Google needs to show the ChromeOS tablet UI some serious love, and soon

Have you used a Chromebook tablet recently? I’d wager if you don’t own a Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3 or 5, there’s a solid chance the answer to that question is a clear no. Those who have convertible Chromebooks should be using the tablet UI from time to time, but I’d say the number that actually do is pretty low as well.

The clear trend for Chromebooks of late leans heavily towards the clamshell form factor, and while that’s been good for the season we’ve been in (hello, Chromebook Plus), the time is coming very soon where the tablet UI in ChromeOS is going to need some serious attention.

‘Geralt’, ‘Ciri’, and likely a few more tablets

And that time should align precisely with the release of a few tablets we’ve had our eyes on for quite some time. ‘Geralt’ is the code name for the main baseboard in this new wave of Chromebook tablets set to show up at some point likely in 2024, with ‘Ciri’ being the first tangible offshoot of that board. While both could become devices, none of that will solidify until we actually start seeing products arrive.

These new tablets stand to be very important in the Chromebook ecosystem; and with the yet-unnamed MediaTek MT8188 under the hood, there’s a chance we’ll finally see something in this particular category that we’ve yet to truly experience. Though we’ve had some good tablets along the way in the Chromebook world, there’s always been a performance gap that holds things back.

These new MT8188 tablets shouldn’t have that issue at all, and along with a solid battery life, they should give Chromebook tablets a much-needed performance boost that could really help smooth out some of the less-polished aspects of the ChromeOS tablet UI. We’re seeing signs of QHD screens, removable storage, and hope of a few tablets that aren’t held back by mediocre processors. But hardware’s only half of the equation, isn’t it?

Google needs to clean up the Chromebook tablet UI

I’ve written about this in the past, but ChromeOS isn’t terrible in tablet mode; it just feels a bit under-cooked. When the tablet mode overhaul happened with ChromeOS 70 and the Pixel Slate, things were an absolute mess. A couple years were spent cleaning things up, adding gesture navigation, and generally making the tablet side of the OS usable. But desktop mode has clearly become the focus in the past 1-2 years.

And it’s been really great. Changes to the app launcher, additions like Phone Hub, Quick Files, the quick-glance calendar widget, and window snapping tools all make productivity so nice on Chromebooks when I’m leaned in at the desk. But you feel a jarring lack of attention to detail the moment you lean back, detach or convert your Chromebook and start using it more like a tablet. And that needs to change.

With capable hardware on the horizon, a coordinated effort needs to be made to launch these new tablets with some fixes to the tablet mode on ChromeOS. First and foremost, the home screen needs to be overhauled. Whether it’s light or dark mode, the home screen (basically just a blown-up app drawer at this point) looks pretty silly. I know there’s nothing to put on the home screen since ChromeOS won’t let you pin apps or have widgets, but I really think a smaller, Pixel Tablet-style app drawer should be implemented (the desktop app drawer in ChromeOS already looks quite similar and would be workable). They could just put a clock, calendar and weather widget on the home screen for now, but this would greatly clean up the look of things.

Second, the multitasking and split-screen views need to be smoothed out a bit. Pick up any tablet (Android or iOS) and do some split screen multitasking. Then pick up a Chromebook tablet or convertible and do the same thing. There’s just a general lack of smoothness to the whole thing. I think the gestures are in the right place, but they need some fine tuning to feel native. Right now, things feel a bit bolted-on.

Finally, can we get a pattern login for the lock screen? I know a PIN is OK, but if we’re going to really sell these devices as tablets, at least a big, easy-to-use number pad should show up for the PIN input since ChromeOS requires 6 digits. Punching in my pin on the existing one is irksome and I always wish I simply had my pattern unlock option there for quick access. Better yet, I’m hoping there are fingerprint scanners on these new tablets that undo the need for any of this.

Google has a chance to do something special

I’ve long thought ChromeOS is the ideal landing spot for tablets. Assuming Google can get the tablet UI to be on par with something like the Pixel Tablet, you’d get the best of both worlds in a Chromebook tablet that has decent speed under the hood. We already know the desktop experience will be far better than any existing tablet can deliver, so simply cleaning up the tablet UI is all we need at this point. If done right, we’d finally have a few devices that are truly multi-modal, being great at both tablet activities and desktop ones as well.

But we’ve never quite made it there. Some of that blame is on the hardware available, and some of that blame falls on the ChromeOS team for never fully committing to the tablet side of the UI. It seems the hardware portion may be getting solved in the very near future, so the question remains: will Google step up and really improve the tablet UI before it gets here? Will they make the effort to not just help launch a few new tablets, but to make ChromeOS awesome on them? Time will tell, but I fear if we get new hardware with the same old software issues, these new tablets will suffer the same fate as those that have come before, and that couldn’t make me more sad to think about.