Shocker: Google Says Android 2.2 Not Meant for Tablets in its Current State
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Since 2010 took off, many a hardware manufacturer (mostly the smaller guys) have looked to Android for their tablet offerings. We’ve seen many highly-customized experiences (such as Archos’ offerings, the Dell Streak, and the newly-announced Samsung Galaxy Tab), but other manufacturers are perfectly fine with just slapping Android onto a piece of hardware and selling it for $200. Android’s agnostic nature has given everyone the idea that it can be put on anything, but Google says otherwise: it simply isn’t meant for tablets, just yet. (He specifically stated 2.2, but if Froyo itself isn’t meant for tablets, then I can’t imagine anything before it was).
They still do support some higher-end tablet offerings – such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Dell Streak – by allowing those devices to use GAPPS and the Android market, but that’s because those manufacturers took the time to customize Android to play nice with apps not built for bigger screen sizes and higher resolutions (and because the rest of the device conforms to the standards needed to properly and fully license Android). We know Samsung was – at one point – contacting developers individually to fix their apps for their then-unannounced Galaxy Tab.
So we already knew all of this, sure, but will Google do anything about it? According to rumors: yes. Gingerbread is supposed to be the first step in blurring the line between tablet and phone, and Honeycomb is supposed to take us to a whole new level, but Google has yet to confirm anything. They did say they’re looking to provide a new distribution mechanism for the market in the future for app publishers to target tablet users specifically (with Google probably working with licensees to build a specific tablet version of the market onto professed tablet devices to avoid further leg work by application developers), but there’s no telling when that’ll happen.
At least we can say we’re a third of the way into September: bringing us that much closer to an October reveal of Android 3.0 Gingerbread where we’ll learn more about Google’s next move(s).
[TechRadar via Androinica]
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Google needs to get a chrome OS out of the door aleady! everyday the potential android tablet market is losing more ground to apple. It’s been a year + where is the chrome OS for tablets?
They just need to combine Chrome OS and Android. I’d buy it right now if it was out there.
Yeah, this seems more like a warning to consumers than anything else: “It might not play nice, so you might want to hold off; and we appreciate the demand for optimisation so look forward to it in Gingerbread”.
Well-said, Will.
It is one thing saying it is not meant for tablets and another saying it is not optimised for tablets.
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I think this is more of the latter.
Google have an open mind approach to Android, they have nothing against it on tablets but they realise it is not optimised for tablets so they are going to work on it.
But that is the nature of Openness, right? It does pose some dangers for Android (and Google), if folks put crap into the market (not the Android Market, but “the” market) and consumers mistake the crappy instance to mean that Android is crappy. I do think the speed with which devices are reviewed and potential consumers’ instant access to those reviews should lessen that risk, somewhat. Ultimately, time will tell. I agree, though, that the focus on specs is mostly meaningless to the vast majority of consumers, but the manufacturers/carriers are seeking someway to differentiate themselves when putting forth products that (like windows desktops) are pretty much interchangeable for typical consumer needs.
@sean – yes you are trolling. ’nuff said.
Android is getting out of control. These manufactures dont know anything about software so they take something elmers glue it to something & say buy this. It’s getting ridiculous there need to be some kind of level of control. Also if u really wanna take android by storm, quit bragging about overkilled useless hardware specs in your tv ads like it’s some kind of alien invasion (droiiid) but features in it that everyday consumers can use not everyone a tech geek they dint know what that type of stuff is. I’m not trolling & it’s not googles fault interiely that this is happening