“Google is working on a Nexus tablet for release by mid-2012, as the company looks to challenge Apple‘s iPad,” Mobiledia reports for Forbes.
Google “has only used the Nexus label on high-end smartphones that are ‘pure Google’ devices. In other words, Nexus phones contain the stock version of the newest Android OS without bloatware from any manufacturer,” Mobiledia reports. “The Nexus tablet will also be high-end and likely run Google’s new Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich platform. The OS is a marriage of Android 2.3 Gingerbread for smartphones and Honeycomb, which has been used for tablets. Android tablets have struggled to gain traction against the iPad, but critics hail ICS as a much improved, cleaner OS that may have what it takes to go up against iOS.”
Mobiledia reports, “Google’s Nexus tablet may give the company the first high-end tablet that’s formidable enough to be labeled a true iPad competitor, but if it fails, it will join a long list of products before it that couldn’t knock the king off the throne.”
Read more in the full article here.
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The Telegraph reviews Apple iPad 2: Does everything better; now’s the perfect time to join the iPad club – March 25, 2011
Computerworld reviews Apple’s iPad 2: ‘The Holy Grail of computing’ – March 16, 2011
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Associated Press reviews Apple iPad 2: Apple pulls further ahead – March 10, 2011
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I can’t wait to pick them up for $100 at the firesale!
Which version of Linux will you load on it?
By which time it will be how long behind the iPad?
At which time it will be competing with iPad 3!
Let’s hope that it won’t be a ‘replicant’ of the iPad, as that would be a very ‘Dick’ move by Google.
It’ll probably be a decent table when it reaches version ‘6’.
Here we go again…
Sometimes Google comes out with a real gem, like the term “Pure Google.” I can think of so many things that, in mixed company or at work, I’d be able to call Pure Google and really mean it.
You mean like intrusive advertising, broken promises, secret deals in the name of “openness”, and complete disregard for user privacy? That’s what I think of when I think “Pure Google” now.
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You forgot theft in there somewhere, and disregard for copyright.
“Google working on ‘Nexus’ tablet to challenge Apple’s market-dominating iPad”
What’s their plan? to buy tons of ipads 2 and sell them with google’s brand? that didn’t work out well for HP (remember the “HP iPods”?)
The tablet market is looking very much like how the MP3 player market ended up. One stand out ‘winner’ and a lot of other brands with at best OK products.
Sounds like Google is copying Microsoft now, spewing FUD just before Christmas in the hopes that iPad buyers will wait for whatever vapor product Googe might release in six months’ time.
Sounds like the only loser will be Microsoft. Google and Apple are now solidly locked in an arms race. With Apple gearing up the Nuclear Weapons response and Google is digging-in or shoring up the weak elements. Microsoft is liken to Italy of World War 2, a lot of talk and crappy fighting. But, we will see if Good Or Bad prevails….
How many stolen IPs are embedded in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich?
a google.
If Google is truly intending to challenge the iPad, then it needs to simultaneously address three issues.
First of all it needs a device that will be a genuine match for the iPad. Not just a check list of cherry picked features, but a true match of usability, convenience and quality.
Secondly it needs to match the iPad’s extensive ecosystem. Not simply an app store, but all the protective cases, third party accessories that allow users to mount it in various ways, adapt them for use in vehicles and connect to other devices.
The third challenge is the big one. They need to sell it at an attractive price and still make money from doing so. The low end has been set at about $200 ( Fire ) and the high end at $500 ( iPad ). It’s hard to imagine them creating a tablet that could justify a price tag greater than an iPad. If they are making it cheaper than an iPad, it will have to be perceived as worth twice what a Fire costs.
Apple are producing iPads in immense numbers and are able to use that scale to keep prices much lower than many people ever thought possible. Google will probably have to commit to making an initial run of maybe something like ten million, so you’re looking at in initial investment of half a billion plus development and marketing costs. It will take a brave company to commit that much money for a venture when every other company other than Apple has failed so spectacularly.
As a final thought, when I say that they will need to match the iPad, I do of course mean the iPad III, which will be in the shops by then and Apple isn’t saying what that will be like.
But that’s not all, it will also need to differentiate itself from any other tablet that tries to challenge the iPad and in addition, Google will need to cross their fingers and hope that large numbers of another 10″ tablet don’t get sold off in a fire sale just when the Nexus tablet is trying to gain market share.
Should their target really be the iPad, or the Kindle Fire?
I suspect part of what is motivating them here is to demonstrate a Google-proud Android tablet is viable as an answer to Amazon’s de-Googled Android fork.
Setting your sights on the iPad is one thing (and I agree that Google is doing that), but I think that the first fight has to be with Amazon. It’s like how contenders have to battle each other before they get a shot at the champ — they have to build and sell a tablet that’s competitive against a low-cost competitor with an established ecosystem.
There’s an arguement that they can ignore that end of the market and take on the iPad directly, though. To do that successfully, Google would have to commit to being a (physical) products company in a way that they haven’t before. Maybe that’s part of an evolving plan that they have in mind for Motorola.
Google, How is that Googola Xoom working out. The write offs means that you are overpaying that much more for MMI.
Good luck with the pending lawsuits Googs.
Amen. They already bought one of their hardware partners. When they come out with this new tablet, it’s going to be a big FU (eg. playsforsure + Zune) to them.
Xmas 2012 stocking stuffers.
What I’d like to see is Apple build a huge freakin’ search engine using super-fast, super-efficient Anobit memory algorithms that would be able to challenge Google Search just in order to bust Google’s hump and take at least some market share away like Google keeps trying to do to Apple with Android devices. I don’t know why Google has to keep poking its nose into Apple’s hardware space. I just feel that Google is going to go and try to undercut Apple’s pricing with some cheap hardware.
What if Apple could partner with Microsoft to make Bing into a really fun, easy to use and user friendly search engine and then make it the default across all it’s devices and products? Bing has already made some headway into marketshare war vs Google, with Apple and Microsoft working together I think they could really have something. I don’t think Apple wants to spend the kind of investment needed to create a fully baked search engine but I do think they could make meaningful contributions into one.
So, does anyone know when Ellison’s Oracle lawsuit for infringing on java will be settled? That might ‘settle’ android once and for all.
As much as I use my ipad2 all day… for fun, I can’t use it for any work, as it has a crippled file OS.
If Google comes up with an OS that people can easily transfer file to and from their desktop, they may give the iPads a run for it.
And don’t mention iTunes, Dropbox and all that, it doesn’t work fr serious professional work.
Why don’t we just start referring to that company as “Giggle”…….. since that’s all they make us do?
I don’t understand Nexus brand. It should be named Strawberry Lollipop to be consistent with Ice Cream Sandwich branding.
But will it have “the iNfrastructure” behind it?