Google Developing Tablet to Take on iPad

http://mashable.com/2010/04/12/google-tablet-htc/

by mun411 • 16 years ago

64 72 16 years ago

mashable.com

alexro• 16 years ago

Google developing <X> to take on <Y>:

example:

X = 'buzz', Y = 'twitter'

mbreese• 16 years ago

I'd be disappointed if they weren't. Unfortunately, it seems like this will be based on Android as opposed to ChromeOS. After playing with ChromeOS on a Dell Mini for a while, I can say that it is just screaming for a tablet to put it on. Choosing Android is probably the smart thing in order to get apps on it, but I'd love a Chrome tablet.

gaius• 16 years ago

A tablet interface is very different from a desktop interface with an on-screen keyboard.

apower• 16 years ago

Both are just enhanced Linux. Let's call the tablet Linux-based.

Anon84• 16 years ago

Another Nexus?

theBobMcCormick2• 16 years ago

I certainly hope so. The Nexus one is an absolutely awesome phone. Not to mention it completely re-set the expectation bar for the various Android handset manufacturer. (witness how most of the Android handset's announced post-nexus one have snapdragon processors and specs very similar to the nexus).

joubert2• 16 years ago

Will one be able to get paid-for apps that aren't ad-supported, mewonders.

nuclear_eclipse• 16 years ago

Why wouldn't you? Paid-for apps have been available for over a year now on the Android Market, assuming you live in a region where Google can take payments from...

joubert2• 16 years ago

I don't know anybody with an Android phone, so I will ask: so you can have a phone experience without ads all over the place? I just assumed that you might have ads here and there, since that is Google's business model.

jhancock• 16 years ago

I've been playing with Palm's WebOS. I think they've made some good trade offs in their development stack. I see no reason Palm or someone that acquires them couldn't upsize the Pre into a tablet.

naner• 16 years ago

WebOS actually is pretty cool, it's too bad that Palm wasn't able to really compete with Apple and Google.

warfangle• 16 years ago

With Google's repository of digitized books, they seem better-poised for the ebook market than even Amazon.

cwilson2• 16 years ago

Am I the only one starting to see a pattern here? Why is Google suddenly following in Apple's footsteps after every new product?

enjo• 16 years ago

I can confirm that Google has been working on this for quite awhile. At least 2 years in one way or another. They anticipated the move into tablets and a lot of the work of maturing the Android platform has gone towards that.

In this case, they're not following by any stretch.

Oh, and while we're at it: It's not like Apple is the first touch enabled Tablet to ever come to market. I would argue that the iPhone is an incremental improvement on the Palm products (the first non-stylus gesture based app I used was SnapperMail way back on the second gen Palm devices).

dustingetz4• 16 years ago

the iphone might have been an incremental idea, but that's pretty much irrelevant.

cwilson2• 16 years ago

Could you really name a touch enabled Tablet to me without searching? I know I couldn't name one. There is also that nifty little stat about Apple being the worlds largest Tablet seller after their first day, so when it really comes down to it, they are the first.

Even if you don't count the above it's still the first Tablet worth a damn.

As for Google not following Apple... perception is everything. Consumers and really anyone following this epic battle will gloss over when someone tells them "well Google has been working on this for 2 years!" and simply remember that Apple did it first, Google was second, just like the iPhone and Android (I believe the same argument can be made there too but no one really remembers or cares about that).

gojomo• 16 years ago

Even if that were true, aren't you glad that they are entering the same markets?

Otherwise, Apple's competition might only be the likes of Palm, HP, and JooJoo.

donaq• 16 years ago

Perhaps, but that's probably a good thing.

swombat• 16 years ago

The whole Android vs Chrome OS thing smacks of a badly planned platform strategy.

Seems like both OSes are suitable for tablets, and both are being developed (by different departments, no doubt) for that purpose.

orangecat• 16 years ago

Yeah, I don't get the point of Chrome. If all you need is a browser, then just run a browser under Android.

That said, if Google can produce a tablet that is to the iPad what the Nexus One is to the iPhone, I'm in.

natrius• 16 years ago

Android is for touch screens. Chrome OS is for netbooks. A Chrome OS tablet would be a bad idea. An Android netbook would also be a bad idea. They're built around different input methods.

dminor• 16 years ago

Google is a search company. Their platform strategy is "encourage open platforms".

richcollins2• 16 years ago

Google is starting to feel like Microsoft. They're trying to compete everywhere instead of focusing on their core competencies.

buster• 16 years ago

With the big difference that googles products usually dont lock you in and give users choice, also googles software is usually free. Sounds like good competition.

dustingetz4• 16 years ago

their core product is advertising; and all these other services exist to augment such. google's leadership is quite clearly on their A game.

cabalamat• 16 years ago

You're right.

If the future of computing is Apple's locked down iPad and iPhone platforms, Google will lose big time. Google therefore needs to prevent that future from happening.

macrael• 16 years ago

I don't think so. Advertising is where they make their money, but Google's core competency is storing and making sense of massive amounts of data. That is what they do better than everyone else, advertising is just how they monetize it.

jonknee• 16 years ago

It's vital to their future. Google sees mobile as the future of computing which means if they don't make it big in mobile they will fade away. Just look at what Steve Jobs is doing to Adobe--Google doesn't want to get leap frogged and then left for scraps.

igorgue2• 16 years ago

Apple is starting to feel like Microsoft. They're trying to compete everywhere instead of focusing on their core competencies.

richcollins2• 16 years ago

I agree wrt iAd. Other than that they are very focused on manufacturing devices.

terryjsmith• 16 years ago

Is there a business reason behind playing catch up in big companies? I understand there's a market opporunity, but so many of these "copy cat" products fail to live up to their potential simply because they are side projects (especially something like this to Google). It seems this is quite a trend for Palm, MS, Google and other megacorps and it rarely turns out well.

blhack• 16 years ago

>Is there a business reason behind playing catch up in big companies?

Yes, it's called "letting other companies subsidize your market research". I don't know that the copy cats are really failing to live up to anything. I'd say that android is a glowing success.

Not only that, but if google builds and android-based tablet, it might force apple to de-suckify the iPad. Competition is good for everybody including the companies that are competing; it incubates innovation.

mbrubeck• 16 years ago

"It seems this is quite a trend for Palm, MS, Google and other megacorps and it rarely turns out well."

Windows, Google web search, Office, XBox, Google Maps, GMail, and many other big successful products started out in markets that were initially defined and led by competitors.

theBobMcCormick2• 16 years ago

Being a "copycat" seemed to work well for Apple with the original iPod, which was a long way from the first handheld MP3 player.

scorxn• 16 years ago

What are the odds Google could offer free 3G with the device? Kindle pulls it off, but builds the cost into content. Maybe a new ad network?

bond• 16 years ago

Good competition is never a bad thing...

timf2• 16 years ago

I'm more interested in this Adam tablet (also based on Android). It can do BOTH e-ink (best feature of the Kindle) and full color LCD:

http://www.notionink.in/adamfeature.php

proee• 16 years ago

FYI, it's not sporting e-ink but rather a transflective display. Not even close to what the kindle is using...

timf2• 16 years ago

Thanks for pointing that out, I embellished too much by saying it _is_ e-ink

hyperbovine2• 16 years ago

It's interesting to see tablets being knighted as the Future of Computing by MSM and the tech industry when it's not at all clear that people actually want them. After controlling for the fanboy & factor, reviews for the iPad seem to be mixed. I don't think it's exaggerating to say that the form factor just might not be a good match for a lot of people.

axod3• 16 years ago

It's a very funny bubble to watch. I just can't see it going mainstream.

ZeroGravitas• 16 years ago

Apple's move seems to be based partly on the success of the iPhone but partly on the fact that they can't make a cheap, intel netbook without destroying their brand values, and can't make an ARM netbook without breaking compatability. (The latter applies to Microsoft too).

The fact that you can buy an external keyboard (a very un-Apple move) suggests they'd have shipped a conventional laptop form factor if they could get away with it.

I'm hoping the Apple ARM tablet leads to Android tablets which will then open the door for those ARM netbooks we've been promised for the last couple of years.

mattmanser• 16 years ago

I totally can. Lounging watching TV, pick up the tablet from your coffee table, check out facebook, see what's on at cinema, check latest score on the tablet, pop it back down again? Quick check of email, only need to write back a couple of lines, not at work after all.

Much easier to use than red button on tv. Much better than a notebook or laptop. Much less intrusive than them too.

I think they'll turn out to be totally handy, laptops and desktops will start gathering dust until people who don't need to write articles or code for a living wonder why bother buying a new one?

oakenshield• 16 years ago

I feel that it is indeed going to be a revolution of sorts, and people who don't use computers professionally will start using tablets in their work. Tablets have the opportunity to become much more pervasive: laptops by design require folks to sit down, but tablets have a nicer form factor that could replace virtually anything people use while standing up/on the move: writing pads, file folders, electrical/electronic measurement equipment(with Apple approved connectors, of course), etc. Lots of professions could benefit from a usable tablet design --- doctors, field engineers, etc.

The show Stargate Atlantis shows an amusing example of one "future". Stuck in a dead spaceship on the bottom of the ocean with air running out and water leaking in? Not to worry, just hook up your tablet to the system and hack it. For Rodney Mckay, difficult takes a few seconds. Impossible -- a few minutes.

Google Developing Tablet to Take on iPad

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