Google’s Not Going to Make Tablets Anymore

Google has no future plans to release additional tablet devices and has even canceled two models that were in development, the company confirmed to Computerworld today.

Google has not released a tablet in 2019, but did come out with the Pixel Slate in 2018. Google was working on two smaller tablets, but ultimately decided to stop focusing on the tablet form factor in favor of laptops.

The Pixel Slate was Google’s first Pixel-branded tablet offering, and as Computerworld clarifies, Google considers a tablet to be a device that detaches completely from a keyboard base or has no physical keyboard at all. Google considers its two-in-one convertible devices like the Pixelbook to be laptops, not tablets.

Google announced its plans to discontinue work on tablets to employees yesterday, and those working on tablet-related projects will be reassigned.

A Google spokesperson directly confirmed all of these details to me. The news was revealed at an internal company meeting on Wednesday, and Google is currently working to reassign employees who were focused on the abandoned projects onto other areas. Many of them, I’m told, have already shifted over to the laptop side of that same self-made…