I think the difference with smartphones was that before Apple entered the market there were already many well established phone companies. What were they going

I think the difference with smartphones was that before Apple entered the market there were already many well established phone companies. What were they going to do, just shut up shop because Apple had shown up with a superior product? They just had to start selling better handsets, and since buying or developing a mobile OS is tough, they of course pounced on the free Android offer. The only way that market could have worked out any different would have been if all those companies somehow decided they'd rather just die off. Continuing to sell old-fashioned handsets indefinitely was simply not an option. With tablets on the other hand, where were the established players prior to Apple joining the fun? I can't think of any companies whose bread-and-butter was tablet computing and who would need to compete with the iPad or go out of business. For phone companies, failure to adopt Android would be disastrous (unless they had access to another half-decent OS already eg. Palm or RIM). For consumer electronics companies, trying to enter the tablet business and compete with Apple could bring disaster. Android does not play the same role here.