In what must have come as a terrible shock for the likes of Dell, Samsung and Toshiba who are pushing tablets based on Google’s Android operating system, Google’s director of products for mobile has said that Android is not designed for being used on tablets. Speaking in an interview with Techradar, Hugo Barra, director of products for mobile at Google. Speaking to the website, Barra said, “The way Android Market works is it’s not going to be available on devices that don’t allow applications to run correctly. Which devices do, and which don’t will be unit specific, but Froyo is not optimised for use on tablets.”
All of which would be a huge dampener for those lining up to purchase Android-based tablets. It has been rumoured that the next major versions of Android, Gingerbread and Honeycomb will be more tablet-friendly, but this is perhaps the first time a senior Google executive has come out and stated bluntly that Android is not meant for tablets. Honestly, we agree and have been sick of pointing out to swooning Android tablet lovers that the devices seemed more like oversized phones rather than tablets (one of the reasons why we said that the Android-powered OlivePad would not beat the iPad). Yes, we can hear the Apple-hating group stand up to holler that the iPad runs an OS very similar to that on the iPhone, but then Apple does have a separate section of iPad apps on its App Store. Google so far does not – the result of which is that a number of Android market apps look terribly stretched and out of place on Android tablets. We don’t know about you, but this statement from Google has just made us give up our places on the queue for the Samsung Galaxy Tab.
Ah, Google described the Galaxy Tab as a oversized phone and thus justified the Andorid Market in it (I guess it has a Market).