At its annual developer conference,Google I/O, the company unveiled a bunch of new hardware, including the Pixel Tablet. The product is yet to reach customers, but Google is tapping into its experience developing theNest Hub Maxand shipping the Pixel Tablet with a dock. When left docked, the tablet should display a screensaver of your choice. Although we didn’t get to explore the options fully during ourhands-on with the Pixel Tabletat Google I/O, an accidentally listed app has done it.
The Pixel tablet is Google’s first tablet since 2019’s Pixel Slate, making it a cornerstone product in Google’s hardware endeavors. The company wants to make the take-me-anywhere smart display as useful when docked as when mobile. For this reason, it comes with Assistant support, and can be a smart home hub on command. Otherwise, it should display full-screen clocks, among other things.
The now-deleted Play Store listing for the Dreams app
Google accidentally listed the Dreams app on the Play Store, meant only for thePixel Tablet. Although the listing was taken down immediately afterward, it was up long enough for9to5Googleto install and take it for a spin on a Samsung Galaxy series tablet — something that shouldn’t be possible normally.
The new Pixel Tablet screensaver previewed on a Pixel phone (Source:9to5Google)
Running the app on a Pixel phone revealed new options besides the standard Colors, Clock, and Photos options in Android’sScreen savermenu. There are several new options for a full-screen clock, and Google’s croaky weather toad from Android gets its own screensaver too. The full list of new ones are:
Although the Dreams app adds new screensavers to the Pixel settings menu, it isn’t designed to work on a smaller smartphone display. 9to5Google managed to pull up previews for them, and they didn’t render perfectly, or were too tightly cropped in, further lending credence to the theory they are meant for the Pixel Tablet.
We will take a closer look at these screensaver options when we review the new Pixel Tablet in detail.
Google Pixel Tablet
The Pixel Tablet was designed and built entirely by Google, from the Android OS software to the unique hardware, which features a charging base that doubles as a speaker and can turn the Pixel Tablet into a smart home hub or a photo frame when you’re not holding it.
