GoKawiilA recent piece of news concerning Google’s work on Android for tablets really drove home a point that’s been evident to many people for a long while.
According to Android Authority, Google is about to introduce a new badge to its Google Play Store that will highlight apps designed for the larger screens of tablets (and book-style foldables, obviously).
This is ostensibly positive news, but for my money, it speaks far more to Google’s whopping great failings in the tablet space.
Google’s tablet blind spot
You could question why it’s taken Google this long to highlight tablet-ready apps in such a fundamental fashion – Android tablets have been a thing since 2010, after all.
But I think it speaks to a far more fundamental issue. Why is Google still struggling with the split between apps that have been properly optimised for tablets and those that are simply stretched out phone apps?
This seems to be a problem from an earlier era, yet here it is, still plaguing Android tablet owners in mid-2026.
Jon Mundy / Foundry
Apple’s tablet dominance
Suffice to say, Apple doesn’t worry about any of this stuff. While there are still instances of mobile apps not coming to iPad for a protracted period – can you believe that WhatsApp only got a native iPad app last year? – you can generally count on a massive library of properly iPad-ready applications.
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