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Future-proof is a reasonable goal for a desktop PC, television, digital camera, automobile, wristwatch, or other more mature technology. It's just too soon to expect future-proofing from tablets or phones.

As long as the tablet continues to do what it's supposed to do , it shouldn't really matter that there's a newer OS out there.

As compared to the Kindle fire, which was never any good at doing what it was supposed to do. It wasn't even present-proof.

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How does the future-proofedness of Android tablets compare to the first iPad?

I think it's held up pretty well, it doesn't get apps or features that require the camera, but aside from that it still gets updates and can run stuff.

Andriod tablets can run new apps but not the operating system upgrades? I don't have any experience to know.

Just FYI, the first iPad will not be compatible with iOS 6. Still a pretty decent lifespan, but coming to an end.

Generally API features of newer versions of Android are backported and made available through the compatibility library, so it's common to get features of newer OSs on older devices (a major exception to this is Google Chrome which is unavailable for pre-ICS devices).

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