Google's CTO of Android Tablets Sees Tablet Sales Passing Laptops 'in the Not Too Distant Future'

An anonymous reader shares a report: After seemingly forgetting that Android tablets existed for a while, Google is suddenly very invested in the market. Android 12L is in development to support larger-screened devices, and one of the platform's co-founders, Rich Miner, has rejoined the team with the title "CTO of Android tablets." Now, speaking to developers during an episode of Google's The Android Show, Miner explained the opportunity the company is seeing. [...] The other reason he cites is that tablets can be "very capable, less expensive than a laptop." That spurred Google's work on Android 12L to optimize its system UI for use on bigger devices, as well as the way it formats apps to fit on big screens. Miner is making the pitch for developers to look at their apps and consider taking advantage of the tools Google's building to improve tablet support or even building apps that approach the market as a tablet-first experience. He points to 2020 sales data, where "tablet purchases actually started to approach the number of laptop shipments... I actually think there's going to be a crossover point at some point in the not too distant future where there are more tablets sold annually than there are laptops. I think once you cross over that point, you're not going to be coming back."

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