Google recently held its yearly “Made by Google” event where it announced the Pixel 10 phones and the Pixel Watch 4, alongside new AI features. The products look solid, but what caught my attention was the Bloomberg interview that followed.

According to the interview, Google confirmed it has “paused” development on Pixel tablet hardware until it finds a “meaningful future” for the category.

It’s no secret that outside of the Nexus 7, Google, and to an extent, the Android ecosystem as a whole, has struggled to find the same level of success in tablets that it has with smartphones.

The Pixel Tablet launched in 2023 with much fanfare as a sign that the company was doubling down on tablets. While no official sales figures have been released, the general consensus is that it sold poorly and did little to revitalize an Android tablet ecosystem that remains largely dominated by Samsung.

Android’s PC-Style Overhaul Would Have Made a Lot of Sense on a New Pixel Tablet

While Google stepping away from tablets again isn’t surprising given the company’s legendary lack of focus and follow-through, it’s still disappointing. Between the multitasking improvements coming to tablets in Android 16 and the planned merger of Android and ChromeOS, it felt like the stars were aligning for Android devices to be taken seriously as general-purpose computers.

Samsung has carried this torch for years with Samsung DeX, but with Google now officially supporting a “laptop mode” in Android itself, it seems more likely developers would follow suit and adapt their apps. As iPad users know, all the multitasking improvements in the world mean little if developers don’t support them.

One of the consistent complaints about both the Pixel Tablet and its predecessor, the Pixel Slate, was the lack of optimized software. It’s a shame that just as the software side is getting better, Google won’t be providing showcase hardware to demonstrate it in the best light.

Less Competition Hurts a Category That Could Use More

It’s strange that just as the tablet market is returning to growth, Google has decided this market isn’t worth the effort. Even Microsoft seems to have stepped away from any kind meaningful tablet investments. The Surface Pro line is marketed as laptops, and Windows’ touch optimization has been reduced to little more than “we space things out a bit when you remove the keyboard.”

That leaves Apple, once again, as the only company treating tablets as tablets and taking the category seriously. This lack of competition makes it so Apple can go through periods of coasting with the iPad (like going a year without out any device updates).

On one hand, I can’t blame Apple when its competitors seem to no longer be interested in the category. But with more competition, Apple would feel the pressure to push harder, like it does with the iPhone and Mac. Maybe real competition would inspire them to revisit the rumored, but supposedly canceled, 14-inch iPad Pro?

Link: Bloomberg via 9to5Google