Yesterday we scoured some tablet stats to find out that Android’s still in dire need of a tablet success story. Now a Google exec has been chatting to Wired, who’ve wormed out that the company still has some odd views on slate PCs.

The interview is with Android‘s head of user experience Matias Duarte, who’s just spearheaded the Android Design website, which aims to try and help developers to add a bit of sheen to their apps.

That sounds pretty promising, but one quote stands out as being against this new found design ethos. When asked if Ice Cream Sandwich will help boost the number of tablet apps for Android, Duarte responded that Google doesn’t “really think of tablet apps internally.”

Why Android still badly needs a tablet champ

Rather, the company focuses on generic apps that can be built to work for any sized device. If you ask us, that’s incredibly shortsighted. One of the main reasons why people love the Apple iPad is that it has a wealth of apps built specifically to take advantage of the bigger screen real estate.

If you’re not building apps under the impression that a tablet is an innately different device to a phone, then what’s the point? They’re completely different machines capable of wildly different tasks.

One of the things that Apple’s enjoyed bringing up at iPad keynotes in recent times is the disparity between the number of bespoke iPad apps and Android tablet apps. Google’s seemingly backwards attitude here will hardly help things. Let us know your thoughts below…

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  • David

    They’re not  ”completely different machines capable of wildly different tasks”, they’re just the same except for screen size (and with some phones now up to 1280×720 it almost is just physical size).  App developers should make the apps with screen layouts that adapt to size, resolution, orientation and user preference (or eyesight quality).  Developing and maintaining two versions or supporting only one and missing a large chunk of potential purchasers doesn’t seem like the best idea – even if it is Apple’s idea!

    • http://twitter.com/masdamp masdamp

      Adam is a MS fanboy

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=596771494 Matthew Lyons

    Hi Adam another one of your wonderful balanced well thought out articles I see, the only problem being that your assuming that because Matias Duarte said that Google “don’t think of Android tablet apps internally” rather they want apps that can be adapted to the screen size to mean they don’t care about tablet apps and to that end are not making best use of the extra screen real estate a tablet provides.

    That isn’t what he said and I suspect you realise that, what he said was that they are not concentrating on apps that are made solely for tablets and that they would rather have one app that can be used across screen sizes but adapts to make best use of the screen size of the device it is being used on. This is a better solution for everyone so developers can concentrate on one app rather than splitting development over several apps for the same platform but different screen sizes.

    Do you want a different app for a 3.6″ screen, 4.3″ screen, 7.7″ screen, 8.9″ screen and a 10.1″ screen, just think how confusing that could get.

    You can’t compare to iOS as there are only two screen sizes.

    • http://twitter.com/masdamp masdamp

      I think you are biased when you write your articles

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=596771494 Matthew Lyons

    Hi Adam another one of your wonderful balanced well thought out articles I see, the only problem being that your assuming that because Matias Duarte said that Google “don’t think of Android tablet apps internally” rather they want apps that can be adapted to the screen size to mean they don’t care about tablet apps and to that end are not making best use of the extra screen real estate a tablet provides.

    That isn’t what he said and I suspect you realise that, what he said was that they are not concentrating on apps that are made solely for tablets and that they would rather have one app that can be used across screen sizes but adapts to make best use of the screen size of the device it is being used on. This is a better solution for everyone so developers can concentrate on one app rather than splitting development over several apps for the same platform but different screen sizes.

    Do you want a different app for a 3.6″ screen, 4.3″ screen, 7.7″ screen, 8.9″ screen and a 10.1″ screen, just think how confusing that could get.

    You can’t compare to iOS as there are only two screen sizes.

  • Anonymous

    All this article shows is a lack of understanding of Android app concepts. The build once, deploy anywhere paradigm championed by Android specifically allows for different layouts from one codebase.

    This means that the same app should adapt from phone to tablet without needing to recode. Well, that’s the theory anyway as I’ve yet to wrap my brain cells around the concepts but if you use the gmail app as an example, you have the multi pane layout on a tablet, and the single column on a phone.

    The main cause for delay is going to be the rollout of ICS so this year will be interesting for android tablets

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