The rise and fall of the Android tablet

In 2010, the Android tablet market was booming. Apple had just released its first iPad, and the form factor aroused the enthusiasm of consumers. Android manufacturers could surely take advantage of this enthusiasm and swallow a large part of the market with reasonably priced options, right? After all, the recipe worked for phones using the same open-source operating system. Why would not it work for tablets?

This is not the case. Of course, today there are Android tablets on the market, but they are not a source of pride for the ecosystem. Amazon, one of the most successful Android tablet manufacturers in recent years, uses a form of Android (Fire OS) that does not even have the Google Play Store or preloaded applications with Google's proprietary applications. Amazon's Fire tablets are very economical and focused on content consumption, an ideal media player for kids. But for those who are willing to pay more – sometimes much more – for a great multimedia consumer device, the iPad remains the digital benchmark and most of the Android manufacturers (less Samsung and Huawei) have retreated.

Do not take our word for it. The message that Android tablets are dead comes straight from Google, which did not offer the Android Pie developer's preview on tablets, and had briefly removed the tablet page on its Android website in June. Even if it was a mistake, the page itself is not very inspiring and contains only three old tablets: the tablet Nvidia Shield Tablet K1 (probably the last of its kind), the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 and the Sony Xperia Z4. How did we get here and what finally killed the Android tablets? It is a winding road with a number of missteps, which makes it difficult to give a key reason. In the end, a confluence of factors led to the fall.

Bad optimization of the tablet

For starters, Android tablets got off to a bad start with the Galaxy Tab 2010. Samsung was eager to compete with Apple's new iPad, but the device was using Android 2.2, which had no optimization for the tablet, as well as TouchWiz software. , poorly optimized, society. It was essentially an oversized smartphone in ill-fitting clothes. When Google released Android 3.0 Honeycomb, a version of the operating system designed to enhance the tablet experience, third-party application optimization for Android tablets has been mediocre. The developers did not want to go through another circle after creating an application for Android 2.3 Gingerbread, which led many optimists to optimization for the tablet.

At the same time, Apple's tablet software was making rapid progress in its walled garden, and developers had both the tools to develop for the platform and the consumer incentives needed to drive tablet optimization.

The attention of Android manufacturers remains focused on smartphones and, when the phablet trend started with the Samsung Galaxy Note II, it only condemns more slate Android. Phablets were the best of both worlds: a large screen, sometimes with a stylus, and excellent application support. Even one of the hottest Android tablets, the 2013 Nexus 7, has become a big handset with its 7-inch screen. The subsequent growth of plus size smartphones was undoubtedly a major highlight in the coffin of the Android tablet.

That's not to say that Android tablets were stagnating at the time. There were many well-built and truly innovative devices. In fact, the market was likely to be saturated. The large number of options was daunting, as there were no quality standards that could be relied on. Rather the opposite, in fact. The purchase of an Android tablet was a bit of a gamble.

While manufacturers found little weight in the tablet market, they slowly began to pull out. There are only a few flagship tablets that can go against an iPad, like the Samsung Galaxy Tab S4. Android fans tend to think that Google's Pixel C 2016 was the last good Android tablet. Even this device, however, was not designed to run on Android – or at least that's what the reports suggested at the time. Instead, it was supposed to run Chrome OS, based on a browser, or offer both Android and Chrome OS on the same device, but the touch interface of the latter did not work fast enough.

Reborn from the ashes

However, Chrome OS has come a long way in recent years and it is clear that this is the operating system that Google is putting on its larger touch-sensitive devices. While Google may have missed out on the tablet market for media consumption, it offers a great opportunity in terms of productivity. Chromebooks have always been a hit in schools because of their great price and the popularity and ease of use of the G Suite software (Gmail, Drive, etc.). In 2017, Google put the Play Store under Chrome OS, allowing the operating system to access millions of Android apps.

Now, no doubt boosted by Microsoft's success with its Surface 2 in 1 Windows, Google's move towards a hybrid form factor for laptop and tablet makes a lot of sense. In some respects, Microsoft is well positioned to be more successful than Surface because it has a robust ecosystem of mobile applications that translates much better in 2-in-1 than in a miniaturized version of a heavy operating system such as than Windows, designed for desktop computers. It is also important to note that the 2 in 1 are not the only form factor: in March, Acer launched the first tablet in the world under Chrome OS, the Chromebook Tab 10. In October, Google unveiled the Pixel Slate, that really looks like what Pixel C was supposed to be – Chrome OS in a slim form factor for productivity, coupled with a range of Android apps for everything else.

Some Android thirsty fans are not happy that Chrome OS devices are coming back from their ashes after the failure of the Android tablet. There are good reasons that Android apps are not optimized for a larger screen and that notifications do not work as well as on Android. These apps still feel like a "Plan B" approach after the death of Android tablets. But in the end, it's a very promising market segment for Google, which Apple now wants, as was clearly explained at its March educational event. Miraculously, after all these years of efforts in the Android tablet market, Google is perfectly positioned in the productivity sector of tablets. We can not hope for a better reinvention.