it's all going down, but know this: it IS an Alpha release, which means there certainly are bugs. In addition, you'll need the community-authored tool "Preware" as well as an alternate app store (Android Marketplace isn't here quite yet) and a set of other tools and tweaks to keep running. Limits currently include basically no usable storage, no Google apps, and – oh yeah – it's in Chinese.

Preware, for those of you that don't know, is an easy install that can be deleted after you're done with it, this allowing you to work with the innards of your WebOS device, in this case your HP TouchPad. The developers behind this particular install of Android say that they'll be continuing their work on the system and will be "ironing out" kinks for future releases, as well as flipping the whole thing so that Android can run as a "card" in your WebOS interface. Sound nice to you? Go ahead and hack now if you want, or wait a few weeks and the whole process should be made quite a bit easier – whichever you choose!

Also check out this alternate means of dual-booting Android and WebOS from just a couple of days ago – everyone wants both!

[via Android Community]