It looks like Google is about to abandon the tablet market again. After the cancellation of the Pixel Tablet 3 reported by several insiders, today’s rumors suggest that the second generation Pixel Tablet will also be removed from the upcoming products, meaning that the device released last year will remain an isolated case. Google is therefore withdrawing from the tablet category for the second time in just over five years. At best, we’re in for a long hiatus before the next model. If the report is true, it would suggest that sales of the Pixel Tablet have been so poor that Google is convinced that further investment in a successor isn’t worth it. Just last week there were rumors of new features and an accessory keyboard for the now-abandoned product.
It’s possible that Google’s Nest division could inherit the company’s ambitions for big-screen devices and focus on evolving products like the Nest Hub and Hub Max instead of standalone tablets. Also due to its inconsistent strategy, Google has always struggled to significantly penetrate the tablet market and produce a competitor capable of rivaling Apple’s iPad in terms of sales and mainstream success. The company had a promising start years ago with the Nexus 7, but never really managed to establish itself, despite the hardware being of good quality. Android lags far behind iPadOS in the number of third-party apps optimized for tablets, another issue that has hampered Google’s efforts.
The company initially said it stopped making tablets in 2019, after its Pixel Slate received overwhelmingly negative reviews. At the time, two tablets still in development were cancelled. But in 2022 Google changed its mind and announced that its Pixel hardware team was working on a tablet. That device later became the Pixel Tablet, sold with a speaker base to which the tablet could be attached magnetically.
