Google Will Release a Pixel Tablet in 2023

Offering a sneak preview of the Pixel 7 wasn't enough, so Google's really leaning in. Today at I/O, the company announced that it's returning to the tablet business with a new device set for, get this, a 2023 launch. From a report: "Normally we wouldn't tease a new product before it's ready," said Google's hardware chief Rick Osterloh, "but there's so much amazing energy around tablets in the developer community that we wanted to bring you all into the loop." The Pixel Tablet is going to be something of a spiritual successor to 2018's Pixel Slate, which the company quietly discontinued last year. Like the Pixel Book, the hardware was nice, but in a world full of super cheap Chromebooks, Google never really nailed the "why."

Oh, Google..

[Mascot]

"Normally we wouldn't tease a new product before it's ready," said Google's hardware chief Rick Osterloh

True, normally you'd both release _and_ discontinue a product before it's ready.

(To be fair, I think that reputation is mainly the fault of the software side of things, but still.)

Does that mean better Android tablet support too?

[SuperKendall]

It seems like Android tablets never really gained much purchase because Android itself was never built for tablets very well.

Or, maybe it was just most software didn't consider that form factor.

Either way I hope this means that Google has some thoughts in mind for tablet specific improvements to Android.

Re:

[waspleg]

Slightly over half the tablet market is Apple, the rest are various Android flavors - be they Samsung, Amazon, or shitty Chinese off brands.

Re:

[spire3661]

Maybe half the unit sales, but not half of the actual money. By dollars spent, ipad is the ONLY tablet worth addressing.

Re:

[omnichad]

Developers don't get a cut of iPad sales revenue. The price or overprice of a tablet does not make it more valuable as a target market.

Don't get me wrong, the Android tablet market has few good ones and lots of junk. We could use a few good models to show everyone that they could have sold if they were just not terrible.

Re:

[MathewKeith]

I think what spire3661 might be referring to is that ipados apps are more likely to be purchased vs android apps which are usually free for the same app. ios is the same way. apps are more likely to cost money compared to the android apps. So you end up with more revenue for each ipad than you would for each android tablet.

Re:

[jacks smirking reven]

I think it's mainly software. The stuff a tablet is really useful for like art, music, media creation, games, a companion device for other more complex software on a desktop, all that stuff is just way better on an iPad.

I prefer Android for my phone but for a tablet there's no denying that iPad has a real lock on the market, the apps for it are just too good and they have apps and games built for the format.

Re:

[Merk42]

It's a very chicken and egg problem.
Android tablets don't sell well because Apps aren't optimized for them. Apps aren't optimized for them because they don't sell well.

nexus 7 was almost perfect

[layabout]

up screen resolution, faster cpu and more memory, removable battery takes care of the hardware. on sw side, pen, graffiti writing, nimbus/evernote/notion/... integration hooks.

only way to make the tablet better is to make it like a fairphone 4

Be skeptical

[dsgrntlxmply]

Google were perfectly willing to release a Lollipop "upgrade" for the original 2012 Nexus 7 tablet that made it unusably slow. It was a very usable tablet for its time until bad software wrecked it. Why should they be trusted now?

Re:

[drinkypoo]

This. No one is capable of learning from mistakes. That's why we should enforce the death penalty the moment anyone errors.

They never fixed it and it became necessary to go to third party distributions in order to get decent performance with newer versions. They should have fixed it. They didn't.

Re:

[omnichad]

Apple does this with every hardware revision ever. Always one update past usability.

Forget it if it's ChromeOS based

[MathewKeith]

Chrome OS was such a terrible experience as a tablet. If this is based on chrome os it will be dead on arrival. The web apps are just not designed to work as a tablet. My pixel slate also had tons of other glitches like graphics issues and such switching between android apps and chrome os apps. No. Thank. You.

Google decides to make tablets and watches again

[spacepimp]

They abandoned Watch OS and Tablets for the most part a number of years ago. Why should customers be expected to pay a premium for devices that will have limited support (in years) from Google? Maybe this time they won't go three years without a watch OS update, or they will make a tablet OS worth developer interest, but why is this time different? Right now googles biggest hurdle is their 'cancel culture', when a device or product is underperforming. This hurts to say, as i'm not a fan of Apple's walled garden. But it looks better from a consumer stand point than how the customer is treated.

Re:

[WankerWeasel]

It's going to be a hard sell to make developers get onboard in making apps for their tablet and watch too. Why risk the investment when it may evaporate and why invest your resources in developing for such when the market will be so small? Apple has done a great job at making it easy for developers to scale their iPhone apps up for iPad, and once developers saw enough iPad users to justify it, they invested in making iPad-specific features/layouts, etc. It's much like the problem Microsoft saw with Windows

Make sure it has a pen

[Kremmy]

Please, make it a proper pen tablet, just like the S Pen and Apple Pencil. We don't need another tablet that doesn't include a pressure sensitive pen. Give me more options on the tablet side. We have a lot of options for tablet monitors on the PC these days, we need more on the mobile devices.

Global component shortage.

[Qbertino]

... but there's so much amazing energy around tablets in the developer community that we wanted to bring you all into the loop ...

No, that's not the reason. The issue is that there is such a backlog on required electronic components in the global economy that you're taking on delaying tactics by introducing planned future products to slow down current demand. Smart move, but we'll call it out on you if you fail to deliver. Fantasy-Ware / Vapour-Ware as a distraction only works for a season or two, after tha

Win-Win for Samsung?

[Babel-17]

If Google buys the "Super AMOLED" screen from them, like with the Pixel 6, that helps Samsung, and if as we can reasonably expect, Google puts more support into optimizations for the look of tablets, that too could help Samsung.

They'll lose some sales of their S line of Tablets, I have a S4 and S7+, both very nice, but I'll guess that what will likely be a super premium offering from Google will eat into Apple's share of the Tablet market.

Though both Apple and Samsung have a very strong presence there, so they should be OK. Maybe Google is going to appeal to the business oriented customers.