So if you’ve been wondering where all the Android tablets have gone – here’s a guess. They’ve been held back because it seems like something better is coming: Chrome OS tablets with a real desktop browser and real Android apps. That kind of system probably has a better chance of success competing with the iPad – but let’s not set Android’s sights quite that high yet. A more reasonable target: undercutting the Surface and all its clones on the low end of the market.
At this point I have absolutely no clue anymore what Google wants to do with Chrome OS and Android.
And sometimes I think – neither does Google.
This is actually great news. Since Google doesn’t seem interested in a tablet oriented ui for tablets, and apps refuse to support simple things like landscape orientation, Android sucks on tablets. Add to that the update situation which is much worse on tablets. Chrome OS gets upgrades on every device for years, and has nearly all the features of android. And I say this as a long term Android user, who actual like tablets.
I agree. I’d rather see ChromeOS on tablets than Android. And two were just announced with Wacom screens, so this may be also be their answer to the iPad pro (from an artists point of view).
http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/24/14366192/google-chromebooks-acer-…
Considering that pretty much all Android tablets available right now are simply horrible, and that most Android apps do not scale and display properly on tablets other than being blown-up versions of phone apps, the prospect of Android apps coming to a Chromebook just doesn’t excite me in the least. Put that together with the fact Google announced this was going to happen ages ago and it hasn’t happened yet, and I agree with Thom that I don’t really think Google knows what to do with ChromeOS. Paying hundreds of dollars for a web browser in a laptop format has never appealed to me either.
Many financial and technology analysts don’t express anymore any certitude about their interpretation of what Google wants to do with Chrome OS and Android. A significant proportion of these analysts “applauded” when the Pixel C shipped with Android rather than Chrome OS. Soon after, rumors of a merger of the two operating systems started circulating.
The low cost, presence of a physical keyboard, and underlying hardened security of Chromebooks have been contributing factors to the ChromeOS platform gaining a 50% share of the Kindergarden to Grade 12 education market from the iOS based iPads (high cost and lack of physical keyboard) and Windows based netbooks (rather un-secure). And as the kids, now well versed in the use of Chrome OS, move on to college, university, or working life, will they start purchasing OS X and Windows based systems?
Allowing Android apps to play on Chrome OS makes more sense than extended the desktop context of Chrome OS to enable a touch user interface or introducing conventional desktop support to Android.
Up to now, Chromebooks did not include a touch screen with the exception of the Google designed Pixel 1 (2013) and Pixel 2 (2015), and the higher end models of the Dell Chromebooks for Work series.
The two Chromebooks discussed in the article on The Verge have a touch interface. This enables the use of Android apps on these devices and encourage the development of touch capable Chrome OS apps. However, given that a majority of the available Android apps are games, it is likely that schools will impose strong app-filters on such devices.
So, Google may already instinctively know where it want to take Chrome OS and Android – some form of hybrid – it just that this has not reached the conscious level yet.
Wrong. There were a few others, such as the Acer C720P, which also had multitouch screens and would have been ripe for use as hybrid Chrome/Android machines.
Thanks for pointing this out.
The Acer C720p and Lenovo N20p arrived on the market at about the same time as touch-capable versions of the C720 and N20 respectively. Both touch versions were released during the first half of 2014 and did not get as much online coverage as the high-priced Google Pixel models.
I don’t recall the C720p and N20p being available in Canada – with only one letter difference in the model name it would be easy to overlook them.
…all those tablets are being replaced by Windows 10 devices on the German consumer stores.
Hybrid tablets and netbooks with Windows 10 seem to be everywhere.
Seriously, I just want something like my Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 that runs pure Debian on it so I can have Plasma oe Gnome-Shell. As everyone has said, android apps are terrible, and the modern DEs all have more touch friendly interfaces these days.
You might be a one-person market there, unfortunately. Maybe two. As many times as X.org crashes, I’d not want to have to drop to the command-line on a touch screen to fix it. Ouch.