“While Apple might have sold an impressive 3.27 million iPads in less than a quarter, it has done so in the absence of any major competitors,” Andrew Berg reports for Wireless Week. “So, where are they?”

“From a slowdown in R&D spending during the recent recession to a lack of viable operating systems, analysts posit a number of reasons for the long wait on iPad alternatives,” Berg reports. “They’re also revising forecasts considerably to account for the incredible lack of tablets in a market that has been hyping them since the first rumblings of the iPad began years previous.”

Advertisement: Protect your iPad with the invisibleSHIELD.

“Sarah Rotman Epps, consumer product strategy analyst for Forrester Research, says the lack of viable tablet operating systems is one of the biggest reasons for the slow rollout of iPad competitors,” Berg reports. “‘iOS is unique in that it scales down to smartphones and up to tablets, but there’s no other OS that’s uniquely suited to tablets,’ she says, adding that the latest release of Android, which makes it slightly more tablet-friendly, just came out for developers within the past few weeks.”

“The same is true of Microsoft’s Windows, which while the company has said it wants to offer support for tablets, its strategy has been anything but predictable,” Berg reports. “And while Windows and Android eventually could have potential, Rotman Epps says that two lesser-known candidates could be way ahead of the pack. She notes that tablets based on webOS that are made by HP and tablets based on MeeGo, the operating system developed by Nokia and Intel, could be strong contenders in the space.”

MacDailyNews Take: Change “are made” to “may someday be made” in last sentence above.

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: The hope some of these analysts have that other companies will match the level of user experiences that Apple routinely delivers to their customers borders on the delusional. For they’ve never been able to match the Mac (despite decades of trying), or the iPod (despite nearly a decade of trying), or the iPhone – but, for some unknown reason, flying in the face of reality and facts, deluded hope springs eternal. Whatever iPad knockoff they come up with, one thing’s for sure, it’ll pale beside the real thing. Just like Windows, the upside-down and backwards Mac wannabe. Just like Zunes and all of the other fake iPods. Just like Android and the rest of the pretend iPhones.