Will Android Phones and Tablets Soon overtake the iPhone and iPad?

Tech companies showed off several new tablets during the D: Dive Into Mobile conference that ended yesterday in San Francisco, and All Things Digital has done a wonderful job of posting videos of demonstrations you might be interested in. Want to see the Blackberry Playbook in action? Here’s the demo.

If you love Android, you’re probably excited to hear the news that Honeycomb is set to launch on the Motorola tablet in 2011. What’s it going to look like? Here’s a prototype demo. It looks slick.

In the video, there is some discussion on how the product compares to the iPad, and Apple technology in general. The technology on both sides is smart. But I’ve been amazed at how Android has caught fire in the market place — seriously, who could have predicted when Android became available as open-source software in 2008 that the system would be breathing down Apple’s oh-so-popular neck a scarce two years later? Android and Apple are literally running neck and neck in the smartphone market.

Just how concerned is Apple? Android aficionados picked up on Apple’s recent ban of Android Magazine from its app store pretty quickly. And although Steve Wozniak thinks that Apple technology is the best quality around today, even the Woz concedes that Android’s popularity will surpass the iPhone.

What has amazed me is that Microsoft hasn’t worked for a stronger presence — or, let’s face it, much of a presence at all – in the mobile technology market. I did a quick search online for any upcoming innovation as far as smartphones or tablets are concerned, and I could almost hear crickets. I’m not the only one to notice, either.