The Unexpected iPad Effect: Android Tablets As A Marketing Commodity

A newspaper publisher in Philadelphia is giving a $99 tablet to customers who sign up for two year subscriptions to its papers, and GameStop is planning a dedicated gaming tablet based on older hardware running Android -- meanwhile it's confidently and cheekily offering cash back for traded-in iPads, iPhones, and iPods. Tablets as marketing gimmicks: This, ladies and gents, is the side effect of the iPad's continuing success in dominating the new portable computing genre.