In the war of the giants,over Apple’s new iPad reaches a fever pitch, Google is not standing idly by.The search giant has already unveiled concept designs for its own version of a tablet, though it’s unlikely that a Google tablet will hit store shelves until at least 2011.Developers of Google Chrome OS, an open-source operating system that is set to debut in the second half of 2010, recently posted a mock tablet design on the developers’ Web site chromium.org.

The design was actually unveiled two days before Apple CEO Steve Jobs gave the world its first glimpse at the iPad. But it wasn’t widely noticed until this week.According to chromium.org, Google’s operating system would be optimized for a tablet that has a 5-inch to 10-inch screen, but it could work on larger devices.

“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,” said a Google spokesman.Google probably won’t design the tablet hardware itself. Instead, as with its Nexus One smartphone, which is made by HTC but runs Google’s Android operating system, Google would probably look to partner with one or more hardware makers.

With a Chrome OS launch slated for the the holiday season, it is unlikely that a Google tablet would be released until next year at the earliest.Now who is gonna win in this tablet war ? Well at present i can say Google can overtake iPad considering its running the chrome OS which is much more snazzier than the OS running on the iPad.This can be compared after the move to Android which is gaining market share like wildfire after the Motorola Droid.

“Google has tremendous momentum in software…and it certainly isn’t running away from Apple,” said Laura DiDio, principal analyst at ITIC.Though price, ease of use and hardware functionality will certainly be important factors in who wins the tablet battle, the most important determinant of who comes out on top may be the variety and quality of applications available for the devices.

Applications are what will help tailor the tablet to your use and make it relevant,” said David Krajicek, managing director of market research firm GfK Technology. “If we’re going to have tablet mania, Apple can use Safari and Google will try to convince everyone else to use Chrome.”

There is also news of HTC with Sense UI and MSI tablet too coming up soon and also the Joo Joo tablet.If you are not familiar with what is Sense UI.Sense is a UI, not an OS. Think of it as a layer running on top of your OS which helps you customize your various menus with a widget based interface and puts up multiple side-scrolling homescreen panes.So basically, it snazzed up Windows Mobile as well because it’s a UI which has been ported to both the operating systems.

Actually, Apple’s marketshare has dropped despite stellar sales. Between the third and fourth quarter of 2009, Apple had to face a 1.5% drop in market share, even though Apple sold 18% more iphones in the fourth quarter compared to the third one. This is because of the competitors. The overall smartphone market did better than what Apple did. With Android coming in headstrong, 2010 will be an interesting year, specifically after the MWC in Feb. I wonder if iPad will help them rake some greens up.

Apple touted the iPad’s ability to run all of the iPhone’s 140,000 apps. Though a tablet running Chrome OS wouldn’t likely be able to run the tens of thousands of apps available on Android phones, a “Google tablet” would be optimized to run Google’s host of Web applications like Gmail, Google Docs and Picasa.

Tablets with Chrome OS would also likely integrate Google Books to compete with the iPad’s iBookstore and other e-reading devices like Amazon.com’s Kindle.In the end, it won’t be about the most apps but the best apps, Krajicek argued. He said the winner of the tablet wars will likely be the one that integrates multimedia and Web browsing the best, but will not necessarily the one with the most bells and whistles.If a Google tablet can run e-mail, browsing, media and word processing better than the iPad, it could ultimately win out.