Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam says that his company is working closely with Google on a tablet computer. The tablet will be based on the Android operating system.

While neither Verizon or Google would confirm the hardware partner, McAdam mentioned Google in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. "We're working on tablets together, for example," he said. "We're looking at all the things Google has in its archives that we could put on a tablet to make it a great experience."

By "archives", we guess that McAdam means Google's rather long list of products and services. Between Google's books, map, email, chat, latitude and other products, it would be pretty easy to stock a tablet with all that it needs initially.

McAdam hinted that the Verizon tablet would come about in a similar way to the Droid phone, with Google's OS, third-party hardware and Verizon's data network. Don't expect it too soon, either. Admitting that Verizon has been "handicapped" by its CDMA network, McAdam said new devices would be available to run on the company's new LTE 4G network early next year.

Another tidbit from the interview: It looks like Verizon will be shutting down unlimited, per-device data plans in favor of a "bucket of megabytes." These data-capped plans would be shared between devices – a tablet, a cellphone and an e-reader, for example.

This is exciting stuff. It looks like Apple will be facing stiffer competition in the tablet market than it ever did in the iPod market. With Android tablets now confirmed, and an HP/Palm tablet all but certain, hopefully consumers will see the benefit of all-out tablet war.

Verizon, Google Developing iPad Rival [Wall Street Journal]

Picture: nDevilTV/Flickr

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