LG Working On New Tablet?

Like rival smartphone-maker HTC, it looks like LG may be looking at renewing its 7 inch tablet efforts with a forthcoming tablet that could debut as early as the third quarter of this year. At this point, there’s still not a lot of information known about LG’s tablet effort or which operating system that tablet will run. The company had relied on Google’s Android OS in the past to power its Optimus Pad series slates, but LG could potentially base its new tablet endeavors on new operating systems, such as Windows 8 or Windows RT from Microsoft.

A move into the Windows RT space could potentially make LG a competitor with HTC, the latter of which is rumored to be working on two tablets with Microsoft’s Windows RT OS. Samsung had said in the past that Windows RT was confusing and it would not release a tablet in the U.S. market with Windows RT on board; instead Samsung had chosen Windows 8 and Android for its discount cell phones endeavors.

Another smartphone-maker without a tablet in its portfolio is Nokia, which is also rumored to be working with Microsoft on either a Windows 8 or Windows RT slate.

However, LG’s ties to Google are still pretty strong, and an Android offering may still be in the cards. LG was rumored to be courting Google to help it in the TV space and the two has enjoyed a successful Nexus 4 launch, a smartphone that’s branded by Google but made by LG and shares a similar chassis and design to the LG Optimus G flagship. As such, a new tablets running Android may help further the relationship between LG and Google.

"We see different kinds of successful experiences on each platform. Great content creators create content natively for that platform," he says, while noting that Zynga wants to take its most popular games across as many platforms as possible, and citing Words With Friends' journey from smartphones to tablets and then Facebook as an example.D1dS343D

Is Zynga thinking tablet-first in 2013, though? Finnish startup Supercell did in 2012, and its Clash of Clans and Hay Day games generated $179m of revenues for the company in the first quarter of 2013 alone. Is that nudging Zynga towards a similar tablet-first strategy, at least for some games?

"There are great games that new android tablet started on Facebook like Zynga Poker, which later extended to mobile phones and to tablets," Boatman says. "And there are games that we are building that are focused on tablets first, and if they're very successful there, we may extend them to Facebook and mobile."