Samsung Galaxy Tab to Fly American

The airline will reportedly deploy 6,000 of the Android 3.1 tablets on certain flights between New York and Los Angeles, Miami and Los Angeles and some flights to Europe and South America.

The tablets will reportedly feature a user interface customized for American and more memory than on commercially available versions of the device.

The Tab 10.1 is Samsung's most direct competitor to the iPad line, though the Galaxy Tab 8.9 has a screen that's only slightly smaller than Apple's tablets. Both are thinner and lighter than the iPad 2, and pose one of the most credible threats to Apple's tablet hegemony to date.

Part of Apple's tablet success is attributable to its skillful brand marketing, which already enjoys massive global mindshare. Getting people to think about anything other than an iPad when they hear the word "tablet" is substantial part of the battle that competitors face. The Samsung-American deal is the kind of thing that those companies need to challenge the incumbent Apple.

Recent estimates put Apple's share of the tablet market at around 70 percent, down from more than 90 percent last year. At least some analysts see that number continuing to erode, with Android devices making a big dent and other platform contenders -- RIM's QNX, HP's WebOS -- growing as well.

According to Gartner, iOS tablets will dip below half of the market by 2015, with Android devices approaching 40 percent.

But predicting the future is a shaky business. Gartner's projections, for example, don't take into account Microsoft's likely entry into the tablet space next year, with devices running the next version of its Windows operating system.

The appeal of a single OS across computers and tablets could be substantial. But it's unclear if such a competitor would eat into iOS or Android market share more.

Until then at least, Android seems set to make inroads as its done in the smartphone market.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is in limited release now, with full availability expected on June 17. The Galaxy Tab 8.9 is expected later this summer.