Google takes on rivals with new tablet
June 27, 2012 7:34 pm
By Tim Bradshaw in San
Francisco
Google opened two new
fronts in the computer hardware wars on Wednesday with the launch of a new
7-inch tablet and a living-room media device running its latest Android
software that it hopes will challenge Apple, Amazon and Microsoft.
At its annual developer
conference in San Francisco, Google unveiled the $199 Nexus 7 tablet, built in
partnership with Asus, the Taiwanese developer, which runs its new Jelly Bean
version of Android and undercuts the $399 price of Apple’s entry-level iPad. It
also showed off a new media-streaming device, the Nexus Q.
The two devices illustrate
how software and internet companies such as Google and Microsoft are shifting
towards building their own desirable hardware that taps their users’
cloud-based media, apeing Apple’s longstanding approach of integrated
technology and content.
Microsoft last week
launched its Surface tablet, stressing the desirability of its magnesium-alloy
casing and taking its first big step into computer hardware design to
complement the latest version of its Windows operating system.
The wireless, spherical Nexus
Q is “not just another black box”, Google said, while stressing the media
capabilities of the Nexus 7, which it said had a high-definition display,
faster graphics chips and is the weight of a paperback book.
In an effort to catch up
with what analysts have seen as Apple and Amazon’s advantage in content for
tablets, Google announced new TV and movie deals with studios including Disney,
NBC Universal and Paramount, as well as a range of magazines available on its
Google Play app store, through new partnerships with publishers such as Hearst
and Condé Nast.
The tablet will ship in
mid-July to the US, UK and other countries. The latest version of Android,
rolling out in the same period, also offers new voice-search capabilities, akin
to Apple’s Siri virtual assistant.
A new contextual search
tool called Google Now uses individuals’ location, calendar and search history
to offer live information about traffic and sports scores that it believes they
will be interested in without actively searching for it.
Both devices also
integrate Google+, Google’s year-old social network. A front-facing camera on
the Nexus 7 will allow people to join its “hangouts” – group video chats –
while the Q will allow friends to collectively create playlists of music from
their smartphones.
Google+ now has 250m
registered accounts with 150m monthly active users, with more using the service
from mobile than desktop computers.
Forrester Research analyst
James McQuivey said Google was learning lessons from Amazon, which also offers
a $199 tablet based on Android.
“Google can see that the
only way to beat the premium-worthy iPad is to go for the millions of customers
who are ready for smaller and cheaper tablets and then grow those customers
into more Android powered devices and, more importantly, Google-powered
services like Google Play and whatever paid video experience YouTube will
likely create,” Mr McQuivey said.
“That range of services
will be the secret to stitching together this rag-tag fleet of Android gadgets
into a platform that can compete with Apple for minutes of users’ attention
rather than premium-device dollars.”
Users of Android
smartphones and tablets are being added at a rate of 1m a day to reach a total
of 400m globally, said the product’s director Hugo Barra, with the 600,000 apps
now available on Google Play having been downloaded a total of 20bn times.
Growth is particularly
rapid in emerging markets such as Brazil, India and Indonesia, Mr Barra said.
Copyright The Financial
Times Limited 2012.
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