Google Developing Tablet to Take on iPad | Hacker News Reader

Google Developing Tablet to Take on iPad

mashable.com

64 pointsmun41172 comments

It's interesting to see tablets being knighted as the Future of Computing by MSM and the tech industry when it's not at all clear that people actually want them. After controlling for the fanboy & factor, reviews for the iPad seem to be mixed. I don't think it's exaggerating to say that the form factor just might not be a good match for a lot of people.

It's a very funny bubble to watch. I just can't see it going mainstream.

Apple's move seems to be based partly on the success of the iPhone but partly on the fact that they can't make a cheap, intel netbook without destroying their brand values, and can't make an ARM netbook without breaking compatability. (The latter applies to Microsoft too).

The fact that you can buy an external keyboard (a very un-Apple move) suggests they'd have shipped a conventional laptop form factor if they could get away with it.

I'm hoping the Apple ARM tablet leads to Android tablets which will then open the door for those ARM netbooks we've been promised for the last couple of years.

>...they'd have shipped a conventional laptop form factor if they could get away with it.

One can imagine some combination of Apple's old 12" Titanium PowerBook and the new MacBook Air into a MacBook Air Nano. Still, it's not clear how attractive that kind of form factor would be as a netbook offering.

ARM netbooks have an uphill battle. When most people see something that looks like a computer they expect it to run Windows.

> The fact that you can buy an external keyboard (a very un-Apple move)

So you buy a £50 Apple bluetooth keyboard to connect to your $500 iPad so you can use the $10 iWork suite to do less than you could on your $1x00 Apple laptop?

Sounds like a very Apple move.

I totally can. Lounging watching TV, pick up the tablet from your coffee table, check out facebook, see what's on at cinema, check latest score on the tablet, pop it back down again? Quick check of email, only need to write back a couple of lines, not at work after all.

Much easier to use than red button on tv. Much better than a notebook or laptop. Much less intrusive than them too.

I think they'll turn out to be totally handy, laptops and desktops will start gathering dust until people who don't need to write articles or code for a living wonder why bother buying a new one?

>> " Lounging watching TV, pick up the tablet from your coffee table, check out facebook, see what's on at cinema, check latest score on the tablet, pop it back down again? Quick check of email, only need to write back a couple of lines, not at work after all."

This is how most people use a laptop/netbook.

I'm with you on TV. No one wants to use their TV for internet/computing.

My iPod can do every one of those things you mentioned at a fraction of the weight, size, and cost. Why would I buy a tablet? This was exactly my point--tablets occupy a gray area between laptops and iPhones and the jury is still out on whether there is any value there.

This is how I use my g1. Check some sites, answer mail, make some notes to myself.

I feel that it is indeed going to be a revolution of sorts, and people who don't use computers professionally will start using tablets in their work. Tablets have the opportunity to become much more pervasive: laptops by design require folks to sit down, but tablets have a nicer form factor that could replace virtually anything people use while standing up/on the move: writing pads, file folders, electrical/electronic measurement equipment(with Apple approved connectors, of course), etc. Lots of professions could benefit from a usable tablet design --- doctors, field engineers, etc.

The show Stargate Atlantis shows an amusing example of one "future". Stuck in a dead spaceship on the bottom of the ocean with air running out and water leaking in? Not to worry, just hook up your tablet to the system and hack it. For Rodney Mckay, difficult takes a few seconds. Impossible -- a few minutes.

I've been playing with Palm's WebOS. I think they've made some good trade offs in their development stack. I see no reason Palm or someone that acquires them couldn't upsize the Pre into a tablet.

WebOS actually is pretty cool, it's too bad that Palm wasn't able to really compete with Apple and Google.

Google is starting to feel like Microsoft. They're trying to compete everywhere instead of focusing on their core competencies.

their core product is advertising; and all these other services exist to augment such. google's leadership is quite clearly on their A game.

You're right.

If the future of computing is Apple's locked down iPad and iPhone platforms, Google will lose big time. Google therefore needs to prevent that future from happening.

This cannot be emphasized enough-- Google does not want a future where their entire business model can be effectively turned off by another company. This is why they fight for openness in platforms, and for net neutrality. For Google, playing nice in those ways isn't a moral decision, but a business decision that has served them very well.

While that is certainly true I think it is also a little unfair to Page/Brin et al to shine it in only that light.

I think they've demonstrated that they believe it is the moral thing to do as well.

That may certainly be true, but what I was referring to is the behavior of Google as a whole company, under the influence of shareholders as well. I have a lot of respect for Page and Brin, and don't mean to malign them at all.

Those shareholders being Page and Brin in majority until very recently. http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/22/technology/Google_founders_s... Even after the sale they are still 48%.

>> "If the future of computing is Apple's locked down iPad and iPhone platforms"

This is why I love not being in Silicon Valley. Anyone who thinks the iPad/iPhone is the future of computing is either mad, or in silicon valley.

Definitely agree.

I moved to the Bay Area over a year ago. Most people think that the IPhone rules the mobile phone market. Some people even say that Android will be dead soon because everybody would just buy an IPhone.

The truth is go outside the Bay Area and IPhone is not as prevalent. My non-Bay Area friends have an Android or Blackberry aside from the IPhone.

IPhone is also not the best-selling smartphone line in the US. It is the Blackberry.

They may not be dominant, but they've certainly carved off a sizable chunk. Recent figured I saw had RIM with 40% market, and and iPhone with 25% (just smartphones, not phones overall). I imagine the iPhone has an even large market when you narrow the demographics (teens and twenties, metropolitan areas, etc).

Even though the iPhone may not be dominating the market, they've carved out 25% of it in 3 years, while RIM has been in the market for far longer. Not to mention Windows Mobile being in the market for longer and accomplishing not much.

I'm not saying iPhone/iPad is the future of computing, but they've innovated in ways others haven't. Until someone 1-ups them, they'll continue to grow their share, in and outside of silicon valley.

It depends on market segment: among teenage girls, I don't think the blackberry is the device to own. Of course, it is for corporate users. Overall, I don't know what the breakdown is, but a chart would be enlightening.

Actually, you'd be surprised. This is purely anecdotal, of course, but around New York City, I see more girls with a Blackberry than iPhone. BBM is really hot. I would say it's the new AIM.

"iphone..not best selling smartphone..blackberry" this claim is meaningless, and probably irrelevant, without defining your terms and supplying data

Have you used one? What evidence are you basing your insult on?

the people in silicon valley by nature are more future focused and more innovative thinkers, thus more qualified to comment on this subject.

Google's best chance to prevent that future from happening is to build some sort of Terminator unit, and send it back in time to kill Steve Jobs and prevent Apple from being founded. Android: coincidence?

I don't think so. Advertising is where they make their money, but Google's core competency is storing and making sense of massive amounts of data. That is what they do better than everyone else, advertising is just how they monetize it.

I agree, and that's why I think its hard for Google to do high-touch consumer services, and why I am pessimistic about their ability to pull off a mass-market consumer oriented tablet.

With the big difference that googles products usually dont lock you in and give users choice, also googles software is usually free. Sounds like good competition.

It's vital to their future. Google sees mobile as the future of computing which means if they don't make it big in mobile they will fade away. Just look at what Steve Jobs is doing to Adobe--Google doesn't want to get leap frogged and then left for scraps.

Apple is starting to feel like Microsoft. They're trying to compete everywhere instead of focusing on their core competencies.

I agree wrt iAd. Other than that they are very focused on manufacturing devices.

well "manufacturing devices" is a very big topic, same as "software company" they (Apple) started competing with Microsoft (and Nokia and so on) a long time ago when they added the iPhone to their stack.

Then they're all focused on their topic, which is "Technology"

Google developing <X> to take on <Y>:

example:

X = 'buzz', Y = 'twitter'

Am I the only one starting to see a pattern here? Why is Google suddenly following in Apple's footsteps after every new product?

I can confirm that Google has been working on this for quite awhile. At least 2 years in one way or another. They anticipated the move into tablets and a lot of the work of maturing the Android platform has gone towards that.

In this case, they're not following by any stretch.

Oh, and while we're at it: It's not like Apple is the first touch enabled Tablet to ever come to market. I would argue that the iPhone is an incremental improvement on the Palm products (the first non-stylus gesture based app I used was SnapperMail way back on the second gen Palm devices).

Could you really name a touch enabled Tablet to me without searching? I know I couldn't name one. There is also that nifty little stat about Apple being the worlds largest Tablet seller after their first day, so when it really comes down to it, they are the first.

Even if you don't count the above it's still the first Tablet worth a damn.

As for Google not following Apple... perception is everything. Consumers and really anyone following this epic battle will gloss over when someone tells them "well Google has been working on this for 2 years!" and simply remember that Apple did it first, Google was second, just like the iPhone and Android (I believe the same argument can be made there too but no one really remembers or cares about that).

In search, Google was not first - yet most people use Google today. Gmail was not first - yet I'm sure it's got a decent slice of the market. Chrome was not first - yet it's been gaining steadily. In a few years nobody will care who was first, just who is current.

Could you really name a touch enabled Tablet to me without searching?

I don't know the name of it, but I know that everyone at my doctor's office has one.

is also that nifty little stat about Apple being the worlds largest Tablet seller after their first day, so when it really comes down to it, they are the first.

Huh? Being bigger than those preceding you makes you the first? What?

Apple when someone tells them "well Google has been working on this for 2 years!" and simply remember that Apple did it first...

I guess you're really a fanboy and believe this. But for those of us who have been watching the computer industry, tablets have been around for quite some time. Microsoft had a version of XP -- a now-discontinued OS -- for them. If you Google for "tablet pc windows xp", the first link you come to -- at Microsoft -- is a page that says it's been retired. Apple has missed at least one whole product cycle already.

Not being able to name a previous tablet computer has more to do with their lack of the iPad's heavy marketing. I'd imagine most of us would have similar trouble naming desktop PCs for the same reason.

Maybe that's partly why Apple is having so much more success with their tablet: they're not trying to sell a virtually unknown type of product as a commodity.

I bought an HP TX1000 like 3 years ago, and it wasn't the first by far.

http://reviews.digitaltrends.com/images/full_reviews/hp/tx10...

cwilson said "touch enabled Tablet"

Touch enabled the TX1000 is not, it uses a stylus.

It will still work with a finger, it's just that apps not optimized for fingers require the precision of a stylus to do useful work.

the iphone might have been an incremental idea, but that's pretty much irrelevant.

Even if that were true, aren't you glad that they are entering the same markets?

Otherwise, Apple's competition might only be the likes of Palm, HP, and JooJoo.

Perhaps, but that's probably a good thing.

I'm more interested in this Adam tablet (also based on Android). It can do BOTH e-ink (best feature of the Kindle) and full color LCD:

http://www.notionink.in/adamfeature.php

FYI, it's not sporting e-ink but rather a transflective display. Not even close to what the kindle is using...

Thanks for pointing that out, I embellished too much by saying it _is_ e-ink

I'd be disappointed if they weren't. Unfortunately, it seems like this will be based on Android as opposed to ChromeOS. After playing with ChromeOS on a Dell Mini for a while, I can say that it is just screaming for a tablet to put it on. Choosing Android is probably the smart thing in order to get apps on it, but I'd love a Chrome tablet.

A tablet interface is very different from a desktop interface with an on-screen keyboard.

Both are just enhanced Linux. Let's call the tablet Linux-based.

The whole Android vs Chrome OS thing smacks of a badly planned platform strategy.

Seems like both OSes are suitable for tablets, and both are being developed (by different departments, no doubt) for that purpose.

Android is for touch screens. Chrome OS is for netbooks. A Chrome OS tablet would be a bad idea. An Android netbook would also be a bad idea. They're built around different input methods.

Yeah, I don't get the point of Chrome. If all you need is a browser, then just run a browser under Android.

That said, if Google can produce a tablet that is to the iPad what the Nexus One is to the iPhone, I'm in.

Google is a search company. Their platform strategy is "encourage open platforms".

Is there a business reason behind playing catch up in big companies? I understand there's a market opporunity, but so many of these "copy cat" products fail to live up to their potential simply because they are side projects (especially something like this to Google). It seems this is quite a trend for Palm, MS, Google and other megacorps and it rarely turns out well.

>Is there a business reason behind playing catch up in big companies?

Yes, it's called "letting other companies subsidize your market research". I don't know that the copy cats are really failing to live up to anything. I'd say that android is a glowing success.

Not only that, but if google builds and android-based tablet, it might force apple to de-suckify the iPad. Competition is good for everybody including the companies that are competing; it incubates innovation.

"It seems this is quite a trend for Palm, MS, Google and other megacorps and it rarely turns out well."

Windows, Google web search, Office, XBox, Google Maps, GMail, and many other big successful products started out in markets that were initially defined and led by competitors.

Being a "copycat" seemed to work well for Apple with the original iPod, which was a long way from the first handheld MP3 player.

With Google's repository of digitized books, they seem better-poised for the ebook market than even Amazon.

Will one be able to get paid-for apps that aren't ad-supported, mewonders.

Why wouldn't you? Paid-for apps have been available for over a year now on the Android Market, assuming you live in a region where Google can take payments from...

I don't know anybody with an Android phone, so I will ask: so you can have a phone experience without ads all over the place? I just assumed that you might have ads here and there, since that is Google's business model.

I don't remember the last time I saw ads on my nexus phone. I think I had an app once months ago that had in app ads but that's the only one that comes to mind. IME they are far from the norm on the phone.

What are the odds Google could offer free 3G with the device? Kindle pulls it off, but builds the cost into content. Maybe a new ad network?

Good competition is never a bad thing...

Another Nexus?

I certainly hope so. The Nexus one is an absolutely awesome phone. Not to mention it completely re-set the expectation bar for the various Android handset manufacturer. (witness how most of the Android handset's announced post-nexus one have snapdragon processors and specs very similar to the nexus).

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