Google’s potentially crucial Pixel Tablet curve ball

While Google looks to the future of Android and its platform-wide tablet philosophy, you can not help but be reminded of the past.

“After all, it was 11 years ago that Google first turned its focus towards creating an optimal Android tablet experience. Back in the prehistoric era of 2011, Le Googlé launched its first Android tablet push with the introduction of Android 3.0 Honeycomb software and an attempt to bring developers to the forefront of big-screen app interface optimizations.

That effort did not last long, to say the least. In about a year, Google – yes, you know, Googled. The company lost its focus, turned away from its vision and ultimately just let the idea of the Android tablet disappear without any meaningful movement forward or any actual promotion at the platform level.

So when word broke that Google was making another push for the world to take Android tablets seriously again, including with its own 2023-targeted Pixel Tablet product, it was hard not to feel a certain sense of déjà vu – a feeling like, hey, we’ve been down this road before. What could do this time different?

That is a valid question. I mean, heck, Android tablets had a beast for a time that broke through and achieved some meaningful traction 11 years ago. And for decades-plus since then, Apple has only strengthened its status as the de facto business tablet standard. How could come back now with a new “like an iPad but with Android” option does it matter?

The answer, as it turns out, may be right under our sniffing nose. The short version is that Google may not even sample to compete directly with the iPad for the general tablet market this go-round. Instead, it may seem like a brand new one category of units that it alone could own.

And the implications for us just tech-totin-mortals can be huge.

Pixel Tablet puzzle

At this point in the technological development timeline, one thing is impossible to deny: To come out with a new iPad competitor in 2022 for sure seems like a fool.

Of course, for such a one me – someone who thinks Apple’s approach to software design and ecosystem control is utterly dissuasive – offering a compelling “like an iPad but with Android” option might be enough. But for the more typical tablet buyers, you need something more substantial to get someone to consider a device that (a) not only competes on price (hey, Amazon Fire!) And (b) can’t boast of another operating system as its primary point of differentiation.

Go to the Pixel tablet.

Google’s still shrouded in mysterious return to tablet hardware caught most of us on guard when it came up at last week’s Google I / O advertising extravaganza. And lots of people have knocked on the tablet, which is still early in development, for its thick and rather banal appearance.

The tablet that Google unveiled certainly does not look like your typical premium tablet from 2022. It actually seems to be on the thicker side, and its framework brings to mind either a more budget-friendly design or a tablet from several years back.

Interestingly, it also does not look much like a Pixel device in terms of its design language or overall appearance. And yet, Google has been aware that it is a Pixel product throughout – and one that is a lot intended to be placed as a premium device.

At least on the surface, there is something that does not match. But as with many things Google-related, there may be more to this story than what we see on the most obvious outermost layer.

Consider:

It is rumored that Google is working on a new Nest-Hub-like device that will have a removable screen – a screen that in some capacity can be pulled from the base and used as a tablet.
We know that Android 13 has lots of new elements suggesting that Google is making a whole new category of multifunctional, dock-involving devices in the same way. Aside from interface optimization, we see plenty of elements related to transforming a tablet into a shared surface with specially designed widgets and screensaver-like elements approved for docked-mode use by all – a bit like an even more improved and useful version of today’s Smart Display concept. And all of this would be accompanied by an expanded and re-highlighted multi-user profile system that would make it easy for any authorized user to pick up such a device and get into their own personal stuff.
The official images of the Pixel tablet shared by Google on I / O appear to show connectors on the back of the device – specifically the exact type of pogo-pin-style connector that allows a device to connect to a dock by simply making contact in the right area.

Do you remember what we said a second ago that the Pixel tablet does not have much in the way of typical Pixel design language? It is true. But you know what kind of design language the device is do have? Rede. Look at the picture again. It looks almost exactly like what you would expect from a Nest Hub without a base.

So with the caveat that we’re making an awful lot of dot connections here, all parts certainly seem to add up and point to one consistent conclusion. And it certainly seems plausible that the Pixel tablet could somehow relate to the detachable Nest Hub concept or at least have a similar purpose, but it ends up being branded (ahem – see this eyebrow lift aside).

And that, my dear, it brings us back to our central question of how and why exactly, Android tablets could mean something today.

Pixel Tablet purpose

Using the Pixel tablet as an example of the type of use that Google seems to envisage for the Android tablet of the future, what we are seeing is really not a tablet in any traditional sense. It’s more of a screwed – up smart screen also offers some personal computer features.

If the next generation of the Android tablet model is about a shared docked display surface, it is basically becoming a home or office hub, first and foremost – a way for anyone to see basic information and contextual intelligence intended for public consumption. It will probably also play a key role in controlling connected devices – thermostats, smart lights and other such household and / or office appliances.

Unlike the smart screens today, it seems that the ultimate ambition with this product is to deliver a fully customizable and informative environment in the docked form – one that is easy to see is useful and opens up many interesting doors both on the home front and in business environments.

And once you have considered each authorized user’s ability to download the item, log in to it and use it as an actual personal unit, it has suddenly gained a completely different kind of appeal than anything else out there. It’s almost not even a tablet in itself, nor is it exactly a Smart Display. It’s an exciting kind of new hybrid mashup that ultimately creates its own class of products – one that has not yet been named or defined by any other major technology player.

So back to the questions we asked at the beginning of this consideration: How could Google even compete with the iPad in the tablet market at this point? And how could it matter to come back now with a new “like an iPad, but with Android”?

The answer, it seems, can be a big fat “N / A.” All characters indicate Google is it not plans to go head to head with the iPad – or to offer any kind of traditional Android tablet model.

Instead, it seems to be set on creating its own brand new category – one where, at least in theory, that can set the standard and then force everyone else to catch up. And no matter how the Pixel tablet ends up taking shape, it’s clear that Android itself is also being prepared to support the same kind of purpose at the ecosystem level.

All of this would also explain why Google’s so confident Android tablets and Chrome OS tablets can coexist harmoniously and meet completely different needs.

One way or another, you have to mark my words: If Google plays its cards right, there may soon be some really interesting new bids on technology. And what we’re seeing right now is almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg.

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