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Tableau Delivers Native Android App

The wait is over: Tableau for Android is here. Tableau has delivered a native app optimized for Google's Android mobile operating system.

• By Steve Swoyer
• July 13, 2016

Tableau has delivered Tableau Mobile for Android, a native app optimized for Google's Android mobile operating system.

The Android version of Tableau Mobile follows on the heels of Tableau Mobile for iOS, which the data visualization giant announced in December of last year. "Our customers are out in the world making decisions, and they need their data where they are," said Dave Story, Tableau's vice president of product development, in a prepared release. "We're thrilled to bring Tableau Mobile to the tremendous number of people around the world who use Android smartphones."

Prior to Tableau Mobile, iOS and Android users weren't completely shut out of the Tableau-on-the-go experience. Users of iOS, Android, and Windows Phone could interact with Tableau via the Tableau Online software-as-a-service offering. (Until recently, OS X users were using the SaaS version as well; Tableau only shipped a version of its desktop software for OS X two years ago with Tableau 8.2.)

Like its iOS relation, however, the Android version of Tableau Mobile is a native app for Android. It's optimized to conform to the Android user experience, exploits mobile-specific functions (pinching, swiping, and swype-ing), and automatically scales visualizations, charts, and other artifacts for the mobile experience.

Also like the iOS version of Tableau Mobile, the new Android version permits users to search and browse for data visualizations, dashboards, and other artifacts. Just as important, Tableau Mobile for Android users can press, pinch, or swipe to interact with data.

Tableau Mobile for Android also supports encrypted access to Tableau Online -- or (albeit with an assist from IT) Tableau Server in the enterprise.

One thing still missing is an Android-optimized version of Vizable, the new data-visualization-for-the-rest-of-us app that Tableau launched for Apple's iPad late last year.

"Vizable is for people like you who know and love their data, but it's also for people who don't yet know that they, too, can see and understand their data," Dave Story told attendees at Tableau's Customer Conference last year. "If you have an iPad, data, and questions, Vizable is for you."

Story and Tableau positioned Vizable as a free data-viz offering for everybody -- or more precisely, for everybody with an iPad. "We want everyone to use Vizable," he said.

Between Vizable and Tableau Mobile, "everyone" now includes users of Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows 10, and other tablet platforms. Tableau Mobile for Android is available now via Google's "Play" app store.