What the Google

I’m very skeptical about Android tablets for two reasons: one, there’s no tablet-specific market for tablet-specific apps which will probably result in badly-scaled apps and a bad experience, and two, every Android device must have a cell connection - or at least cellular capability - to use the Android market.

This cuts off every non-phone device at the knees. The Samsung Tab is $600 minimum and has a cell radio. The wifi only iPad is $500. Assuming that both devices are equivalent in every other way (which I’m sure they aren’t), those that don’t need cell connections won’t waste $100.

This also harms potential iPod competitors like the Archos 32. Without that Market access you have to hope you can get the application some other way. Amazon is building its own Android app store, but it probably won’t be out soon, and will be regulated like Apple’s.

Even then, I still think that Android as a tablet OS is going to flop, at least in its current incarnation. Microsoft tried to get Windows into the tablet role without substantial UI restructuring and it failed. Android is going almost the exact same route, except scaling up instead of scaling down. ¹