Nobody likes a bully
Google gives Motorola more ammo, and yes, it's war by proxy. How ironic that Motorola chips powered the first Macs and now with Intel as the supplier, Apple has turned on them.
Orlowski's missive is misdirected. Tablets are emminently interchangable, as are smartphones. Apple got first mover advantage (and has an excellent marketing department) and took the protectionist route. It just works. But it only works with Apple. Patents are its chosen protectionist method and their vaguaries mean it doesn't need to lobby further. The MPAA et al do all the lobbying for it needs. Apple creates "look and feel" rather than inventing things, but then it uses distribution deals with the content providers to try to give its hardware an edge.
Apple needs to destroy Android because it shows up Apple's current way of creating value. It creates artificial scarcity and then sells a solution. Open solutions destroy (or according to Orlowski, "fail to create") these markets.
Apple deserves to have done well with its devices but it has gone from creating a beautiful walled garden in which you can choose to reside, to burning everyone-else's fields. Hence the suspension of draconian IP laws as long as you live in its garden, but outside the garden, no Samsung Tabs can be allowed to exist. When Apple started its recovery it was all "Rip, Mix, Burn" and now it's all about non-Apple content being licensed for Apple devices only. The last thing Apple wants you to remember is that everyone else just flouts the daft laws. I'm not talking about just MegaUpload & TPB, I'm talking about the fact that you may not legally rip music from CD to ipod in the UK and the illegality of using VLC to play DVDs under the DMCA. Backed by international treaty or not, there are serious issues with the IP laws.
I suspect Apple knows that the ipod-iphone-ipad bonanza which made its billions is probably not repeatable and has a limited lifespan. Using its vertical integration, Apple can attack either the software (Google) or, more easily, hardware (Samsung, HTC etc) vendors one at a time at a time, cross-subsidising to drive competition out.
The whole scenario shows the fragility of using a system designed to protect inventions to protect visual design. By embedding the design in custom hardware Apple hoped to conflate design with invention and get patent protection. It hasn't worked. Last time MS ate their lunch with Windows. This time, its Android munching away.
I really hope Apple can get past this and keep up innovating in design, but it doesn't look as though they want to do that, which is a shame. Apple had made billions even before it went to war - it really doesn't need to fight, it just needs to innovate. Otherwise it will end up back in the wilderness of the between-Jobs years.