Apple added a number of new APIs and UI extensions in order to make the iPhone OS suitable for a large screen. Until Google does the same with Android we'll be stuck with nothing but big Android cell phones.
Not the exact same thing, I know, but waving the Nintendo Wii controller around feels a lot closer to interacting with a touchscreen than it does my desktop, and there's a vast pool of UI design knowledge in the gaming market. Not instantly accessible to likes of us, but companies like Asus and their technology partners have the resources, developer infrastructure and motivation to open up alternative platforms.
The hardware companies have always depended on the software companies for things to run on their devices, and right now the software companies just don't have anything to compete with the iPad.
In other words, not to be compete or beat with apple technically in the short term, but to deny them marketing hegemony. Perhaps they'd rather wait for the initial iPad thunder to subside, than risk being tagged as 'a poor second best' in the first lap of the race. I suppose it depends on whether one feels engineering or brand positioning is the biggest determinant of long-term success.
Could someone explain what stuck out in the above?
Insta-edit: I see it's -1 now, and I don't have that strength yet, so it wasn't a mis-click.
What do you think is missing, or to say it another way, why is the iPad not just a big cell phone (minus the ability to make calls)?.
I'll put it this way: The iPad would not be a compelling device if it merely ran iPhone software at a higher resolution.
Hardware-wise, the iPad is nothing but an iPod Touch with a giant screen and a giant battery. Software-wise, it's everything but an iPod or iPhone; the use cases are very different. A touch-surface that's 5 times larger than an iPhone enables a much richer and more sophisticated UI, and this is evident in the iPad SDK, Apple's iPad software, and the successful 3rd-party iPad software.
Google needs to define their tablet HIG, they need to update their SDK to implement their HIG, they need to update their built-in apps to take advantage of the new SDK, and they need to get their 3rd party developers on board. All of this takes time, and I would not expect it to take shape before the spring or summer of 2011 (they're still "feverishly working" to get Android 2.2 out the door). Anything less will result in a product that's not as compelling as the iPad.
That said, I have no doubt that manufacturers will try to sell Android tablets before the Android OS is ready, and I have every confidence that those tablets will fail in the marketplace. But eventually there will be compelling Android tablets.
Having to update Android apps to take full advantage of newer form factors, is entirely different from having to fix Android itself to work with different form factors, and even if the apps are not updated they'll probably still generally work better than iPhone apps on iPads because of Android's inherent multiplicity of devices.