Beyond a superficial "touchable screen", most of Apple's tablet competitors have been heavily influenced WebOS - watch the PlayBook and TouchPad in action and you'll see navigation and multitasking are almost identical, as is the gestures used to control the device (swiping a card up to close the app). Meanwhile, the guy behind WebOS is the same guy behind Honeycomb, which also borrows the task manager and (don't know which came first) notifications.
But it just isn't cool to say the tablet makers are copying webOS or have their own guts (Android notification system, while nothing like webOS is still distinct and lot better designed for example) - people just love being told that everything interesting in the universe is copied from Apple :)
True, but for me, the decent tablet Apple ships isn't nearly enough. I need Flash, decent multitasking, USB port, normal file system access and more so a standalone device not tied to my computer in any way shape or form.
To that end Xoom is looking great and may be webOS will beat it in most key departments, but I can buy Xoom like next week.
But of course original iPhone Mobile Safari never went anywhere near the word multitasking but that aside - correct me if I am mistaken but original iPhone Mobile Safari did not use a card system - i.e. you could not swipe up the Safari windows to dismiss them or anything which is the most innovative feature of the webOS multitasking. Just showing mini windows side by side that can be closed using a X button - that was done long time before iPhone.
