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Google Partners With HTC For Latest Nexus Tablet

Rambo Tribble writes The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google is partnering with HTC for its upcoming 9-inch Nexus tablet. Shunning larger manufacturers like Samsung, speculation is that Google is trying to mitigate the effects of market dominance by one firm. When asked for comment, a Google spokesperson only responded, "There's room for many partners to do well and to innovate with Android."

13 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Uh... by pushing-robot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Google Nexus products so far:

    1 by HTC
    3 by Samsung
    2 by LG
    2 by Asus

    This is hardly a new thing.

    --
    How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
    1. Re:Uh... by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This. From the beginning, Google expressed its intention to spread around the Nexus partners so that several companies would get the experience and sales boost. They want a healthy, open platform with lots of innovation. This is how you beat Apple.

      --
      "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
    2. Re:Uh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The Nexus 7 sold well for Asus. If HTC makes an updated 7" tablet I think it would sell well.

    3. Re:Uh... by MaryAnnEvans · · Score: 2

      I'm sure they would prefer to let the market decide that bloatware is bad.

      Because that worked oh so well with Windows PCs.

  2. Re:Tegra based! by mlts · · Score: 3, Informative

    HTC isn't Chinese. It is Taiwanese.

    I'm looking forward to seeing their tablet, as I have had generally good luck with their products overall.

  3. Re:Ecch ... by flu1d · · Score: 5, Funny

    Anytime I run desktop software on my phone it seems to be very buggy no matter who the manufacturer is.

  4. Re:Tegra based! by Luthair · · Score: 4, Informative

    They also released the first Android phone as well as the first nexus device.

  5. Re:Ecch ... by mschwanke97402 · · Score: 4, Informative

    As I recall, in the case of a recent Google Nexus phone, Samsung and Verizon at least insisted upon...ahem...were graciously allowed to pollute the pure Android experience with some of their own crap. I do hope HTC does something cool, like an 8 or 9 inch M8 style tablet. The Nexus flagship device deserves Aluminum clad love!

  6. Re:is it going to be buggy as always? by marsu_k · · Score: 2

    And anecdotally, I haven't had any issues with my 2013 Nexus 7. Nor have any other people I know that have one. SPREAD THE WORD!

  7. Re:Ecch ... by farble1670 · · Score: 2

    were graciously allowed to pollute the pure Android experience with some of their own crap

    you can disable any android app from running ever and from showing up in the launcher, even if it's delivered as part of the firmware. it's annoying to get a new phone with all that stuff loaded, but it's not the end of the world anymore.

    on the contrary, nexus devices will never have the customized UI elements that you see on every other non-nexus android device. android device manufacturers need to figure it out. let google make the software. they are pretty good at it. you focus on building awesome hardware. delivering an android phone with slightly different UI elements isn't going to differentiate you from your competitor.

  8. Re:Tegra based! by mythosaz · · Score: 2

    While they certainly have more in common than say "New Mexico" and "Mexico," the existence of "China" in both of their names doesn't make them the same thing.

    I'm fairly certain the people of Taiwan consider Taiwan a different place than China -- enough so that they have the whole Taiwan name and all.

  9. Let the Android Market decide by tepples · · Score: 2

    I'm sure they would prefer to let the market decide that bloatware is bad.

    Then why doesn't Google let the Android Market decide by including a line in the CDD stating that if you include X, Y, or Z your phones won't get Google Play Store? Google already does that for certain variants of multi-window mode because Google wants to enforce an all maximized all the time use model even if your 10" tablet is as big as two Nexus 7s or four Nexus 5s.

  10. Re:Playlists and MTP by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

    Don't people just drag MP3's from their computer to their phone in Windows Explorer? I don't understand the need for music transferring software.

    If you want to transfer only the subset of your MP3 collection contained in a specific set of playlists, then you may need software to construct the copy job, even if it's just a shell script that parses the m3u files. And until very recently, you needed to install software to connect an Android 4.x phone to a PC because some operating systems didn't come with MTP automounting.

    Actually, it's more like to get around Android's broken MTP implementation. Yes, MTP on Android is horrendous, as in "it barely works" Look at it funny on a Windows machine (to which it appears to be coded for) and it breaks, requiring a unplug-plug to get it working again.

    Unfortunately, it was coded pretty much to work just for Windows and how the Windows MTP driver and Explorer operate. Try other OSes and they can do funny things that'll wedge the Android MTP gadget driver.

    OS X supports MTP just fine, provided it's a proper implementation. A half-hearted implementation like Android gets both ends into interesting states. And Linux a couple of years back required patches to the MTP host side to work with Android.

    As for Explorer to copy music - well, that's fine and all, but having a program that syncs everything is far more convenient. It's why people do use iTunes to manage their music collections.