Petr Škuta The long-term battle between premium tablets is losing an important player. After all the efforts, Google decided to withdraw from the market, and the iPad thus wins in a direct fight.
One of the representatives of Google officially confirmed on Thursday that Google is ending the development of its own tablets with Android. Apple thus lost one competitor in the field of tablets, focusing on premium products.
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David Hanak Google sees the future in its Chrome OS laptops. Its efforts to develop its own hardware in the tablet field are ending, but it will continue to support the Pixel Slate tablet. The exact number of discontinued facilities is unknown, but it was said to be in the plural. It's quite possible that in addition to the successor to the Pixel Slate, another tablet or even tablets were in the works.
Both products were supposed to be smaller in size than the 12,3" Slate. The plan was to release them sometime in late 2019 or early 2020. However, Google encountered problems with production and insufficient quality. For these reasons, the management finally came to the decision to end the entire development and leave the floor to others.
Engineers from the tablet team are being transferred to the Pixelbook division. There should be around twenty specialists who will now strengthen Google's laptop development department.
Google backed out, but other manufacturers remain in the market
Of course, Android remains licensed to third parties and they can use it. In the tablet sector, Samsung and its hardware are gaining ground, Lenovo with its hybrids or other Chinese manufacturers do not want to be left behind.
It's a bit of a paradoxical situation. In 2012, Google introduced the Nexus 7, which forced Apple to produce the iPad mini. But not much has happened since this success, and in the meantime, Microsoft entered the fray with its Surface.
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As a result, Apple is losing a competitor that also tried for premium devices with pure Android OS, which would offer a similar experience to iOS. Although the news may sound like a big win for the iPad, losing the competition isn't always ideal. Without competition, development can stagnate. However, Cupertino is increasingly defining itself against regular computers, so it found an opponent some time ago.
Source: AppleInsider
Well, I think that Google more than successfully replaced Microsoft years ago with its Surface. On the other hand, Apple has a lot to catch up on.