After seemingly forgetting that Android tablets existed for a while, Google is suddenly very interested in the market. Android 12L is under development to support devices with larger screens, and one of the platform’s co-founders, Rich Miner, has rejoined the team with the title “Android Tablet CTO”. Now talking to the developers during an episode of Google’s The Android ShowMiner explained the opportunity the company is seeing (via 9to5Google).
Miner references the introduction of Android tablets in 2011 and how apps like media players scaled to fit easily without much investment, but then growth “stagnated.” Now, he cites data showing that growth took off before COVID in late 2019 and has continued to rise, with more keyboard peripherals and developments in software and hardware by third-party manufacturers to make them better tools to create rather than consume.
The other reason he cites is that tablets can be “very capable, less expensive than a laptop.” That spurred Google’s work on Android 12L to optimize its system UI for use on larger devices, as well as how it formats apps to fit on larger screens.
Miner is calling on developers to look at their apps and consider taking advantage of tools created by Google to improve tablet support or even create apps that are closer to market as a tablet experience. He points to 2020 sales data, where “tablet purchases actually started to get closer to the number of laptop shipments… In fact, I think there will be a crossover point at some point in the not-too-distant future where more tablets are sold annually than there are laptops. I think once you cross that point, you’re not going to go back.”
We’ll have to see more action before we can believe that Google’s renewed tablet push will avoid the stagnation trap, with increased support for developers and new apps that will make us want to pick up tablets again. Come through that front, and we’ll be ready if a major (and possibly collapsible?) Pixel is in process.