What carrot? A carrot is an incentive. Google didn't embrace the tablet format until very recently, in the grand scheme of things. They haven't offered devs any special deals that I'm aware of β say a revenue split from the play store or paying them to deliver a tablet version of their app β so they didn't incentivise devs to focus on Android tablets.
iPads have dominated the market for so long, and remain a fairly predictable and consistent device to develop for, so... why would an app developer have poured time into an app for Android tablets in years past?
Extremely frustrating, but I suppose I get it.
I'll probably get some airtags. I have an iPhone I don't use, but I've taken to carrying a bag more often when I'm out, so I guess I can just keep the iPhone in there for these sorts of things. (And hope I don't lose the bag. π)