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Google quits selling tablets

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Re: Google quits selling tablets

#241

Post by phjesusthatguy3 »

Too wrote: post #145
atomi wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nexus 7 2013 is still a great tablet.

While the Nexus7 gen 2 was, and to some extent still is, a great tablet. I don't think i would recommend anyone to buy it today. It's stuck on Android 6.0 with known security vulnerabilities and the performance is starting to fall a bit behind the software "development".

True, but you can get a refurb unit for about $100 and put LineageOS on it. We've had five of them through this house (the kids use them) and I haven't seen anything they want to do that it can't.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#242

Post by dcbadacd »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #122
gleenn wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It was around the time I started playing with fragments that I realized that the native Java android toolkit was a giant pile of crap. Android, I think, is not even supposed to be a well-engineered system. It is not central to its purpose. Its purpose is to eat marketshare, collect data, and ensure there is an outlet for ads. It only has to work well enough to do those things :) I get the sense that it was all slappe…

I got the same impression, it's just filled with hacks to get proper behavior and don't get me started on the support libraries, oof how I hate those.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#243

Post by dcbadacd »

StreamBright wrote: post #184
__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…

Maybe it is just me but Android got gradually worse over time, bloated with useless features that are the first thing that I turn off on my new devices usually. It is still impossible to find certain basic functionality in the setup, which drives my nuts every single time I have to find them. It would be worth to visualise how much effort is to turn off spell correction on different mobile devices and use change othe…

I remember when settings search actually worked. Now a lot is hidden in Google Play Services settings and can't be found.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#244

Post by dcbadacd »

freyir wrote: post #190
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…

I bought a Kindle tablet, and I wouldn’t even use it as an IOT control surface.

I would use it if it had a good way of writing software for it, meaning a SDK. It would be absolutely awesome wall-mounted with some dashboard, but the built-in web-browser can't even be put to full screen properly and can't be set to auto-start.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#245

Post by GordonS »

mmsimanga wrote: post #147
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…

I ran into the issue your wife experienced with kids at her school teaching kids to use a mouse with my daughter. We have a Samsung tablet that my daughter has made her own for the last several years. The tablet will not charge anymore so I put her in front of my old laptop. I was surprised at how much she struggled to use the mouse. Her hands are stiff and she seems bewildered. I realise now how intuitive tablets ar…

> I realise now how intuitive tablets are

Only if you're used to them. I've used PCs for more than 30 years, since I was 5 years old - and it took me a while to become comfortable navigating around my first Android tablet. I only recently tried my first iOS device, and it was an infuriating experience trying to find the settings menu for it - it was so unintuitive to me, I ended up asking Siri to open it!

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#246

Post by EpicEng »

__sr__ wrote: post #224
dalbasal wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a lot of cases a scaled (or just small) phone app is good enough. But... overall.. I think the tablet category is just not a very big one. I had an iPad and an old 7" nexus. When they died, I didn't replace. Phones got bigger and better. We got better at thumb typing and comfortable holding screens close. Reading on a tablet for example, is not that different to a phone these days and a (cheap) dedicated reader is…

I guess that varies from person to person. My iPad Pro, for example, is my most used personal device. I prefer it over my phone whenever possible. In fact, I like phones small - it’s a pain to pull out a brick every time I want to talk. It’s a matter of personal taste, I guess.

>It’s a matter of personal taste, I guess.

Of course it is, but tablet sales have been declining for years.

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#247

Post by GordonS »

MBCook wrote: post #94
zik wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple sued the heck out every other tablet company to help cement their lead. It worked. What's annoying is that history will remember Apple as having "invented" the tablet. Prior to apple they were a sufficiently big thing that even Microsoft had a Tablet PC standard. Sure, capacitive touch screens were a big step forward and made tablets truly usable. But it's not like Apple invented them either although they were…

I’d love to see a link substantiating that claim. Apple his owned the high end of the tablet market since the day the iPad came out. As of earlier this year, the price of a fantastic brand new iPad is down to $300. Android tablets never seemed to get anywhere. My impression, having never use them, was that the software wasn’t quite ready at the start and by the time it was it was too late. Amazon attacked the low-end…

Your mention of the $300 price prompted me to take a look. I'm in the UK tho... and of course they've done that annoying thing of making everything more expensive here - £319 (~$425), so not quite as appealing :(

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#248

Post by gehsty »

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.

I highly doubt this. I mean on a long enough timeline it’s only a matter of time until we are cyborgs with high speed internet access backed into our brains....but I cannot see any thing like Dex ever taking off. The user interaction is just horrendous.

Maybe if it is wireless and never interferes with the users ability to use the phone for anything, it could work, but if the user has to ‘dock’ there phone I think it’s game over...

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#249

Post by EpicEng »

muse900 wrote: post #191
__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 agree. 1st table I ever owned was a Nexus 7. I bought it because I was very satisfied with Nexus 5 being my phone (price and stability). The thing that annoyed me the most about Nexus 7 apart from lacking on basic things was its sound... I'd go in an airplane and I wouldn't be able to hear anything. After that I never bought a Nexus product again, and tbh I don't feel left out of anything.

You weren't using headphones on a plane? You know other people don't want to hear your movie, right?

Re: Google quits selling tablets

#250

Post by paulie_a »

pjmlp wrote: post #174
freedomben wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. There was a rumor a couple years ago that Samsung was going to make a "pure Android" phone and I got pretty excited for that, but alas the "pure" experience shipped with crapware and their custom launcher D-: I do actually know someone that loves Samsung software, but it's rare. I think they'd get really far if they would make it light and easy to remove. I really don't see any disadvantages to that…

Here is another one. I can't stand the plain bland stock Android UI. To see where I came from, Enlightenment was one of my favourite window managers on my Linux days.

Enlightenment always seemed cool in videos but very bland when I actually tried it. Ugly even compared to what I had seen.
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