Andy Rubin: 'I don't think there should be apps specific to a tablet'
After being grilled by Walt Mossberg at the Asia D kick-off, we decided to ask Android boss Andy Rubin about the lack of tablet-optimized apps and if that would improve with the new version of Android — Ice Cream Sandwich. Rubin didn't answer the latter part of that question specifically, but he did stress the one-app-for-all-devices strategy. "I don't think there should be apps specific to a tablet," he said. He also added that "if someone makes an ICS app it's going to run on phones and it's going to run on tablets." Now, that doesn't mean he doesn't think there shouldn't be apps optimized for larger screens, it just means that ICS will continue to work like Honeycomb, with a single app scaling differently to different screen sizes. (He referenced staying away from the Apple iPad / iPhone division in the App Store.) That makes sense to us, but Rubin didn't seem to be too concerned with those large screened apps: "the Twitter phone app works fine on a tablet." Indeed it does, but the experience is nowhere near as good as the one tweaked to take advantage of the iPad's larger screen. Still, Rubin assured Walt earlier in the evening that he was working aggressively to fill the Android tablet "missing pieces," and something tells us app selection and quality is one of them.

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