Android Is Just a Development Platform, Example Number 285 ⇥

Google is reportedly working on its own-brand (or co-branded) tablet, which leads to a number of questions. Most concerning for those who already have Android tablets on the market is where their devices fit into this scenario.

If Google is able to release, as Eric Schmidt referred to it, a “tablet of the highest quality“, it will almost certainly be the flagship Android tablet, righting the wrongs of others’ attempts. But while this is in the spirit of openness and free use of the OS, it does so in a way that mimics Apple’s ideas of a controlled hardware-software stack.

Some will point to Amazon’s Kindle Fire as an example of the benefits of an open operating system, but who (besides us tech geeks) think of it as an Android tablet? It’s an Amazon tablet with an Amazon OS as far as most are concerned. It isn’t marketed as an Android tablet — the only such reference in Amazon’s literature is to its curated app store. This doesn’t consumers stupid or ill-informed, but demonstrates the elasticity of what is considered Android.