I bet he's annoyed out of principle that they copied Apple, but I doubt he considers the "iped", or any China based knockoff a serious threat. At all.

An Android based tablet from a real competitor (like say, HTC, or the impending WebOS based one from HP) is certainly more in Apple's crosshairs.

Far from a threat. The arrival of clones on the market is expected and is necessarily a part of the plan -- everyone knows that a successful new product will be physically cloned overnight, which is why so much energy is expended on the brand, the associated services, the software, etc.

Meanwhile, this thing is a positive embarrassment for the Android brand. Or it would be if the word "Android" were ever publicly associated with the thing. Something tells me that Google's trademark lawyers -- and perhaps even this knockoff's manufacturers -- will make sure that this fact is not mentioned out loud except on tech news sites...

I would say it's a tribute to Android that it has such wide applications. It's a cheap and mostly functional device. Android devices aren't fashion statements; they are commodities.

I'd agree, the only real threat would be one which masquerades as the iPad well enough to run iPad software & access the app store. Then they'd have a support / image nightmare on their hands. Right now, all they have is something which feeds on a market Apple barely exists in, if at all.