ASUS is talking about releasing the Transformer 2 with ICS in November.

Bear with me here... I'm not disagreeing that Android was a little rough compared to iOS and that it was rushed. I just read an article, maybe on Wired, that basically has Google saying, "Honeycomb was rushed to market and had some serious flaws".

But check it - 27% of the global tablet market and that HAS to combine Android 2.1, 2.2 and Honeycomb tablets. (Jason is arguing that is just channel figures, not sell-through... but if that 27% is just sitting in the channel not moving, then Android tablets aren't just in trouble, they're dead. I don't think Jason is right about that. The majority of that 27% has sold through... with some vendors doing way better than others).

Which is what I said back when it was just the Samsung Galaxy and the Xoom figures, and things were looking really bad. I said, "the first wave of viable Android alternatives that are creating excitement have just arrived, and we're looking at numbers that only reflect the Xoom and Galaxy, which didn't create much excitement. Wait until next quarter, and we'll see Android having much bigger numbers".

And here we are, and there are those numbers I predicted.

And that is with what you state, and I admit, is a fundamentally flawed flagship tablet OS platform.

So, the ASUS Transformer had awesome sell through that exceeded capacity for the first two or three months, and is still a popular choice. The Acer Iconia caught the imagination of a lot of purchasers, and there are a handful of other tablets now, Toshiba, Sony, HTC, Lenovo and others - not to mention the 2nd and 3rd tier brands like Viewsonic, Coby... plus the purpose driven Pandigitals, Nooks and Kindle Fires...

Now Asus is promising a delivery in November of a quad-core, Transformer TF201 with ICS, prices are coming down rapidly, there is all this activity...

Are you SURE you're on Jason's side, or when you really look at it, do you think that maybe by the first quarter of next year, we'll be looking at iPad2 sales numbers and going, "Wow, Android ate Apple's lunch this holiday season, didn't they?"

Not... you know... all of it... but maybe a significant portion of it. Enough to be considered competitive? To be considered a viable alternative?

I dunno. Maybe you and Jason are right. I've been way off base before on this stuff. I didn't even think the iPad would get off the ground.

I guess we'll know soon enough, though. But I guess the real numbers won't be available until February or March of 2012. I'll be interested in seeing what they say.