Ever since Eric Schmidt told the world at his private party that “of course, Google is working on a tablet”, speculation has run wild.
What is known about the device is that it will use a tablet-oriented Android OS, feature Chrome as a browser, have access to the Android Marketplace (one of the advantages of choosing the Android OS over the ChromeOS), and sport a multi-touch capacitive screen. Interestingly, it will support Adode Flash 10.1 – a turning point, not just as a key differentiator, but also as stimulus to a likely thriving Flash-based future of applications and the internet. Adobe downplayed this piece of good news.
While Flash and open-source might make the world of the Google tablet seem very different from the iPad’s, a most obvious similarity is that just as how the Apple’s mobile iPhone OS was adapted to work on the bigger iPad, Google’s open-source Android OS for its tablet. The company will apparently be working in “stealth mode” while experimenting with content publishers and the device.
Google’s CEO went on to talk about how “Google might not get it right the first time”, but that Apple hasn’t either, as it would soon be upgrading the OS for its tablet device. He said it would take both of them the “next two to three years to figure it [all] out.” Nothing screams Year of the Tablet if not two of the biggest companies in the world making tablet devices in 2010, where open-source backed by Google’s deep pockets battles out a blinkered Apple iPad framework.