Google removes the tablet section from the official Android website; visiting the URL for the tablet page sends users back to the main Android site
Google has been doing an impressive job of pretending Android tablets don't exist for the last few years, and now it's done pretending.
Context & Ripple Effects
This reads like the end of a retreat that has been underway for months: just before Christmas 2017, Google pulled the Pixel C — its only remaining first-party Android tablet — from the Google Store, leaving android.com's tablet section pointing at hardware the company no longer sold.
Within a day of this removal, the section was back online, with Android SVP Hiroshi Lockheimer attributing it to a bug in a site update rather than a policy decision — but the episode landed against a backdrop where Google's tablet commitment was already in question.
First-order effects
- For the moment, nothing changes for buyers or OEMs: the tablet page returns the next day, and Lockheimer's bug explanation converts what looked like a strategic signal into a maintenance incident.
- Still, the near-miss exposed how little the page mattered — with the Pixel C already delisted, the official tablet section had no Google hardware left to showcase.
Second-order effects
- Samsung and other Android tablet makers lose the clearest proof point they had for the category when Google itself stops merchandising tablets, pushing them to justify the form factor on their own.
- A year on, the ambiguity resolves the other way: Google confirms it is canceling two unreleased smaller tablets and exiting the tablet business outright, keeping only phones and laptops.
Third-order effects
- Google's repeated starts and stops leave the Android large-screen market without a committed first-party anchor, a gap later acknowledged internally when co-founder Rich Miner takes a tablets CTO role in 2021 — evidence the company treats the category as something to revisit rather than abandon permanently.
- The pattern suggests Android's tablet strategy will keep oscillating between quiet deprioritization and revival attempts, with third-party OEMs carrying the category whenever Google steps back.
The trend: Google's relationship with Android tablets runs in cycles of withdrawal and reluctant recommitment, with each retreat shifting more of the category's fate onto Samsung and other OEMs.