Yeah, as much as I like long-form pieces on how a technology was developed, pretty much any company with capital can make an Android tablet nowadays. But "Company develops internal tech solution to reduce BOM costs & reliance on third parties" isn't as sexy a title.
I often notice that most things now are basically "Android tablets".
Those little machines popping up in restaurants where you can order/pay? Android tablets.
Have a relatively recent car? Got CarPlay? Your stereo is probably an Android tablet.
So this isn't too surprising. Instead of spending whatever amount of time trying to design and build an embedded system, along with basic OS, library, etc, you can just find an Android tablet that fits what you need and build off of that.
That doesn't surprise me. The stereo(with CarPlay) in my Subaru is so sad, it crashes often and is definitely single-threaded. Honestly I'd rather just tape an iPad up in it's place. It would probably perform better.
It drives me up a fucking wall when clients want iPads for their retail spaces. You are locked into their limited form factors and premium pricing for a device that will likely be locked down to extremely limited functionality. Android tablets come in any size and shape for half the price and are easier to manage from MDM software. You can also just buy large touchscreens with USB ports that can plug into whatever. They all look the same when they're anchored to a case or kiosk.
