
Google will no longer make its own tablet devices - rongenre
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-will-stop-making-its-own-tablets-2019-6
======
cwyers
Google shot themselves in the face trying to make ChromeOS happen at the
expense of making Android tablets that don't suck. Hell, Kindle tablets kinda
do suck and they still sell fine.

~~~
thrower123
I do wonder how many people buy Kindle Fires when they aren't on one of their
$40 clearance sales. I've bought three or four of them that way.

They are, to be honest, pretty terrible, but for reading in the middle of the
night when I can't turn on the light and use my regular Kindle, they beat
using my phone.

~~~
Spivak
What's holding you back from the backlit Paperwhite?

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
Paperwhite is not a cheap product. Unfortunately there are no cheap
alternatives either, I always wonder why Chinese don't clone and manufacture
something similar in mass.

Is it so hard or e-ink is something that is not manufactured there?

~~~
pjmlp
In Europe there are lots of cheap e-ink device clones.

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osrec
With the advent of larger smartphones, I use my tablet less and less.

I know they're not great now, but perhaps foldables will kill tablets all
together?

It may actually be a smart move to unbloat the product lines a little.

~~~
simonh
iPad sales aren’t going anywhere. Apple sells twice as many tablets as they do
laptops.

~~~
ulfw
My iPad Pro is my favourite portable device that I wouldn't want to give up.
Definitely not a feeling I have about my Macbook nor my iPhone.

~~~
reaperducer
_My iPad Pro is my favourite portable device that I wouldn 't want to give up.
Definitely not a feeling I have about my Macbook nor my iPhone._

I felt the same way about my MacBook Air. It's been my constant companion
since 2011 to a dozen countries and dozens more cities. Love that machine.

This past April my wife bought me an iPad. The last three trips I took were
with the 'Pad instead of the Air. I'm really surprised how useful that little
thing is.

I feel like I can go back to a feature phone now.

~~~
jay_kyburz
I did exactly that. My daily carry is the new Nokia 3310. It was $90. It's
fine. I can lose it or drop it and not care. And it's small!

Learning how to type a text again using the numpad was painful, but after a
few weeks I was back up to speed.

No Facebook, Slack, Email. Not even a browser. No distractions.

When I'm out with my kids, I'm with my kids. When I'm working, I'm at my desk
with a real computer.

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
Why not a Nokia with full QWERTY layout then already?

~~~
jay_kyburz
You can't buy them.

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
How come? If you are an american: [https://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Unlocked-
QWERTY-Dedicated-Micro...](https://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Unlocked-QWERTY-
Dedicated-MicroSD/dp/B003V4AJSU/)

They are being sold a lot on ebay etc. too. Refurbished and cheap, if you are
willing to wait for the package.

I use C3-00 and non of it's (primitive) smart features. It's still a dumb
phone.

------
sylens
They never figured out how to build on the Nexus 7's success and momentum

~~~
billsix
As an Android user, I liked my Nexus 7 at the time, but I received security
updates for a year or two max, and then never bought an Android tablet again
because of it.

~~~
henryfjordan
Google is pretty good about announcing security update support up front so you
can make that decision at least. I think the Nexus/Pixel phones are generally
2 years of updates, 3 for security. Maybe a little short if you're optimistic
about how long you'll keep the device but that's better than most
manufacturers being late or inconsistent about updates.

~~~
pgeorgi
To be fair, this policy (pre-planning and announcing update timeframes) only
really started after Nexus 7 for Google Android devices.

------
muro
I love my pixel slate, best tablet/laptop I ever had. Such a shame. The screen
is great, the keyboard is surprisingly good and it's awesome to be able to
ditch the keyboard for a while when reading docs etc. Linux and Android apps
mean I can run android studio and e.g. Lightroom (android version) as well as
many games. I got back to playing some DOS games in dosbox.

It's fast, light and very well manufactured.

~~~
sahaskatta
The keyboard design was quite poor compared to the Surface Pro in my opinion.
It felt wobbly when carrying around too as it didn't magnetically keep the
bottom part of the keyboard snapped to the display when shut closed.

I also don't feel it was light by any means. It weights almost a full 3 lbs
with the keyboard attached. That's heavier than the Dell XPS 13 and much
heavier than a Surface Pro 6.

~~~
muro
That's possible. I switched from a MacBook Pro 15 and the slate is much much
lighter and has a much better keyboard. Perhaps lowest bar.

------
Causality1
Google's tablet dreams died when they killed the Nexus line in favor of Pixel.
Instead of making devices 95% as good as other flagships at half the price,
they became the market-leader when it came to overcharging.

~~~
pureliquidhw
Isn't the Pixel 3a exactly that?

~~~
josteink
Yes. 4-5 years after they abandoned their loyal Nexus-customers.

------
cbm-vic-20
I still use my 2013 Nexus 7 every day.

~~~
artimaeis
I was a huge fan of the Nexus 7 -- it's the device that changed how I looked
at personal computers. I bought myself one, and ones for a couple of family
members.

Within 3 years they were all unusably slow. Kept them going for a little while
with some device resets, but eventually we just all had to give up on them.
The family has been on iPads ever since and even the oldest of the bunch still
run great (much thanks to iOS 12's perf improvements).

That's the whole story on how I got sold on Apple hardware.

~~~
ThatPlayer
Similarly, my iPad 3 from the same year as the Nexus 7 1st gen sees more use
than my 2nd Gen Nexus 7. Also the microUSB broke and I resorted to wireless
charging after 2 years, which sold me on wireless charging.

------
plotteddancer16
Didn’t they stop/restart once before? Sounds like history is repeating
itself...

~~~
dan_quixote
Yes, this is from last year:
[https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/03/09/google-gives-
up-o...](https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/03/09/google-gives-up-on-
tablets-android-p-marks-an-end-to-its-ambitious-efforts-to-take-on-apples-
ipad)

------
haunter
Checkout Xiaomi Mi Pad 4. Basically the Xiaomi-clone of the iPad Mini. And
it's perfect, love it so much

------
btreecat
They talk about Pixle/Chrome OS "tablets" but not Android, which is what I
actually want.

Please make a follow up to the Nexus 9.

~~~
akmarinov
Isn’t that because they don’t make Android tablets at all?

------
goodcjw2
Very sad to see Google bailing out while iPad Pro and iPadOS is going stronger
than ever. Honestly, this is the tipping point for me to switch from the
Google ecosystem to the Apple ecosystem.

------
ulfw
ChromeOS/Android hybrids must have confused people

~~~
0815test
x86 2-in-1 devices are so clearly superior to the Android and ChromeOS sort,
that the latter just feel like a bad joke in comparison. I can't wait to be
able to run a pure tablet device on mainline Linux and GNOME-Shell; this has
become truly feasible only very recently, with GNOME 3.30 and 3.32. (Hopefully
the PostmarketOS project will step in and support this on old Android tablets
as well, but the huge amount of hardware variety just makes it hard to predict
what models will be able to support this without resorting to ugly hacks, like
using old vendor kernels and proprietary blobs, etc. etc.)

~~~
hajile
It seems like most chromebooks today run on x86. I have a pixelbook I picked
up on sale for around $650 (mid-grade model marked down from $1200). I've had
it for around a year now and it's been a good experience.

I think the big issue for most people and chromeOS is that $400 laptops suck
no matter which OS they run. A 12" macbook with the same specs (256GB SSD, 8GB
RAM, i5 Y-series processor) runs $1400, has no touchscreen/tablet mode, no pen
capability, a bad keyboard, one less USB-C port (a big deal for me), and
(surprisingly) a smaller, worse trackpad.

Software has gotten radically better recently. I run chromeOS for my browser,
Android for a few apps, and Crostini/Debian 9 for the rest and development. My
big complaint is that Crostini isn't GPU accelerated at the moment (they have
it working in nightly, so it's coming later this year).

The best part is how seamless it is to run 3 different OS's in one computer at
the same time. Android (and Debian) are full installs, so no emulation issues.
Instead, chromeOS basically hands off a frame buffer for them to fill (along
with relevant IO events they are allowed to see). An Android or Debian apps
act just like any other native window on the system while still providing a
high level of security.

My big complaint is that some compute-intensive things like running a full
test suite takes some time, but that's simply an artifact of the fanless,
Y-series form factor (and I still have the option of SSHing into my desktop).
I'm not a big fan of the new, unified settings and notifications (I preferred
them separate), but it's not a huge issue. I'd like multiple desktops, but
those are supposedly already in nightly too.

Overall, I'm not sad to leave my Macbook Pro sitting on the shelf.

~~~
0815test
> It seems like most chromebooks today run on x86.

Even those that do run on x86 are not really PC-compatible. Sure, sometimes
you can open them up and unlock firmware write access, and make them usable in
that way. But it's just too much of a hassle when you can just pick up a cheap
x86 device that will run so much better.

> ...is that $400 laptops suck no matter which OS they run.

They really don't. Sure, ChromeOS is a bit better than the privacy-invasive,
ad-infested dumpster fire that is Windows 10, but there's no comparison with
something that's running a _proper_ OS! Just make sure that the hardware
components are supported, be wary of devices using bottom-of-the-barrel eMMC
as their main storage (this is ubiquitous on Chromebooks, BTW! A lightweight
linux distribution can ease the pain, though) and you're set.

I really don't know why people would _want_ to run anything besides Linux or
Mac OS X nowadays. Even Android and iOS/iPadOS don't really give you anything
UX-wise; recent versions of GNOME 3 have matched it quite nicely. (You really
have to appreciate the GNOME designers' foresight here! They bet big on making
their UX touch- and mobile-ready, and that bet will bring very clear payoffs
now that performances woes are being resolved.)

------
just_myles
As a former nexus owner, good. The thing bricked after a couple of updates.
Whereas my third gen ipad and first gen ipad mini work marvelously.

~~~
pravda
Gosh, I loved my two Nexus'iz (Nexi?). The 7" tablets.

On one I cracked the screen (still works!, sorta) and on the other the USB
jack broke (broke it even more trying to solder in a replacement).

Inexpensive and rootable. Can you root an iPad?

~~~
ncmncm
Nexa. Maybe Nexera.

------
awill
I have an 8.4" 16x10 tablet and I love it for media consumption. I ride the
bus for over an hour each way. It's nice to be able to use the tablet for 2-3
hours a day and not drain the battery on my phone.

------
jessedotexe
Meh, I've always thought of a tablet as a good idea, but always defaulted to
my phone or needed the power of my laptop.

I think sleek chromebooks or large phones are the better way forward.

------
oarabbus_
Google just kind of repeatedly fails at things that aren't its core offerings
(Glass, Google+, Tablets, Stadia will fail next)

~~~
pjmlp
Google IO game dev track was a joke, versus what gets shown at WWDC or BUILD.

Google really doesn't get game development.

While Apple and Microsoft make frameworks, IDE tooling, and talk studios
language, Google makes PR talks about their cloud services, does some intro
level talks about middleware and shows how to do 3D with bare bones FOSS
libraries and CLI tooling.

Stadia will surely fail if that is all they have to offer to game studios.

------
pjmlp
I own an Android tablet (Asus) but the next one will either be a Windows 2-1
foldable, or an iPad Pro.

Because only they understand that the killer feature of tablet is being the
new laptops, and not just bigger phones.

Also for hobby development on the go, iOS or Windows stack are more fun to use
than the whole Studio + J++ + NDK maintained as 20% project.

~~~
antisthenes
Tablets were always the odd device out of the bag.

Too big to put in your pocket, and not nearly as productive as a laptop with a
keyboard. They were fine as a toy or purely entertainment device for someone
in the backseat of a car, but mostly a dead-end as far as tech advancements
go.

~~~
pjmlp
Which is why I explicitly stated Windows 2-1 foldables or iPad Pro.

------
chimeracoder
The last Android tablet Google made was the Nexus 9, released in 2014. It was
also the last tablet I bought.

The ChromeOS hybrid laptop-tablets are absolutely terrible - both the software
and the hardware are miserable to use. I wish Google would just release a
refreshed version of the Nexus 9. It's really all I want in a tablet.

~~~
StillBored
The entire google OS stack is a mess. Most of the problems that the device
manufactures are being blamed for can be traced back to the core model.

AKA the idea that the firmware/os/drivers are all bundled together and hacked
to work on a given device simply doesn't scale. Its employment for engineers
because very security patch, every upstream refactor, requires all those
closed source patches to be rebased on the latest version. This might work ok
if the underlying technology (linux) didn't change their driver APIs at the
drop of the hat, or the device manufactures didn't play throw darts at the
soup of ARM interconnects, ram controllers, and devices, everytime they spun a
new generation of phones/tablets/chromebooks.

Apple can get away with the monolithic model because they have a half dozen
fairly similar devices to support. There are android manufactures which have
released more devices in the last 6 months.

Yah, google is trying to fix that, but without a hard line in the sand with
respect to pushing non-core OS/driver functionality into standardized runtime
firmware APIs (think powermgmt) and locking down the driver API (userspace or
otherwise) and assuring that it takes a long time for API's to be
replaced/upgraded/deprecated. The hardware/upgrade story will continue to be a
mess.

~~~
rightos
Yeah, Google needs to make this move on Android. If they're just say "okay, if
you want Android 10, you need to provide your drivers in this exact ABI way,
no more custom software crap, we push the updates", that'd be awesome -
basically, use the Windows model.

I believe the only reason they didn't do this out of the gate is because
device manufacturers wouldn't have signed on for it. Android is establish
enough at this point that it's not like many device manufacturers could really
step back from it at this point.

Treble is a strong step in this direction - but they need to take it farther,
open up customization APIs and drop the garbage manufacturers pump into
devices. The way Treble is right now it only benefits power users who have
their devices rooted - who could update without the manufacturers permission
anyways.

I wonder if their only hesitation at this point is the mess they're making
with ChromeOS and all their other garbage... I think the Android roof was the
right one to bet on, massive numbers of users with primary devices running it,
but I fear they've done significant damage with their other offerings.

~~~
pjmlp
There were some statements that they were updating the Play Store contracts to
impose this, specially after GSI.

Because the uptake from IO to IO has been diminishing, as Android is already
good enough for the purpose of selling phones, so most OEMs aren't even
bothering with Treble (Android 7+) for new devices, other than flagship ones.

So Google is now forced to do exactly that if they want OEM to actually care
about new versions.

