Google Has Canceled the Pixel Tablet 2

AndroidAuthority: Android Authority has learned that Google has canceled the Pixel Tablet 2, the presumed name of Google's second-generation Pixel Tablet. This is disappointing for Pixel fans who were waiting for Google to refresh its first-generation Pixel Tablet with a newer chipset, a better camera, and, more importantly, an official keyboard accessory.

It's also surprising to hear because it might suggest that Google is giving up on its tablet ambitions entirely, considering a separate report published yesterday claimed that Google is also killing the Pixel Tablet 3. However, we have reason to believe that the device cited in yesterday's report is actually the Pixel Tablet 2, and not the third-generation tablet after all. Let me break down how we know.

I hate apple devices and even I own an ipad

[Hadlock]

I really really loathe apple devices, but the honest truth is that the ipad is a really stellar device. As far as I can tell, the tablet market is three camps 1) apple fanboys who want apple products 2) people who need a good tablet (parents with kids, probably professionals) who buy an ipad 3) people who need a tablet but can't afford an ipad
 
Camps 1 & 2 buy an iPad; camp 3 buys the cheapest android tablet available at the store
 
There's never really been a need for a premium non-windows tablet that isn't an ipad
 
We only bought an ipad when they finally released their, uh, probably ipad air, in oct 2020 which was the first non-pro model to feature a USB-C charging port. It's 4 years old now and we don't have any intention of replacing it unless it dies, or more likely, apple drops software support for it, so we have to buy a replacement. Probably in 3 years.

Re:

[The-Ixian]

The Samsung Galaxy Tab is a phenomenal tablet and is a lot more sexy than the iPad when it comes to bezel, display brightness and color, pencil charging/placement and thinness. Obviously, this is my opinion, but it is based off of having used both an iPad Pro (use one at work) and a Galaxy Tab Ultra (personal device).

I have been using Pixel devices for years. However, when I was in the market for an Android tablet, there really was no consideration of the Pixel tablet. I am not sure what Google's deal is, b

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[Hadlock]

I have no real opinion on the aesthetics of our tablet. It sits on the charger 28-30 days a month and gets handed directly to our toddler for trips to the airport and on the plane. It needs good support for stuff like netflix, disney+, good battery life, and durable for travel with a toddler. The ipad does all this in spades

Periodically we'll take the ipad on the boat for longer trips (10+ miles) away from our home marina and use it for gps navigation (depth chart maps on navionics are really good) but that

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[hdyoung]

Google has a long history of making really impressive hardware and then discontinuing it 3 years later. Their pixel phones appear to be an exception, but otherwise, buying google hardware is purely a short-term prospect.

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[AmiMoJo]

Samsung seems to sell plenty of premium tablets, and by all accounts they are at least the equals of iPads, if not better. Samsung's pen in particular is better than the Apple one, both the hardware and software.

Google's issue is that they don't have a complete system. They need a decent keyboard and pen.

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[MachineShedFred]

They also need software developers that understand that Android tablets exist.

There are so many apps that are just phone apps that render at like 2x and call it a day, and they're fucking terrible.

I gave Android tablets an honest try a few years back with the Nvidia Shield, and the experience was disappointment if you went anywhere beyond Nvidia or Google apps, or a few A-list companies that had a clue for developing their streaming clients. And since Android tablets have hardly taken off sales-wise, I can

Re:

[farble1670]

3) people who need a tablet but can't afford an ipad

The entry level 10" iPad is a monster, and it's only $350. Outside of a complete junk Chinese Android tablet you can't beat that. Even Samsung's lowest-end Android tablet is $100 more. It's a no-brainer, unless you fall into some anti-Apple category.

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[bill_mcgonigle]

> unless you fall into some anti-Apple category.

Some kind of whacko with a huge Android library or open-source workflow?

Not everybody has the same requirements, y'all.

Re: I hate apple devices and even I own an ipad

[BorgDrone]

Are Android tablet apps even a thing or is it just a bunch of stretched out phone apps?

Re:

[MachineShedFred]

My experience was a mix of the two. There are definitely tablet-friendly versions of A-list apps from well known publishers. And then there's a whole lot of apps that are blown up phone apps that look like a Fischer-Price My First UI(tm) interface.

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[gabebear]

You just described an anti-Apple fanboy Android is the only alternative and Android fanboys believe for some reason that Android is somehow more related to “open source” and “open” and are self righteous about it.

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[johanw]

Nonsense, I recenty bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ for EUR 170 new. It does everything I want with it and fast enough.

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[markdavis]

>"The entry level 10" iPad is a monster, and it's only $350. Outside of a complete junk Chinese Android tablet you can't beat that. Even Samsung's lowest-end Android tablet is $100 more."

You must not be looking very hard. On Amazon right now...
* Samsung Galaxy 11" Tab A9+ $150.
* Tab S9 FE 10.9" $300
* Tab A9 $104
* Tab S6 Lite 10.4" $200
* Tab A9+ 11" $138

The Samsung line goes on sale and discounts all the time with huge discounts. Yes, the latest high-end Tab S can be very pricey, but in-line with high-e

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[dgatwood]

3) people who need a tablet but can't afford an ipad

The entry level 10" iPad is a monster, and it's only $350. Outside of a complete junk Chinese Android tablet you can't beat that. Even Samsung's lowest-end Android tablet is $100 more. It's a no-brainer, unless you fall into some anti-Apple category.

If you just want a cheap tablet, the Amazon Fire HD 8 costs $60. At least with the version I own, you can install the Play Store, and with that upgrade, it is pretty much good enough as a basic media consumption device unless you want a bigger screen.

Apple doesn't compete at the low end at all, and barely competes in the mid-range market. That's okay and all, but it makes their tablets mostly uninteresting to me, even as someone who uses a Mac and an iPhone. If I were trying to use a tablet as a laptop a

Re: I hate apple devices and even I own an ipad

[paul_engr]

Not true. Samsung made good android tablets, google had the nexus 10 was AWESOME, and the nexus 7 was AWESOME. the software has always been lacking. There's no killer app that warrants tablet form factor in android. Want a stylus? Great, there's nothing to do with one. I have a half dozen android tablets from the last 15 years and none of them have STUCK with me as a killer part of my workflow. Oneplus tablet with the stylus? It's great but I almost never use it. No killer app for the pen. It's ei

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[markdavis]

>"As far as I can tell, the tablet market is three camps 1) apple fanboys who want apple products 2) people who need a good tablet (parents with kids, probably professionals) who buy an ipad 3) people who need a tablet but can't afford an ipad"

You left off 4) people who need a good tablet and buy a Samsung because they are great and appreciate the quality and features and that the Android ecosystem matches their other devices (like their phones).

I have used Samsung Android tablets for years and years and

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[hdyoung]

It’s even more of a slam dunk for Apple then you describe. Camp 3 is practically non-existent. A plain-jane ipad runs 200-300 bucks. 100-200 dollar android tablets are really, really miserable to use. Heck, a used ipad with a few years on it will run you 100 bucks and will still blow most android tablets out of the water.

Like you said, Apple has this category pretty much slam-dunked, although Samsung tablets aren’t bad at all.

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[bjwest]

I loath the iPad, and prefer my Samsung Galaxy Tab S8+. The only reason I have an iPad is that it comes free with my newspaper subscription. It sits in my bathroom, and only I use it while taking a shit.

Chicken-Egg Problem

[WankerWeasel]

Android tablets have failed for the same reason the Microsoft Phone failed. There are no apps for it, so people don't buy the hardware. Since no one buys the hardware, no one develops for it. Developers aren't going to invest the resources (time and money) into developing for a platform with very few users, when they can invest in developing for iOS and Android where the potential customers are millions of times more.

And the reality is that people don't just want stretched phone apps on a tablet. They want tablet-optimized applications that take advantage of the additional real estate and other opportunities provided by a tablet. iPad developers are providing those generally, as there's a large market there for it. But there are very few Android apps designed for tablets.

It also doesn't help Android that the available tablets are all over the place in terms of screen size and functionality. That makes it very difficult to develop an app that provides a good user experience across devices. Apple offers numerous sizes too, but makes it much easier for developers to scale and adjust their apps to the various models. This has further limited development of Android tablet apps.

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[flink]

And the reality is that people don't just want stretched phone apps on a tablet. They want tablet-optimized applications that take advantage of the additional real estate and other opportunities provided by a tablet..

I wonder why we are still in this boat though. We have responsive web UI frameworks that scale a user interface down from a 4k 32" screen through a tablet down to phone size. Why aren't there such frameworks for mobile app development?

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[WankerWeasel]

They can do that. But they're not gonna put in the work it only a couple people would utilize it on a tablet. It's not even worth the effort to maintain such responsive elements.

Ivory Tower flop

[Tablizer]

One-size-fits-all UI's are a PITA to do well. For one, it's not just one-for-one translation, it's often best to go about the UI notably different for some device sizes, such as splitting 1 screen into 3 for a different device. Thus, essentially a publisher has to make and support 3 different apps to serve the 3 sizes well (phone, tablet, desktop).

"Magical self-rearranging semantic markup" is a pipe dream for normal-budget projects. The ivory tower cracked on this one.

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[Darinbob]

Most apps beyond those built-in seem a non-issue for me, and maybe others. Some third party apps are fine but they're rare - having access to 1 million apps is pointless if you only use 3 of them. Though Apple kind of screws up by not putting some phone apps on ipad (like a calculator). So mostly I just check email, check weather (it goes to a freaking web site on Safari, so that's not an "app"), check Discord, and play a couple of increasingly annoying spam filled games, occasional web browsing; mostly

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[MachineShedFred]

A good fix for a lot of the ad bullshit: deploy a DNS server on your network that does adblocking for you by taking requests for known ad hosts and returning 127.0.0.1.

For example: AdGuard Home [docker.com] - it's a docker container you start up and tell where your upstream DNS is (or even just your router so it can hop through it's forwarder) and then you set your devices on your network to use the container's address for DNS via DHCP.

It's amazing how many ads disappear from every device in your home in minutes. It ev

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[bill_mcgonigle]

I have a mid Chinese tablet with a monster battery (3-4 days) that runs Syncthing, Brave, and VLC.

How odd that this would mystify folks.

I just set up a Mikrotik switch in a small data center with it yesterday.

Amazing?

Google cancelling something?

[Tablizer]

....Neeeever

Shocking

[farble1670]

It's also surprising to hear because it might suggest that Google is giving up on its tablet ambitions entirely

Like they've done twice before this with the Nexus (7) line, and the Pixelbook. Shocking. This is why I'm unfortunately stuck buying Samsung bloatware tablets.

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[gabebear]

Microsoft is just as bad as Google with killing off hardware. Never rely on hardware from either of company even if it is great hardware. Software support from either has also been a crapshoot with anything that isn’t a cash making cow axed on a whim.

No AI-supercharged Pixel2?

[thesjaakspoiler]

Bummer...