As we bid farewell to Nexus 9, let’s take a look back at the history of tablets

　　Google has been having trouble with consumer hardware products. Almost a month after removing the Nexus 9 from its own Play Store, HTC, the OEM manufacturer of the Nexus 9, announced two days ago that it would officially stop production. Together with the previously discontinued Google network set-top box product, the Nexus Player, which also belongs to Nexus, the only Nexus series left is the smartphone. If you are a fan of Google but haven't bought a Nexus 9 yet, you should hurry up and buy one, because it is on sale on eBay. Now the 32G WiFi version only costs 1960 RMB, while it cost more than 3,000 RMB when it was first launched in 2014.

　　It should be pointed out that Google stopped selling this Nexus hardware without any tablet alternatives. Considering that Google did not mention the latest situation of the Nexus series at the I/O conference just passed this year, we can say that Google currently has no corresponding products to compete with its rivals in the tablet product line (the Pixel C, which Google has high hopes for, is not a pure tablet product, so it is not included in this list).

　　Some media pointed out that the news that Google stopped selling its last Nexus tablet also reflects that the market position of tablets is becoming increasingly marginalized. According to data from multiple market institutions, the global tablet market has been falling sharply for several consecutive quarters. For example, according to IDC data, in the first quarter of 2016, global tablet sales fell sharply by 15%, among which the representative product of the tablet market, Apple iPad, also plummeted at a double-digit rate, becoming Apple's most severely declining electronic product.

　　iPad in 2010

　　The time goes back to 2010 when Apple released the first iPad. Although it was not the first tablet device in the strict sense - the LinusWrite Top in 1987 was the earliest tablet computer in history. However, no one can deny that the iPad has indeed ushered in a new era of tablet craze. At that time, because mobile phone screens were generally small, PC products were generally large and bulky, and even laptops were as thick as bricks, the tablet products launched at this time combined the large screen of PCs with the lightness and portability of mobile phones, so they were able to quickly occupy the market. The success of the iPad also attracted the follow-up of the Android platform. Various manufacturers have launched tablet computers based on the Android system. Nexus 9 can be regarded as the last train in this process.

　　However, smartphones are getting bigger and bigger nowadays. After Samsung redefined the size of smartphones a few years ago, this phenomenon has become unstoppable. Many manufacturers have launched 6-inch or even 6.5-inch smartphones (for example, the Xiaomi Max, which was just launched two days ago, has a screen size of 6.44 inches). This "smartphone" product between tablets and mobile phones has seriously eroded the living space of tablets. At the same time, coupled with the general trend that PC products have become increasingly thin and portable: for example, Samsung's ATIVBook 9 ultrabook weighs just over 900 grams and is less than 12.7 mm thick. In addition, the latest models of Apple's Mac, Dell's XPS and Lenovo's TInkPad X, these series of products, are all iterating in the direction of becoming thinner and lighter and more portable. Combining the above two points, tablet products have been sandwiched between the two and have become a kind of tasteless existence.

　　Surface must be mentioned

　　However, Microsoft did not sit back and wait for death as the PC market continued to shrink and the mobile market never improved. In 2012, Microsoft finally released the Surface series, finding a ray of hope in the sea of ​​PCs, tablets and mobile phones, namely a hybrid tablet that is a two-in-one PC and tablet.

　　In fact, the success of Surface can be considered inevitable. Except for iPad Pro, Apple's iPad series products have always been considered to enrich the size of iOS, and there is no idea of ​​making it a business office product. This can be seen from the fact that when iPad was first released, it was widely called an enlarged version of iPod Touch by foreign media. In addition, the fact that iPad has always had similar hardware configuration to iPhone is enough to show that it does not have the essential attributes of business office. The survey found that the main usage scenario of iPad is to use it during leisure time at home. This light usage also explains why iPad a few years ago is still competent now, and also explains why users lack motivation to upgrade iPad. And because Android has always been a follower of iPad in tablet devices, the difficulties encountered by iPad are also the problems of Android tablets.

　　However, as the mobile Internet continues to advance and fragmented time increases, after the initial novelty of tablets, users are no longer satisfied with the simple entertainment function of tablets, and the demand for mobile business office is becoming increasingly prominent. At this time, Microsoft's Surface has undergone product iterations and increased its size from the original 10.6 inches to 12 inches, which just caters to the pain points of user needs, and this is the fundamental reason for Surface's success.

　　While the tablet and PC markets are both experiencing a continuous decline, hybrid tablet products that integrate notebooks and tablets have become a product subcategory that has reversed growth. It has to be said that they are a unique existence. It is precisely because of this that various technology giants have also rushed to the market. In addition to the Surface series, the Apple iPad Pro launched later, Google's Pixel C, and Huawei's newly released MateBook are all representatives of this category.

　　iPad Pro and Pixel C

　　Among them, iPad Pro is undeniably a latecomer who has surpassed the competition. Since its release in September last year, despite the sharp drop in tablet shipments and the continued decline in iPad sales, iPad Pro sales have been quite impressive, with an estimated 3 million units (in 2015). In the top five tablet shipments in the first quarter of 2016 announced by IDC not long ago, Apple still ranked first, and the iPad Pro must have contributed greatly to this. However, Microsoft is not among the top five, which is normal. IDC believes that although Microsoft's Surface tablet has good sales, there is still room for further growth because it is still far behind the iPad in terms of magnitude.

　　Cook has said many times that iPad Pro will replace PC. Although this statement is a bit exaggerated, after reorganizing the product and positioning, it is proved that Apple fans are still very willing to accept iPad Pro. This is why after launching the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, it is said that there will be a 7.9-inch version. At the same time, it is undeniable that Surface Pro 4 did not lose to iPad Pro in terms of product (Microsoft said from the beginning that Surface 4's opponent is Apple's MacBook Air), but lost in Apple's broad and powerful user base. In front of the huge number of Apple fans, Microsoft also expressed its helplessness, although Microsoft is the pioneer of the detachable tablet market.

　　Feeling the pressure from the market, Google and Apple launched their own two-in-one tablet product Pixel C at almost the same time: the very textured aluminum alloy shell, the solidly made external keyboard, and the stylish and generous appearance make it look very consistent with the positioning of a high-end tablet. And the configuration is good: NvidiaX1 processor and 3GB memory, the resolution is 2560X1800 pixels, making the Pixel's computing power comparable to iPad Pro in multi-core running points. However, with such high-end hardware configuration, Google's tablet was criticized as soon as it was launched. Why is this?

　　Although it was three years after the launch of Surface, and it was already in the stage of passively responding to market demand, Google did not show enough sincerity when making changes. It simply equated business office with high configuration, and ignored the crucial system and software optimization. "Google has long ignored the support and optimization of tablet apps. Whenever I ask Google executives, they usually say that excellent mobile apps will perform well on large-size tablets, but everyone who has used an iPad can see the difference between mobile apps and apps optimized for tablets." Dr. Mo said. Therefore, even the newly released Pixel C still inevitably has screen response delays and freezes, and some software cannot even be displayed horizontally, which greatly affects the user experience.

　　However, this cannot be entirely blamed on Google. The open nature of the Android system, the wide variety of hardware models and screen sizes, and the inherent competitive relationship between manufacturers have resulted in the fragmentation and ecological chaos of the Android system. Although Google has repeatedly called on everyone to use the latest design specifications to write apps, it is far inferior to Apple's rigid specification in iOS updates.

　　The core is still software ecology

　　The success of Surface is due to Microsoft's product logic of turning PC into Surface. Compared with Google's implementation of business office application scenarios on Android, Microsoft's approach is undoubtedly a shortcut: relying on the rich software ecosystem on PC. Microsoft uses the "improved" version of the existing ecosystem as a starting point, which is not difficult to achieve at least technically.

　　On the other hand, Google's desire to implement business office labels on Android is a "creative" improvement from scratch. Although Google and Apple face the same problem and both need to achieve the commercialization of mobile platforms, Apple can rely on its absolute influence and market share to call on software developers to develop large-scale office software for iOS, which is much easier than Google.