To say that Android tablets have been a letdown could be the understatement of the century.When you step again and give it some thought, the truth that Android tablets are such an underemphasized afterthought is nearly surprising. Android is the world’s hottest working system, in spite of everything — by a reasonably hefty margin. It’s straightforward to neglect generally, however extra people carry Android-powered smartphones than every other kind of machine within the universe.And but, for all of these benefits, Google has 12 months after 12 months failed to show Android tablets right into a compelling, sought-after kind of know-how that is greater than a mere blip on the mobile-tech radar. It’s reached the purpose the place I flat-out inform people to avoid Android tablets and think about convertible Chromebooks as an alternative — ‘trigger not like the everyday Android pill, any Chromebook you purchase will really get updates. It’ll be supported with the newest privateness, safety, and efficiency requirements for years after its buy. And it’s going to present a really nice all-around expertise.Plain and easy, it’s going to deliver all of the qualities you need from an Android pill right into a extra productivity-minded, work-friendly setup — one with loads of perks and with out all the usual Android pill disadvantages.Here’s what’s fascinating, although: Android tablets did not must be this manner. Nearly 12 years in the past, Google purchased a buzzworthy software program startup that was doing extremely fascinating issues with interface design. The firm had all kinds of untamed concepts about the way forward for large-screen contact interplay, and Google appeared destined to deliver these ideas into the land of Android.[Get fresh Googley insight in your inbox with my Android Intelligence newsletter. Three things to know and three things to try every Friday!]This is the story of an alternate future for Android tablets — a future that might have seen Android-powered tablets charting new territory and shaking up the way in which we thought of large-screen computing experiences.This is the story of the Android pill interface that might have been.The Android pill origin storyBefore we get into the meat of this zesty tech sandwich, we have to step again for a sec and set the scene of what was occurring with Google within the early a part of the 2010 decade.The Android pill saga technically began within the fall of 2010, simply months after Apple launched its first Magical and Revolutionary™ iPad. At that time, for context, Google did not have a good way for Android to exist in a “big-screen” kind. (I put “big-screen” in quotes as a result of the earliest Android tablets weren’t a lot greater than our present Android telephones. Hey, it is all relative.) So with everybody and their mom all of the sudden gushing over Apple’s inaugural slate-shaped creation, Android device-makers who had been determined to compete scrambled to slap collectively their very own half-baked setup.Most prominently, Samsung spewed out its first-ever Galaxy Tab — a 7″ slate that ran Android 2.2, labored precisely like a cellphone, and even allow you to make and obtain calls with your personal SIM card in sure situations. So in different phrases, yeah: It was roughly only a large cellphone.Samsung
The 2010 Galaxy Tab 7.0, with the requisite promo-shot mirror impact at its backside.
Early the subsequent 12 months, in 2011, Google got here out with its Android 3.0 Honeycomb software program — a tablet-only launch that launched a very new basis and ready Android to exist in a large-screen kind. The first true Android tablets, together with the traditional Motorola Xoom, adopted.Android 3.0 was really an admirable framework for a complete new sort of mobile-tech expertise — one through which the core Android interface was fully reimagined to make the most of the newfound display screen house and create a extra efficiency-optimized, productivity-minded atmosphere.

(Be certain to make a psychological bookmark of the identify proven within the notification on that video thumbnail, by the way in which. It’ll be related in a minute.)But that mindset would not final for lengthy. Apple had already made a severe splash with its iPad, and Google did its standard Google factor — first, failing to get builders on board rapidly sufficient to make a very good first impression with how apps operated in its newly scaled-up atmosphere, then ultimately shedding its focus, pivoting away from its authentic imaginative and prescient, and in the end simply letting the concept of the Android pill languish with none significant motion ahead.By 2016, Google had by all counts given up on the concept of the Android pill. Android tablets nonetheless existed, after all, however Google wasn’t doing a lot to advance or promote ’em.And that is to say nothing of the Android pill chance that by no means made its method to the floor or had any likelihood to shine.An Android pill acquisitionTime to fly again now to May of 2010 — only a few brief months after Apple’s first iPad splashed its means into the world. Google, presumably laborious at work on the early efforts round Honeycomb, quietly purchased an organization referred to as BumpTop. Rumor has it the deal value a cool $25 to $35 million — no small chunk of change, to say the least.There was no formal announcement or fanfare from Google in regards to the acquisition, however BumpTop alerted its present customers that its present software program would now not be bought or supported and that it would be taking the app “in an exciting new direction” inside Google’s famed partitions.So what precisely was BumpTop? In brief, it was a dramatically totally different tackle the standard computing interface. The software program made your desktop look and act like a bodily desk, with all kinds of multitouch gestures and intelligent methods for interacting together with your stuff.In a 2007 TED Talk, BumpTop’s founder, Anand Agarawala — do not forget that identify from a minute in the past? — mentioned he believed we had been nonetheless in “the cave-painting era of computer interfaces” and that it was excessive time for somebody to strive one thing new.”One kind of information space I … take inspiration from is my real desk. It’s so much more subtle, so much more visceral — you know, what’s visible, what’s not. And I’d like to bring that experience to the desktop,” he mentioned.

BumpTop developed into a way more touch-centric interface within the months that adopted. And it is actually one thing you must see to understand. This 2009 demo video reveals the fundamentals of the BumpTop desktop and the way the software program reinvented the act of getting round a pc:

Once BumpTop grew to become a Google entity, most folk assumed its method was certain to change into the way forward for Android in its larger-screen kind. As Fast Company put it on the time:
Most upcoming tablets might be trying to Android. … But on a much bigger display screen, Android’s tough edges are fairly apparent. A pores and skin, like HTC’s Sense or Dell’s Stage, is one choice, however BumpTop could be a greater answer. It’ll want some tweaking (it doesn’t have any of Android’s hallmark and fully important UI options, just like the notification shade or app drawer) nevertheless it has the potential to supply one thing actually totally different for an Android pill.
It made sense — virtually an excessive amount of sense.But, as you possibly can most likely think about, issues did not precisely play out in the way in which anybody anticipated.The Android pill pathAside from the massive BumpTop buy, one thing else vital occurred inside Google within the month of May 2010. Toward the top of that exact same month, only a few weeks after the BumpTop deal went by means of, a well-respected designer joined Google as its first consumer expertise director for Android.That designer was none aside from Matias Duarte — the man who’d led improvement of Palm’s webOS interface and earned accolades for his efforts on the Danger-made Sidekick (a.ok.a. the Hiptop) earlier than that.And who had Duarte labored alongside at Danger? Major nerd factors if the reply: It was a sure Andy Rubin, who co-founded the corporate after which went on to co-found Android and oversee its evolution inside Google all over 2013.Rubin’s legacy is now way more difficult, to place it mildly, however on the time, he was the grand commander of all issues Android — and Duarte was his new deputy entrusted with bringing a larger focus to design for the platform. Thus far, highly effective as Android had been, the software program had typically veered extra towards utility, with design taking a again seat to sheer energy and performance.Under Duarte’s path, we noticed a noticeable shift. First got here the software program referred to as Honeycomb — although with its efforts already underway on the time of Duarte’s arrival, the seven-months-later Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich launch is usually thought-about to be extra consultant of Duarte’s full affect.Either means, the ideas from BumpTop barely made a blip within the working system. You can see what appears to be a slight contact of BumpTop inspiration within the Honeycomb-era accordion widgets, which adopted an identical form of stacking and flipping mannequin to what we noticed all all through BumpTop…JR …however except for that, there is not a lot apparent inspiration from BumpTop wherever in Android — a minimum of, outwardly — and it looks as if most of its ideas acquired misplaced over time.As for BumpTop’s founder, Anand Agarawala, he labored at Google for about 4 and a half years, in keeping with his LinkedIn profile — beginning with the second of BumpTop’s acquisition and going all over October of 2014. His profile signifies he performed some method of position in Android interface improvement for the Android 2.3 Gingerbread launch that got here out in December of 2010 in addition to the following Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich updates. After that, he apparently frolicked engaged on “next-generation AR assistant applications” at Google X in addition to on the Google+ cellular apps and on the Google Photos “automatic story creations” characteristic.Agarawala left Google in 2014 and has been heading up his personal new startup within the years since — an organization referred to as Spatial that brings some very familiar-feeling interface ideas into the realm of augmented actuality.

And BumpTop itself is now accessible as an open-source venture, with a be aware from Agarawala that states:
We actually imagine we’re simply scratching the floor of what is doable with the way in which we work together with know-how. As contact and digital actuality interfaces quickly evolve, we predict a number of the concepts we explored could be related now greater than ever. The way forward for BumpTop is now in your arms, the neighborhood of passionate followers and builders of BumpTop who supported our mission of a daring new, bodily dimension of UIs because the starting.
And so it goes.The Android pill futureThere’s yet another fascinating footnote to this story — and, maybe, to the way forward for Android tablets and the place issues may go from right here.In a transfer that appears to have gone largely unnoticed by the Google-watching plenty, a fella by the identify of Rich Miner seems to have joined Google final March in an effort to tackle a brand new position with the title of “CTO, Android tablets.”In case his identify would not ring an instantaneous bell, Miner was one of many authentic co-founders of Android — proper alongside Andy Rubin. I interviewed him in 2016 for my (no-longer-publicly-available) podcast and heard all about his winding path by means of the mobile-tech universe. He performed a key position in Android’s beginning and helped form its path over the primary a number of years of its existence, and whereas he might not be a family identify at this time, his affect undeniably helped Android develop into what it is change into.(I attempted reaching out to Google to request more information on the character of Miner’s new position and to see if he’d be accessible for an interview, however I by no means heard again. I’ve additionally tried to contact Agarawala a pair instances through the years with none response.)Miner left Android in 2010 and went on to work at Google’s enterprise capital department. In 2016, he took a place heading up some mysterious new Google training venture that will or might not have in the end resulted in any tangible merchandise. And now, it appears he is come again to his roots to pursue one other new starting below the Android umbrella.The story of Android tablets has already had greater than its share of twists, turns, and missed alternatives. But possibly, simply possibly, the story is not over but. Maybe one other chapter will emerge.If there’s one factor you study from spending sufficient time watching Google, it is that you just by no means really know what may come subsequent.Sign up for my Android Intelligence publication to get zesty Google-flavored information in your inbox each Friday.

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