Apple's announcement of the beautiful iPad tablet device is simply the ushering in of a new era in personal computing.  

However, silently, a virtual arms race to "own" the operating system (you know, the thing you install all your programs in) of these future devices has been well under way. Titans like Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, The Mozilla Project and others are racing to develop the underlying frameworks that will drive our tablet experience.  

The winner is the one with the most open and flexible developer API.  Happy developers means more innovative programs.  More innovative programs means more useful devices.

Presently, Windows 7 is the clear winner, running pretty much every Windows program you've used most of your computing life.

Can Apple and Google Android, with their controlled app delivery models, compete with a vast and mature library of free and familiar Windows based applications?  

Time will tell, but my guess is no.  

Without drastic changes in both Apple's and Google's developer models, they will fail to graduate from novelty to useful tool.

Here are just a few of the devices aimed directly at the tablet market: