As the race to get a tablet out the door to consumers heats up and competitors such as Samsung, Toshiba and RIM release their own, LG has decided to hold off on releasing a tablet. This decision is undoubtedly a setback to the South Korean company which has been struggling to find relevance in the smartphone market.
“We plan to introduce a tablet that runs on the most reliable Android version … We are in talks with Google to decide on the most suitable version for our tablet and that is not Froyo 2.2,” said an LG official to Reuters.
While the company has ranked as the third largest cell phone manufacturer worldwide, their smartphone sales have yet to reach 1 million units sold. LG has been banking on the release of a tablet to sweeten its offering to the electronics world and get back on its feet.
If LG has decided to wait for the next version of Android, it seems Google would agree with this decision. As has been widely noted before, Google admits that Froyo is not optimized for tablets.
Google’s director of mobile products, Hugo Barra, told TechRadar last month that, “Froyo is not optimized” for tablets. He continues, “if you want Android Market on that platform, the apps just wouldn’t run.”
In the meantime, with no tablet to show, it’s unclear how LG will weather the storm of emerging technology. It may well turn out that while they may be late to the game, waiting for a version of Android that is tablet optimized could be the right decision.
