ParisLemon

David Streitfeld and Nick Bilton:

Google’s long-awaited tablet might finally be on the way to becoming a reality. For at least two years, there have been reports that the search giant was working on something that could compete with Apple’s iPad. A Google employee briefed on the project now says it will be out later this year.

That makes it sound like Google hasn’t really been trying to compete with the iPad for the past two years. Of course they have — they’ve just failed. Miserably. 

The sole purpose of Honeycomb was to invigorate the Android tablet market. It was an OS built for tablets. It was supposed to make Android tablets competitive with the iPad. It crashed and burned. 

What they mean, of course, without specifically saying it, is a “Nexus” tablet. Not built by Google, but with Google branding. Maybe that competes better, maybe it doesn’t. At sub-$200, I fail to see how it can possibly compete with the iPad. We’ll see.

But it’s nonsense to imply that Google hasn’t been trying to compete with the iPad until now.