How Google Can Make Android Truly Tablet-Worthy

With an Android armada on the horizon (or at least expected), reader androidtablet plugs this piece on ways Android could be truly tablet-friendly. Armchair engineering may be easy to knock, but I like the ideas presented here, such as aggressively using the inactive (locked) screen state to display useful information.

Comments

Re:Focus

[TouchAndGo]

I believe they're capable of working on both goals simultaneously, and it's entirely possible ideas developed in the creation of a tablet could lead to a better phone OS. Also, it's in no one's best interest for Apple to become entrenched as the only game in town for a decent tablet.

Wrong

[0xdeadbeef]

Mandatory hardware buttons, and dictate their placement. Having the back button, menu button, and home button change places on different Android devices is retarded. And make it hard to accidentally hit them. Apple's "fuck whatever you're doing and quit" key is stupidest UI decision ever made. Putting it where you hold the device makes it even worse.

Want to be real awesome? Have touch-sensitive dedicated scroll areas off the display surface.

Support pen input, from low-end pressure screens to that fancy induction Wacom stuff. That is the real future of tablets, always has been, always will be. There is a reason only children fingerpaint.

Re:Wrong

[shikaisi]

I don't think David Hockney would be classed as a child, and he seems pretty enthusiastic about the iPad as a (finger)painting medium.

Re:What about actually making it work right???

[Zixaphir]

I don't know, man. All the features I could ever want work great outta the box. As long as I'm locked into Android, there is no way I'll ever lose my contacts. When I format or switch to a new phone, my apps are all downloaded again automagically. If I don't like something about the OS, I can generally replace it with some third party application. When android tablets start coming out, if I get one, my custom "Android" will likely follow me onto it. I don't know, as someone who had to deal with people when they had synchronization problems with ActiveSync and their Windows Mobile phones (problems sync'ing generally mean loss of everything without some roundabout backup/restore of PIM), I can't get enough of Android's robust synchronization with "the cloud"