This is (probably) the unreleased Google Pixel Tablet Pen

Google’s Android tablet saga is a seemingly endless series of almosts, what ifs, and coulda-beens — and now, we’ve got one more chapter to add into that book.

First, a quick and very pertinent three-part power-round of context catch-up. Part one:

Way back in 2010, Google bought a company called BumpTop and seemed set to bring its wild three-dimensional interface concepts into the Android tablet arena — as I pieced together and recounted some years back.

But then, by 2011, with new leadership in place, the BumpTop concepts were mostly set aside.

And instead, in 2011, Google came out with an ambitious and almost completely different interface for large-screen Android tablet experiences with the Android 3.0 Honeycomb release. The software reimagined every bit of how we interact with our devices in an effort to take full advantage of the newfound screen space and create a more efficiency-optimized, productivity-minded environment.

But then — well, y’know: Google Googled. It failed to get developers on board with its vision, lost focus, pivoted, then flailed for a while, ultimately eliminating most of the Honeycomb concepts and making tablets look and work exactly like Android phones.

That’s the first chapter, in a sense. Then came the middle part of the story — part two, for our purposes:

In 2015, Google came out with an awkwardly positioned Android tablet called the Pixel C. It brought back a kinda-sorta tablet-optimized interface, but something always seemed slightly strange about the product — and certain slivers of sleuthing suggested it might’ve originally been intended to be a ChromeOS, not Android, device.

By 2017, the lack of any focus or momentum on Android tablets led me to declare that the Chromebook was, for all intents and purposes, the new Android tablet. It was clear by then that Google didn’t see much future in the tablet form or reason to invest in making it a good experience at the platform level.

And sure enough, by 2020, the company confirmed to me that it was done making its own tablets and would focus instead on laptop-style devices for its own self-made products.

You might think the fairy tale ends there — but, no siree, Bob, we’ve got another era yet. Here’s part three:

In 2022, I discovered and reported that one of Android’s lesser-known original co-founders had rejoined the company with the title of of “CTO, Android tablets.”

At the same time, word broke that Google was giving up on laptops, in a dizzying reversal from its two-years-earlier about-face.

And sure enough, in 2023, the flip-flop finished and Google revealed it was back in the tablet game with the Pixel Tablet and its bold but never fully realized ideas about reinventing the Android tablet as a whole new type of line-blurring device.

Initially, the Pixel Tablet was meant to be a smart-home control panel that you also used as a lean-back-style, more passive-use tablet. The problem is that while the device was — and still is! — an excellent tablet, the smart-home side of the experience felt weirdly half-baked and not especially exceptional.

Soon, the Pixel Tablet narrative shifted, and it looked like Google was gearing up to reinvent the device as more of a computer-replacing desktop system in its next iteration — with a wild new Android desktop mode at its core and, according to reports, native keyboard and stylus accessories to flesh out that picture.

But then the second-gen Pixel Tablet was reportedly cancelled before it ever even saw the light of day.

And that — insert massively exaggerated deep breath here… — brings us to today.

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Your guess is as good as mine as to if Google will ever put out its own tablet again and how many more about-faces we might be facing, but for now, what we have is that aforementioned pile of almosts, what ifs, and coulda-beens. And the latest of ’em is the productivity-centric future the Pixel Tablet almost brought us but never quite had the opportunity to deliver.

And that’s where things get freshly interesting:

The key software piece of that puzzle — the Android desktop mode — is, in fact, still being actively developed. It’s now a part of the latest Android 16 quarterly update beta, with the main purpose of letting you plug an Android phone into a monitor and then use it like a computer later this year.

As part of that development, the feature is now available on the original Pixel Tablet, with that beta Android version installed and the appropriate developer-level option enabled.

And, thanks to the wild luck and generous sharing of a member of my Intelligence Insider uber-geek community, I got my grubby hands on what very much appears to be the never-released Google Pixel Tablet Pen — a.k.a. the stylus we never saw as a part of the Pixel Tablet’s unrealized future.

So without further ado, here it is:

srcset='https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?quality=50&strip=all 1600w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=300%2C183&quality=50&strip=all 300w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=768%2C468&quality=50&strip=all 768w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=1024%2C623&quality=50&strip=all 1024w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=1536%2C935&quality=50&strip=all 1536w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=1145%2C697&quality=50&strip=all 1145w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=276%2C168&quality=50&strip=all 276w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=138%2C84&quality=50&strip=all 138w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=789%2C480&quality=50&strip=all 789w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=591%2C360&quality=50&strip=all 591w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=411%2C250&quality=50&strip=all 411w' width='1024' height='623' sizes='(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px'>What by all counts is the unreleased Google Pixel Tablet Pen, in the author’s suspiciously sweaty paw.JR Raphael, Foundry

The Pen has a clear “Designed by Google” logo on its flat edge, along with the address of Google’s Mountain View campus. It also sports the code “GM0KF,” which — drumroll, please… — is the exact same code noted in a leak about the stylus’s existence last December.

A code on the stylus’s side says “GM0KF,” which matches the code on earlier materials about the product.JR Raphael, Foundry

The Pen’s tip has a shiny silver metal button with a Google “G” logo printed atop it.

A familiar “G” logo adorns the stylus’s top.JR Raphael, Foundry

And, yes, it is a dead ringer for the product pictured in that leak. We’re looking at the same exact thing.

The stylus looks exactly like what’s pictured in previously leaked Pixel Tablet Pen materials.JR Raphael, Foundry

(I’ve reached out to Google several times over the past several days to see if it could provide any context or comment at all about the product, its existence, and if or when it might ever actually be released. As of this writing, the company has yet to offer any information.)

I charged the stylus via the built-in USB-C port, and it immediately started working on my Pixel Tablet. When I hold the Pen’s tip just above the Pixel Tablet’s screen, selectable elements beneath it respond and pop a bit to indicate they’re pressable. If it’s a text field — like the search box on the home screen — a cursor icon appears, and touching the Pen to the box pulls up a pop-up about how to use the stylus to write and have words automatically converted into text as well as how to perform a variety of editing operations entirely with the stylus.

A demo window explains how the Pixel Tablet Pen works in terms of writing and text editing.JR Raphael, Foundry

Once that demo window is closed, I can just write anywhere on the screen, anytime. Once I bring the Pen close to the Pixel Tablet’s display, that same cursor icon appears, and the entire screen essentially turns into an open surface for input.

You can write anywhere on the Pixel Tablet’s screen and have your words turned into text.JR Raphael, Foundry

The writing-to-text conversion works quite well, even with my drunken-toddler-level chicken-scratch handwriting. The Pen performs great on surfaces meant for freestyle writing, too, like with the drawing feature in Google Keep. Its input is smooth and consistent, and it’s incredibly easy to use.

The Android Google Keep app is especially well-suited to input with the Pixel Tablet Pen.JR Raphael, Foundry

Those unofficial reports from a while ago showed an animation indicating that pressing the Pen’s button would pull up a “quick note-taking app” of some sort sort, but that doesn’t seem to work for me. The button doesn’t do anything at all, as far as I can tell — which probably isn’t surprising, since any such function would presumably require a missing software update in order to work.

Beyond that, there isn’t a heck of a lot remarkable about the hardware itself. The Pen has a soft-touch finish and feels light and comfy to hold. Oh, and it even sticks magnetically to a specific spot on the back side of the tablet itself as well as the official Google Pixel Tablet case — which certainly seems like a deliberate touch.

The stylus sticks to the back of the Pixel Tablet as well as its case in a deliberate-seeming position.JR Raphael, Foundry

Android’s still under-development desktop mode works nicely with the Pen to create a more computer-like experience, meanwhile — especially if you also hook up a keyboard accessory of some sort. The software isn’t quite there yet, though, and is certainly nowhere near the level of true desktop-caliber productivity you get with a Chromebook, in large part because of the ways the Chrome Android app differs from the native desktop version.

But Google seems determined to close that gap, so we’ll see how things progress over time. That mission, however, appears to be more about bringing Android into the desktop domain than bringing the desktop domain into Android — for the moment, at least, though as we’ve seen so many times before, you never know how Google might change its mind in the future.

For now, this is mostly just a glimpse at another Android tablet almost — as far as the Pixel Tablet and the Pen are concerned. It’s an eye-opening look at a future we’ll probably never experience, in this specific scenario. And it’s the latest in a long, ever-expanding line of Android tablet coulda-beens.

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