When ASUS took to the stage at this year’s CES in January, they had some interesting products to show off. There was a new PadFone, budget-minded Android phones and of course, a big show of friendship with their buddies, Intel. The chip giant was a major face at this year’s CES and they had their eyes set on mobile this year, even if they’re yet to hit target. Their most interesting product however, was the Transformer TD300, which paired Android and Windows 8.1 on the same laptop/tablet hybrid. The Transformer Duet sports some incredible specs, 4GB of RAM, up to a Core i7 and more. Now, we’re hearing the TD300 is either going to be late to market, or it might not ever make it, because of Google. We’ve heard something on this before, and now it looks like the TD300 might not ever make it to store shelves.
The father of Android has apparently asked ASUS to “postpone” the launch of the Transformer Book Duet. Whether or not this means that there’s a more desktop-orientated version of Android coming (extremely unlikely) coming or not is unknown, but we would imagine that Google simply doesn’t want to be that close to Microsoft. Microsoft is presumably unhappy about this as well, but the upside is that more people are likely to buy a device that does more, and thus still get Windows 8 into people’s hands. We’re a little surprised to hear that Google is unhappy, but I have a good idea why.
Sure, more devices running Android mean more people using Google’s services, which is ultimately what Google wants. However, Android wasn’t designed to run on laptops, and while there are a plethora of keyboards out there, and even the hybrid Transformer line from ASUS themselves, we’re pretty sure that Google is wanting to keep their OS a tablet and phone-orientated product. We mustn’t forget that Android is now headed up by Sundar Pichai, the man that made Chrome great, as such Android laptops would make Chromebooks seem confusing to general consumers. They’re both from Google after all, and considering that Chromebooks are designed to be affordable and clearly usable devices, we can see why Mountain View wants to avoid confusion.