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Google quits selling tablets

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Re: Google quits selling tablets

#101

Post by MBCook »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #19
FussyZeus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal: my iPads have never aged the way my iPhones do. As to the reasons, I suspect the primary is just where and how it's used: I beat the piss out of my iphones, dropping them, using them out of good areas, on the go, in the car, while eating, etc. where my iPads have a comparatively nice existence largely in my home. The most strenuous environment I use my tablets in is my porch. But yeah, I just recently upgr…

My iPad Air has slown down to be almost unusable. It is ancient, and I’m guessing it’s the battery + software throttle going on, but it is still very reminiscent of an aging iPhone.

I’m not sure the throttling stuff really happens on the iPad. That was a check they added to the phones because of the unexpected shutdown issues, I don’t think that’s ever been much of a problem on the iPads because of their giant batteries.

However there is a known issue where for some reason iOS can start to get extremely slow. Restoring from backup or doing a fresh install sometimes makes a device WAY faster. Not unlike Windows back in the 95 days.

We solve reports of this when people were doing battery replacements. They go into Apple, get a new battery, and their phone wasn’t any faster. Then they’d do a fresh install and everything was fine. We also saw people give it a try before the battery replacement program was announced and have the same results.

Basically, the batteries and the only reason iOS can get insanely slow. There’s obviously some kind of rail bug that can destroy performance. But a fresh install fixes it.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#102

Post by snuxoll »

013a wrote: post #58

Microsoft seems like the only company that understands tablets right now. They should be more like computers, not more like phones. There's also a pretty great argument that given all of our phones are absolute powerhouses nowadays, phones should also be less like phones and more like computers. I'm hopeful Microsoft can also move to spur on this change; maybe soon the market will be ready for the return of Windows P…

> Microsoft seems like the only company that understands tablets right now. They should be more like computers, not more like phones.

Apple finally seems to be getting the hint here with the iPad Pro and the iOS 11 update. The restrictions on what Apple will approve to be published on the App Store means it certainly will not be a traditional computer replacement at this time - but I'm comfortable saying I can actually get some work done it if I had no other computer available (I'm not going to be programming on the thing of course, but I can at least get through meetings, triage email, write documentation, etc.).

> I'm hopeful Microsoft can also move to spur on this change; maybe soon the market will be ready for the return of Windows Phone.

I can only hope, as a month 1 adopter of Windows Phone 7 and having stuck with the platform through Windows Mobile 10 I'm still pretty miffed and have little hope they'll manage to make a phoenix rise from it's ashes. Hell, my entire family had Windows Phones until it was painfully obvious it was going nowhere almost 3 years ago so we started switching to iPhone's instead as the need to replace or upgrade devices rolled in.

I don't even think it's something silly like Microsoft doesn't "get" mobile, because I always thought WP was great at giving the consistent and (mostly) polished UX you'd get from an iPhone while presenting the choice of hardware the Android ecosystem allows.

Personally the only reason I was the first to jump ship was because I wanted to access our work VPN without needing my laptop, but there was no AnyConnect app available for Windows Phone. The application ecosystem was barren, and I had no problem with that myself outside the aforementioned VPN app but without even an official YouTube app it's a hard sell to many. The current Microsoft store has an increasing number of Windows 10 apps available, but so much of it is absolute garbage that even Google Play is less frustrating to search.

Microsoft knows how to build hardware, they proved that with the Surface line and did a decent job with the Microsoft-branded Lumia hardware too. They know how to develop a software platform, Windows is still king of the desktop and makes a strong showing in the enterprise server market, Visual Studio is touted by many as the best IDE (not my favorite, but it does the job fine so I guess I can see why they'd have that opinion). What they don't know how to do is develop an ecosystem, to get partners to WANT to develop for their platform instead of being FORCED to (basically any enterprise is going to have Windows Server deployed and admins on staff, Windows is the only relevant desktop in the enterprise market, .Net Core is nice enough but unless you're already a .Net shop there's not much reason to choose it over more mature ecosystems). Until they get that sorted there's no way Windows Phone will get rebooted again, it's dead.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#103

Post by MBCook »

megablast wrote: post #26
jxdxbx wrote: post #22

In think 8” tablets are a good form factor for content consumption (ebooks, movies, some games) but Android tablets always fall short even then. You need a good screen, especially for text. The 2015 iPad Mini 4 is still much better than any similarly-sized Android tablet.

And unfortunately looks like it will be Apple's last in that form factor.

In some ways that makes sense. The Plus size iPhones aren’t that much smaller. And one of the biggest selling points of the mini was its price. But now you can get a full-size iPad that’s much faster for less than the mini was brand new.

Only Apple knows what’s really going on. But it’s entirely possible sales fell off a cliff once the 6+ came out.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#104

Post by gleenn »

euyyn wrote: post #35
__sr__ wrote: post #12

Good riddance! It’s not like they have actively been developing Android to support tablets. In fact, it is the other way around. The older versions had better support for tablets. Even Nexus 9 was a half hearted attempt at best — and the rest is history. Google’s lack of interest in nowhere more evident than their own apps — many of them were just scaled versions of phone apps. And if Google is not bothering to optim…

I admit that I haven't paid much attention. But the whole revamp of the UI framework into Fragments was precisely to let app developers support both phones and tablets. Why do you say older versions of Android had better support for tablets?

Fragments were way over engineered. Many people completely ignored them because you basically had to rewrite a significant portion of your app to support the type of flexibility they were supposed to give you. The lifecycle of apps is already complicated enough, and fragments added even more complexity. Like another poster mentions, completely ignoring fragments is a pretty reasonable choice.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#105

Post by qop »

Android tablets were awful software on great hardware. Or decent hardware. Sometimes great.

I hope that if fuchsia becomes the next Google mobile device os, that they take special care to not fragment it into a million pieces within the first few years.

Actually, I don't really care what they do after this year. I'm gonna switch to iphone+ipad mini, and Google can go fuck themselves, which they usually do anyways.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#106

Post by notatoad »

namibj wrote: post #60
derefr wrote: post #50

> Cheap Kindle tablets from Amazon have proliferated somewhat, presumably as distractions for kids who would otherwise get fingerprints all over mom’s new phone, or for ultra-compact time-wasting on airplanes. Why does everybody think of only consumer-electronics uses for a $40 tablet? I think it would be quite obvious what the real use for these is: IoT control surfaces (the “smart fridge” upgrade), POS systems, inv…

The "hand-out" case seems to be particularily promising. Are there radios that could complement a few miles of range, be it only with simple chat / send-coordinates? Come to think of it, opus doesn't take much either. A sub-100$ kit with voice+tablet should be feasible.

There are lots of interesting radios that can give you a few miles of low-bandwidth coverage - gotenna linked above, lorawan, or even borrowing a temporary tower from your local cell provider, but the challenge is that $40 tablets don't support any of those frequencies. The best you're going to get is to deploy a mesh of ubiquiti nanostations or similar (which actually works pretty well)

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#107

Post by tomkarlo »

wffurr wrote: post #40
euyyn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admit that I haven't paid much attention. But the whole revamp of the UI framework into Fragments was precisely to let app developers support both phones and tablets. Why do you say older versions of Android had better support for tablets?

Lots of Android system UI and first party apps had better tablet interfaces in ICS than they do in Nougat or Oreo.

This is a bit of a stretch. There was a lot of work done on improving tablet support in K, L and M, including work to specifically support the Nexus 9 and Pixel C. There was also the addition of multi-window, etc.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#108

Post by riku_iki »

notatoad wrote: post #85
Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #41

This is somewhat strange. I thought tablets killed the PC market. My wife is a primary school teacher and it's very difficult to teach children to use a mouse because they all have tablets at home. I know Android tablets haven't been selling well, but that's because people like me have been desperately waiting for a decent device to be released. iPads are absolutely everywhere. What's the proposed alternative for med…

Android tablets have been replaced by Chromebook convertibles that are capable of running Android apps. It's a much better experience than a typical android tablet ever was.

Also smartphone screens became larger and took usecases from tablets.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#109

Post by freedomben »

esturk wrote: post #79
013a wrote: post #58

Microsoft seems like the only company that understands tablets right now. They should be more like computers, not more like phones. There's also a pretty great argument that given all of our phones are absolute powerhouses nowadays, phones should also be less like phones and more like computers. I'm hopeful Microsoft can also move to spur on this change; maybe soon the market will be ready for the return of Windows P…

It's only a matter of time for the convergence of phones and Dex like docking functionality. I'm actually surprised Google isn't exploring this area more because it will really kick up the versality of phones. I guess Google doesn't want phones to cannabalize their Chromebook marketshare.

There actually have been a few attempts at "convergence," notably Canonical with Ubuntu phone. The reasons behind the failures are complicated, and IMHO haven't been proven definitively, but IANA expert in that field (just a consumer that really, really wants that).

I only mention this because it's possible Google watch the others crash and burn and decided not to enter.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#110

Post by dopeboy »

esturk wrote: post #79
013a wrote: post #58

Microsoft seems like the only company that understands tablets right now. They should be more like computers, not more like phones. There's also a pretty great argument that given all of our phones are absolute powerhouses nowadays, phones should also be less like phones and more like computers. I'm hopeful Microsoft can also move to spur on this change; maybe soon the market will be ready for the return of Windows P…

It's only a matter of time for the convergence of phones and Dex like docking functionality. I'm actually surprised Google isn't exploring this area more because it will really kick up the versality of phones. I guess Google doesn't want phones to cannabalize their Chromebook marketshare.

This really needs to happen. I want all my state in the cloud. Whatever device should sink up with that state down to the desktop and window manager.
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