However software is becoming commoditised, while hardware is now appearing to involve quite a degree of inventiveness, a characteristic following from the growth in low powered ARM devices, among others.

You can get a Som board with a Texas Instruments Omap 5, say from Phytec, running, well Android or Linux, or maybe a Exynos 5 running, well, Android or Linux. Or a plethora of others doing the same thing, like Raspberry Pi.

From the hardware viewpoint, it could be said that you do indeed eat the OS.