By Joe Levi

Android began life as an operating system for smartphones. So did iOS. Neither were designed to work on tablets. Since then, times have changed, and we’ve finally come to terms with the fact that people want large-screen devices. Apple pushed us in this direction with the original iPad.

There were growing pains as apps were re-tooled to take advantage of the larger screen. Some apps still haven’t caught up and are either stretched to fill the screen or only occupy an iPhone-sized square in the middle of the screen.

Android followed along shortly after Apple, releasing Honeycomb on the Motorola Xoom. Honeycomb was a necessary evil and most apps suffered from the same problems that plagued the early iPad: they didn’t take advantage of the new screen size.

That’s all behind us

Since then in the Android world we’ve learned from Honeycomb, released Ice Cream Sandwich, and now have months of experience with Jelly Bean. To recap, ICS integrated both tablet and smartphone operating systems again, and Jelly Bean made both smartphones and tablets “buttery smooth“.

Apps, however, still could do better with taking advantage of the available screen sizes.

Superphones

When Google started releasing higher-end smartphones they assigned a new name to them: “superphones”. They really were quite remarkable when compared to the run-of-the-mill “smartphone”.

Today superphones have become so commonplace that they are just our regular, everyday phones.

Where are all the Android Super Tablets?

Since we all have “super” phones these days, when is the “super” evolution going to come to our tablets?

We were really hoping to see some spectacular Android-powered tablets coming out of IFA. Other than a couple iterative releases from Samsung and a few others, most of the tablet news in Berlin centered around Windows 8.

Don’t get me wrong, Windows 8 is good news for tablets, and for Windows users. But it’s new and it’s growing pains are just getting started. Android, on the other hand, is primed and ready for some truly revolutionary advancements — if not that, then at least evolutionary.

Recently we’ve seen S-Pen, front-firing speakers, but very little remarkable hardware or software. Perhaps there was more news, and we just didn’t see it due to all the Windows 8 “noise”.

What do you think? Were Android Super Tablets present at IFA? If not, what will it take for a regular tablet to warrant the tile of “Super Tablet”? Let us know what you think in the comments below!