Google seems to be planning to merge Chrome OS (known from the Chromebooks) with Android. Does that mean the end of the Android tablet?
Statistics show that about twenty percent of all new Android devices in 2018 will be tablets. Yet the Android tablet has long since ceased to be as popular as the Android smartphone and Google itself has not made a new Android tablet in years, partly due to the focus on the development of Chromebooks and Chrome OS. Google's latest tablet, the Pixel Slate, is even a tablet that runs on Chrome OS.
More often superfluous
Chrome OS is making Android more and more obsolete: Android apps are available on every Chromebook, as are many well-known functionalities such as the ability to take screenshots or use two apps at the same time. Google even recently added a new feature to Chrome OS, which makes it possible to view a web page in tablet mode. The arrival of many convertible Chromebooks with touchscreen, which you can fold into a tablet, as it were, seem to increasingly replace the Android tablet.
Google wants to roll out the Chrome operating system as widely as possible to grow it into a single platform for all your devices (except your smartphone). However, Chrome OS is not yet perfect either: not all Android apps, for example, still work well on the operating system. But it will only be a matter of time before Google irons out these imperfections. The internet giant regularly provides Chrome OS with updates that bring new functionalities and improve security.
With this, Google hopes to finally become a worthy competitor for Apple and Microsoft, who have launched tablets on the market with the iPad Pro and Surface Pro that can also be used for productive purposes.
More and more often found on tablets
Chrome OS is therefore increasingly finding its way to tablets: from the Pixel Slate to the Acer Chromebook Tab 10. Earlier this month, ASUS announced its first Chrome tablet with the CT100. The CT100 has a 9.7 inch screen and a so-called robust housing so that it can take a beating and some water.
It therefore seems inevitable that Chrome OS will eventually take over the role of Android as an operating system for tablets. There are still plenty of challenges for Google in the battle against the iPads of this world, but the potential to become a leading operating system for tablets is certainly there.
