[stevenkovar]

The marvel of what Google is trying to accomplish is in making the product small and consumable, which is a challenge the article doesn't address in its 'David vs. Goliath' language. It takes a lot of effort to keep size, capacity, and power consumption in mind for a product with more mass appeal—not to mention the UX and style elements involved.

[korussian]

Exactly this. Everything needed for iPhone/iPad already existed off-the-shelf years prior as well. It takes a lot of oomph to condense all that into a beautiful little device that doesn't suck during real life day-to-day use.