Build, license or buy their way into an ecosystem. Apple's current formidable strength is its ecosystem of content (app+media) and peripheral of hardware devices (iPhone + iPod touch + iPad + Mac).

Let's make a bold assumption that a Mac counterpart isn't needed. Let's make it even simpler, we'll just need an iPhone+iPad combination of hardware.

Start with a partnership, say HTC with Amazon. So you can have decent hardware for a phone and tablet from HTC, along with content (app+media) from Amazon.

Maybe it's hard to forge such a partnership, maybe there's a dozen of reasons why this isn't possible, maybe HTC like it's current way of business, maybe Amazon is building it's own hardware, but I know I'd want to do this to win.

When you can't win by yourself, partner with someone else so you can win together.

Agree, partnerships can help them compete. But, the problem is that whoever has a good ecosystem is trying to go for the bigger pie. Amazon is building its own Android ecosystem - has an app store and will most probably come up with a tablet. HTC has its own movie and music services on its Sense devices. Even if a partnership happens, I am not sure it will be enough of an attraction for consumers to leave the iOS platform.

The rumors all point to major ecosystem builders cutting the middleman and in-housing hardware dev, though.