Google’s Tablet Already in the Works
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Best friends, worst enemies. Another recent sign that the relationship between Apple and Google is deteriorating: Google is going full steam ahead on its very own tablet.
According to the New York Times, “Eric E. Schmidt, chief executive of Google, told friends at a recent party in Los Angeles about the new device, which would exclusively run the Android operating system. People with direct knowledge of the project — who did not want to be named because they said they were unauthorized to speak publicly about the device — said the company had been experimenting in “stealth mode” with a few publishers to explore delivery of books, magazines and other content on a tablet.”
Sounds like a certain device released about 10 days ago, don’t you think?
While a bit of competition is a good thing, I have to admit I wonder where Google is heading these days. The first time I was exposed to Google was about 12 years ago, when I first experienced the potential of their search engine versus my favorite one at the time, Alta Vista. The idea wasn’t new, but the execution was vastly superior. And I switched right away.
Since then, Google became the #1 search engine we know, and they still do an amazing job. Gmail, Google Maps, Google Talk, they sold me on everything they built afterwards. Except one thing: the Google devices. And this is where I get a bit lost with Google: like Apple, do they feel like designing their own devices is the only way to stay on top of the game, or are they simply going down the copycat route, like Microsoft did with the Zune? Is the tablet going to be the game changer for Android? Hard to tell.
Nobody really knows what the “gpad” will look like and what it will be able to do, so we’re not going to speculate too much with regard to its capabilities. It will be using Android, so we can safely assume that the device will be much more open than Apple’s. From apps to customization, expect a far looser approach, with the ability to download anything available out there, unlike the iPad that can only get its content via iTunes. Also expect some of the iPad quirks to be corrected, such as the ability to support Flash content (recently, Google and Adobe became closer than ever).
Beyond that, what the Google engineers are putting together is unknown. If they manage to overcome the issues some people seem to have with the iPad, they could have a shot. But at the end of the day, building a large, yet simple and user-friendly eco-system is what really made the devices like the iPod or the iPhone successful, and over the last decade Apple proved to be tough to beat at that game.
Editor’s note: Here is a video from Google exposing some of their concepts.
