Google Working on Nexus Tablet to Compete With IPad

Google is working on a Nexus tablet for release by mid-2012, as the company looks to challenge Apple‘s iPad.

The Mountain View, Calif.- based company’s device will be “of the highest quality,” according to chairman Eric Schmidt‘s comments to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. Schmidt called Apple co-founder Steve Jobs “the Michelangelo of our time,” but said his company would compete hard in the market Jobs helped create.

Schmidt did not get into details about the potential specs of the tablet, but his company has only used the Nexus label on high-end smartphones that are “pure Google” devices. In other words, Nexus phones contain the stock version of the newest Android OS without bloatware from any manufacturer.

The Nexus tablet will also be high-end and likely run Google’s new Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich platform. The OS is a marriage of Android 2.3 Gingerbread for smartphones and Honeycomb, which has been used for tablets. Android tablets have struggled to gain traction against the iPad, but critics hail ICS as a much improved, cleaner OS that may have what it takes to go up against iOS.

Google’s exact strategy with the Nexus tablet is still unknown. There are no release dates, specs or manufacturing partners yet, but Schmidt’s proclamation that it will directly compete with the iPad is likely what will make it stand out. Companies like HP, Motorola and RIM rolled out tablet offerings priced similarly to the iPad, but all have failed, bringing new players in the market to take on Apple’s device.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire, priced well below the iPad at $200, is aimed at consumers who may find the price of the iPad too steep but are still interested in tablets. Similarly, Barnes & Noble‘s Nook Tablet offers the same type of specs and package as the Fire at $250. The two products are barely a month old, but initial sales have been good for both companies.

The Nexus brand name has accrued favor from consumers in the smartphone, but it remains to be seen if it’s strong enough to compete when attached to tablet that falls in the same price range as the iPad.

Google’s Nexus tablet may give the company the first high-end tablet that’s formidable enough to be labeled a true iPad competitor, but if it fails, it will join a long list of products before it that couldn’t knock the king off the throne.

Source: Forbes.com
Link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/mobiledia/2011/12/21/google-working-on-nexus-tablet-to-compete-with-ipad/