Rejoice, Android fans! Steve Jobs' best friend Eric Schmidt says that they are readying their own high-powered tablet to compete with the iPad 3. This Nexus tablet was rumored back in 2010, but he says it's now only six months away.


In an interview with Il Corriere della Sera, Schmidt declares that Google is preparing "a tablet of the highest quality" that will be in the market in six months, just in time to butt heads with Apple's next iPad revision. Presumably, this will be their tablet version of the Nexus, the crème de la crème of the Android tablets. He also says that we will see more "brutal competition between Apple and Google Android."


He also says that Steve Jobs was a "friend of mine" and a Michelangelo of our time.

Steve must be turning in his grave, and I don't blame him, but I love brutal competition. That's when we all win. [Corriere della Sera (in Italian) ]

Update: Sorry folks, this article is a duplicate.