Google’s iPad killer that never took off
I’m writing these words on a foldable tablet that fits in my pocket, but my dream of a large touchscreen dates back to a much older era of Android tablets. In fact, this all goes back to the beginning, when Google unveiled the first version of Android designed for larger screens.
Android 3.0 was a version of Android reserved for tablets
Code name: honeycomb
Android was first released in 2008 on the HTC Dream, a device known in the United States as the T-Mobile G1. This initial version 1.0 did not have a name, but version 1.5 would be known as “Cupcake”. By the time version 2.0 arrived, the alphabetical dessert naming system had reached “Eclair”. Version 2.3 was released in 2011 under the name “Gingerbread”, and at the same time it arrived on phones; Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” appeared exclusively on tablets. Despite the version number, this was actually the eighth version of Android released in four years.
Honeycomb was a notable difference from previous versions of Android. It introduced elements that would stick with the platform for a decade, such as the three virtual navigation icons at the bottom left for “back,” “home,” and “recent apps.” Pressing the latter brought up the thumbnails of your most recently used applications, arranged vertically.
At the bottom right there was a notification area, clock and system indicators. The design made Android feel like a conventional PC, even though there was no taskbar, and to launch apps you pressed a button at the top right. Widgets can be placed anywhere on the home screen.
It was a time of extremely experimental material
We didn’t yet know what a tablet could be
Honeycomb was a response to the commercial success of Apple’s iPad, which had arrived in stores almost a year earlier, in April 2010. The iPad had changed the concept of a tablet from a stylus-equipped Windows machine to something more like an extra-large phone, and other consumer technology companies wanted in on the action.
Many new Android tablets were released around this time. The first was the Motorola Xoom, a largely conventional tablet by today’s standards. As a launch product, it gave a good overview of the software that virtually every Android tablet released in 2012 would share. This in-depth analysis from MobileTechReview offers a good overview.
One of the most notable tablets that followed the Motorola Xoom was the Asus Transformer, whose keyboard effectively transformed that slate into a laptop. It was a real keyboard and touchpad, not a keyboard case as is often the case today. Here’s a review that Marques Brownlee posted on the premium version of the tablet (see what I did there?).
I got my first taste of Honeycomb with the Toshiba Thrive, a 10-inch tablet released this summer with a removable back cover, an SD card slot, an HDMI port, and a USB 3.0 port. All of these ports were normal sized, like on a laptop. This made it easy to save files, copy photos from my compact digital camera, and print documents from campus printers. I would have liked to have another photo of the tablet, but alas, for this one, I will instead direct you to a PhoneArena review.
Samsung was the most successful, as it had already begun releasing tablets based on the phone version of Android in 2010. The dominance it was quickly establishing among Android phones continued into tablets. As much as I love Samsung hardware now, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Honeycomb tablet didn’t do anything for me. It was thinner than the iPad, but it sacrificed the ports I was looking for.
The Tron-like interface worked surprisingly well
But where were the apps?
Android Honeycomb was identical on all these tablets. The virtual buttons, settings menu and various parts of the interface were blue and black. It’s striking now to look back and see how dark Android was.
Android Honeycomb was certainly usable. I spent much of my first year of college using my Toshiba Thrive as a replacement laptop (after all, it had the ports!). The interface was rarely a problem for me, as someone who finds some restrictions on multitasking actually helps me stay on task. At that time, you couldn’t move Android apps like PC app windows. There wasn’t even split-screen multitasking. But the tablets were powerful and smooth enough to get the job done. The problem was the apps.
Honeycomb has introduced apps tailored to larger screens, like a Gmail app that has a sidebar on the left and email threads on the right. Unfortunately, few apps took advantage of the larger screen. Most of the apps were phone apps expanded to take up a larger space. I remember downloading a basic office suite and PDF reader that I used for my classes, but there wasn’t much else available. Android tablets may still be lacking in apps compared to the iPad, but they’ve come a long way.
Android 4.0 was the beginning of the end
The merger of phones and tablets does not bode well for tablets
For Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”, Google merged the phone and tablet versions. Rather than phones running Gingerbread and tablets running Honeycomb being radically different, the software would be similar on both devices. Unfortunately for tablets, devices would also work the same way. This meant that instead of having a taskbar-like bottom panel, tablets now had three virtual buttons at the bottom and a ton of wasted space, and developers had even less incentive to create tablet-specific versions of apps.
Surprisingly, the number of Android tablets has started to decline. Google would soon release the beloved Nexus 7 and the less well-received Nexus 10, but even so it didn’t put much heart into Android tablet development. Even today, the relatively mid-range Pixel Tablet, released in 2023, remains Google’s newest tablet. For many years, Android tablets were largely synonymous with Samsung Galaxy Tabs.
These days, Lenovo offers Samsung the most consistent competition, although the OnePlus Pad may offer the best value for money. Then there are the very specialized devices, like Android E Ink tablets, which make me choose Android tablets over the iPad. That said, there’s a case to be made that the best Android tablet you can buy isn’t a tablet at all, but a book-style foldable phone. My Galaxy Z Fold 6’s 7.6-inch screen is larger than the Nexus 7’s, which showed me how much I preferred a smaller tablet in the first place.
The Honeycomb era only lasted a year, but it was a period when electronics stores were full of original Android hardware, all running a new, distinct version of Android. For many of us, Honeycomb worked on the first tablets we owned. I wouldn’t say these tablets were better – they weren’t – but it was an exciting time to see what this new form factor had to offer.
