"Additionally, it is easy to forget now, but when the iPad first came out it was widely criticized as being too similar to an iPod Touch."
The reason for all that disparagement was because it ended up in the locked-down ecosystem model of the iDevices rather than the open, general-purpose computer model of the Macs. We wouldn't be allowed to install our own software on it. Android tablets aren't much better than iPads in this regard. So yes, Apple-hate, along with a vain, irrational belief that Android was more open and therefore better, not that it made much of a difference in users' habits.