Google Mulling Tablet in Apple's Wake

Less than a week after Apple unveiled its long-anticipated tablet, its growing nemesis Google has decided to stir things up by posting photos of a mock-up tablet running its own Chrome OS.

With some of the complaints about the iPad around its lack of flexibility and multitasking capabilities, there might still be a space to grab the tablet market from Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) hands. And as Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) finds itself on an apparent collision course with Apple through its Nexus One phone, Android OS and Chrome, a tablet seems the next likely battlefield.

But the mock-ups are just that. There is no product formally in the works from Google. There are a number of form factor mock-ups on the Chrome developers' forum, including netbooks, notebooks, and desktops.

Given the open-source nature of Chrome OS, it would be possible for any device maker to take the operating system and adapt it for their hardware, just as several have done with Chrome OS-powered netbooks.

"Google Chrome OS is still in development and we are constantly experimenting with various user interfaces to determine what designs would produce the best user experience," a Google spokesperson told InternetNews.com. "As we've said all along, the UI is still under development and will continue to evolve as we determine which designs work best for our users."

One of the mock-up images shows that services like Facebook, the browser and calendar appear in a pop-up menu within an open document. You don't appear to switch between tasks via Alt-Tab like on a PC, but rather by simply tapping on the open window of the application. The keyboard is a soft keyboard like the iPad's, appearing on the touch screen.

A video demo of the design, using animation, shows multiple open windows and a multitasking operating system, with the user dragging windows around and resizing with two hands. However, the hands on the tablet, if to scale, would either have to be that of an infant using a 10-inch screen, or an adult on a tablet about three feet wide.

Andy Patrizio is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.