Part of Apple's charm was the unveiling of the products. Recently, Apple products are regular leaked before their unveiling. The leaks usually happen overseas. A US manufacturing supply chain would dramatically decrease these leaks.

Check Google's investor relations site, http://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html. They make a majority of their revenue off ads ($28.2B in 2010.) They only made $1B in other revenues in 2010. Google really doesn't care what OS/browser you use; they just want to make sure you use their search engine and ad platform. What better way to control the user search and ad platform preference than control the OS.

I think Android has a large install base because Android phones are cheaper. AT&T has 4 Android phones under $20, T-Mobile has 4 free phones, and Sprint has 2 free phones (all with 2 yr contract.) My mom, dad, and aunt don't care if you root or jailbreak your phone. They want a cheap phone that can email, browse the web, and show off picture of the grandkids. Their is a lot more non-geek user than geek users; they don't care about the underlying technology, they just want a cheap phone.

AOL was an ISP. It was easy to copy and improve on AOL's early business model and ISPs become a community in a very short time. Even today, no one wants to become a "dump pipe," just look at how the cable companies and cellular networks try to protect their turf with long term contracts and bundling their data service with something else (TV, movie, phone, etc.) AOL didn't know how to evolve, AOL died.

Google is an advertiser/data miner. It is very hard to copy or capture Google's data. Google's business model is secure because of extreme high cost to enter the market. The only thing Google has to worry about is users giving their data to someone else. That is why they made Android and Chrome; prevents MS and Yahoo from gathering user data. Facebook, not Apple, is the only real threat to Google.

If memory serves me right, didn't the early versions of AOL work a similar way as the Chrome browser? A user types in a keyword into the AOL broswer and AOL matched the keyword with a URL, website pops up. A user types a keyword in Chrome and Chrome searches your history or uses Google's search engine to match the keyword with a URL, website pops up. I know you can change the search engines in Chrome but the end result is the same; the user doesn't have to know how the Internet works to use the Internet.

History repeats itself.

Apple only blocks their software from working with other people's hardware (Palm syncing with iTunes) or if the software turns their hardware into a commodity (Flash on iOS.) Once you buy their hardware, they couldn't care less if you use non-apple software.

Citation needed

I can see why you want a USB port for a table; transfer photos from cameras, share files via a flash drive, and a keyboard. I'm sure a 80% of the tablet market could find a use for USB port or USB adapter (I'm not a fan of the iPad adapter but it does work.) The added expense of the USB port would increase sales. The increase in sales would offset the increased cost of the tablet and increase profits. I don't think a significant majority needs a HDMI port at this time. The number one feature of a tablet is it extremely portable; laying in bed or couch at odd angles is one reason why I use my tablet. Having it tethered to your TV sounds like a pain in the ass. It also means I'd have to carry a cable with me at all times or leave one plugged into my TV and hope others others have a spare HDMI cable with their TV. Non-slashdot people won't like that solution and their purchasing power is much larger than the slashdot crowd. Apple's Airplay or similar technology is the better answer but Airplay isn't supported by other manufacture (I'm 99% sure it is proprietary.) The small increase of sales would not offset the increased cost of the tablet and decrease profits.