Tablet OS

It’s not just that Apple is different among computer makers. It’s that Apple is the only one that even can be different, because it’s the only one that has its own OS. Part of the industry-wide herd mentality is an assumption that no one else can make a computer OS — that anyone can make a computer but only Microsoft can make an OS.

John Gruber made the point in 2009 that it’s hard to compete with Apple when you don’t control a major chunk of your product - the OS.

Back then Android didn’t have the support it does now, and WebOS wasn’t backed by HP. More importantly the iPad hadn’t launched yet. It’s various competitors hadn’t been announced yet either… 

Honeycomb looks impressive, HP is talking big and iOS is going form strength to strength. The biggest thing tablets have going for them in the next couple of years isn’t multi-touch or an app-store, it’s a level of competition in the OS and application space that has long been missing from the desktop market. 

We’ve also gotten much better at resolving interoperability problems than we were when desktop OSes were in their infancy - regardless of the OS you choose there are a raft of web apps and services that will work on all of them.

I, for one, am looking forward to seeing where this goes.