Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Installing Android on HP TouchPad from a Mac

Yesterday I finally took the time to install Android on my HP Touchpad.  So far, this is very cool and I highly recommend it!  The documentation that is out there for this process is a little "fuzzy" so I wanted to document the links I used as well as what was different for me because I installed it from a Mac instead of a Windows platform.

Here are the links I used, go read/watch all of them before you get started to understand the process end to end.  I used pieces of each of them.


  • Here is the link to the actual files you will need to download.  You will need the ACMEInstaller, moboot, the cm-update, and the tenderloin files
  • Here is the link to the two files you will need to enable the Android Market to log in to a Google account and download apps.
  • Watch this video for an idea of how to install it from a Mac.
  • Watch this video for a much better tutorial of the process.
  • Lastly, this link will explain step by step how to do the entire process end to end, but it is for a Windows PC.
Some notes on my install:
  • I copied the ACMEInstaller to my Desktop to make it easy to find from the Mac Terminal program
  • I copied the moboot, cm-update, and tenderloin zips to a folder called cminstall on the Touchpad
  • I DIDN'T install the Palm SDK on my Mac. You don't need it for novacom. novacom is built into the Mac and you can kick off the novacom from terminal.
  • Once Android was installed, I copied the google app zips to the root of the Touchpad to make them easy to find
So how is it?  So far so good. I've been playing with a few apps, the Touchstone works for charging, and the battery drain in standby seems to be less than WebOS.  I'll post an update as I play with it more.

5 comments:

Bill Carter said...

Thanks for documenting this. I also installed Android on my Touchpad. It's great!

Anonymous said...

what are the commands you type into terminal to get to the ACMEInstaller?

Aaron Delp said...

The command to kick off ACMEInstaller is: novacom boot mem:// < ACMEInstaller

Thanks!!

Ben H said...

I also put android on my touchpad it's great BUT my macbook wont recognise the touchpad via the usb cable so I can't sideload files - any idea why it doesn't recognise the touchpad?

Aaron Delp said...

Sorry, not sure. I know mine didn't work at first but then it did. As far as I know I didn't do anything.

Also, are you loading CM7 or the new CM9?

I'm going to load CM9 soon but for now I'm still on CM7.

Sorry I can't help you more with that one!