Part of the magic of the iPad, promises Steve Jobs, is the ability for any age group with any tech experience to pick up the device and quickly understand how to use it. There's something about the touchscreen, something about the swipe that is far more intuitive, he argues, than the keyboard or the mouse.

But is that just an iPad thing?

Me, I confess, I'm drawn to Apple devices. I want to like Google's Android devices -- "open" and all that -- but I just don't.

I have an iPhone and an Android phone. Such is the world of a technology journalist. Until quite recently, the latter piece of hardware was necessary as the AT&T iPhone was frequently utterly unusable in San Francisco, and I'd have to fire up the ol' Verizon Android in order to make a call (or, just as likely, check in on Foursquare). But even though it was often the only way for me to get a cellphone or 3G signal in the Bay Area (and for that I guess I'm supposed to be grateful), I curse the Android. I curse the hardware. I curse the OS. I curse the apps. It's all inferior and far less intuitive than the iPhone.

And it's not just me that feels that way. I can trot out any number of other examples of people who, just as Steve Jobs predicted, move effortlessly into the world of iOS device. Case in point: I spent last weekend up in Maine with my little brother and family. My brother had just bought himself an iPad, and I was fascinated to watch my nephew (4.5 years) and my niece (23 months) use the device. These are two children who live in a fairly non-consumer, non-tech world (my little brother's house is off the grid and there's no TV, for example) but who, within a week's time, had figured out how to manipulate the iPad -- swipe, select apps, open and close folders, adjust the volume, and -- with brand new apps that I showed them -- quickly understand "the rules" for how most apps function. I was pretty impressed, particularly when my nephew was able to offer running commentary about the apps designed to trick kids into making in-app purchases.

Intuitive, right? Easy for anyone to use.

That was what I grumbled on Tuesday night as I tried to boot up the new Android Galaxy tablet that I'd received at Google IO. Why, with the iPad, you simply plug the damn thing into iTunes and there you go (let's just pretend, shall we, that that's an option for everyone). My uptake on the Android tablet was slow -- me, a technology journalist and, I won't lie, someone really rooting for Google to make a good show of things in the mobile space. But I struggled to get logged into the device. I struggled to find and download the apps I wanted. And as I did so, I couldn't help but mutter that this was precisely the sort of thing that Steve Jobs would never tolerate and that allowed him to lay claim to the whole "iOS is intuitive" argument. Silly, frustrating Android -- yet again.

And so today, having returned home from my travels, I presented my teenage son with the choice: take my iPad or take my Android tablet. I don't need two tablets, after all. And he grabbed the Samsung Galaxy without hesitation. He has an Android phone already. He uses Google Docs at school. He has a Gmail account, while we still share an iTunes account for the household. For him, the Google-branded tablet made sense.

And for him, the device was intuitive. He quickly navigated to the Android Market. He downloaded the apps he wanted (first up: Facebook). He cursed his old Windows machine, and he cursed iTunes for not easily syncing his music to the new device (note: he did not curse Google). He pronounced that he's ditching his Windows desktop (although I will note here that he does love Xbox, so all is not lost with the youth, dear Microsoft). He said that he loves the new tablet, that he's never played with a piece of technology that was so easy to use.

He's never played with an iPad or an iPhone -- not really. But he probably won't now. He's found what's intuitive for him. For him, it's Android, even though for me, it's Apple.