Steve Jobs "Afraid" Of 7-Inch Tablets Reckons ViewSonic VP

ViewSonic's new ViewPad Android tablets aren't expected to reach the US market until later this year, but company VP Adam Hanin is already taking a fighting stance when it comes to Steve Jobs' criticisms of 7-inch slates.  Speaking to Laptop, Hanin says the Apple CEO "may be a little afraid of this category" and is lashing out at "whatever he can to attack because he sees (7-inch tablets) as a challenge to the dominance of the iPad."

Hanin also takes on Jobs' comments on Android fragmentation, pointing to the ViewPad 7's "pure Android" OS without any custom skin or interface.  Here ViewSonic's approach differs from, say, Samsung's, whose Galaxy Tab comes with various UI tweaks to suit the 7-inch display, and a number of custom apps intended to improve the tablet experience.

As for ViewSonic's stance on the ViewPad 10's mere Android 1.6 OS, Hanin claims that's a decision based on "optimizing" the software on the dual-booting slate.  That seems to be PR-speak for acknowledging that, so far, 1.6 is the newest version of Android up and running on x86 Atom CPUs.