Just before I get onto what the thought was, I was also doing some thinking yesterday as well (you can tell its the holidays). A friend was given an iPad for doing a talk on IPTV at Broadband World Forum 2010, they turned up with it in one of the covers that makes it look like a leatherbound book, and you a little bit of a idiot on the tube (I have a feeling this will change as tablets become more commonplace). I had a little play, and it is undoubtedly a smart little device. Browsing around the OS itself was a pleasure. Apps open quickly and the screen is gorgeous to look at. I was quickly reading their iPad subscription to Empire, and then surfing the net (admittedly using my Androids hotspot feature, which made me think that 3G was essential), and everything seemed to just work how I would expect it to, in that magical way that Apple seem to design things. I want one and I'd buy one. But not as my main computer and not at the price that Apple want me to pay. The lack of physical keys still makes doing any task that involves a lot of writing a bit of a pain.
So this xmas I want a Kindle, and I want an Ipad. But I need neither. What I will buy is an Android tablet. Despite the not-too-bad job they've done I've no desire to take the plunge with the Galaxy tab and Toshiba's own shoehorned Android 2.2 tablets, and because of this I can't help but think that Google have dropped the ball with a post Xmas release of Honeycomb (the new version of Android targetted at tablets). I'm sure in 2011 we are going to see a deluge of Honeycomb tablets, it seems everytime I logon to Hexus a new manufacturer has a press release stating their intentions to release a Android tablet in the coming months, but its a great shame that they haven't already dropped.
Once again, I'd like to emphasise the importance of the app market in the success of a mobile OS, and what this has to do with the missed opportunity this xmas. Microsoft are currently paying the price for being last to market with the W7 phones. Hardware wise, they are great, but the reason I'd buy either an Android phone or a iPhone over them now is that 1. The app store is tiny in comparison. And 2. I've already made an investment in the Android marketplace which I take with me as I upgrade my phone. I certainly don't want to have to rebuy all my old apps for a new device. This will be the same problem Google will be facing with the tablets. Those who desire a tablet this xmas, only have one real option, the iPad. Still, its the same battle that Google faced on the mobile market and they have had astounding success there. The amount of companies already committed to manufacturing an Android tablet is also assuring.
In truth I also know that if Google released a buggy, unintuitive tablet OS, into this very new sector, where a lot of people will be buying for the first time, it would put a lot of people off using an Android tablet in the future, and for me at least, once you buy into an OS, it's very hard to switch it up.
I'd like to see some statistics on the amount of people who have switched between mobile OS's.
