Cloud may be a workable approach, however, if only one of these elements (hardware, operatingsystem, or application layer) are based on custom technology.
On Thursday Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook Home, a family of apps that would sit as a integrated layer on the Android operatingsystem.
The short-lived Fusion Garage Grid10 tablet also created such a distinct layer atop Android that the company dubbed it a new operatingsystem: GridOS. However, while the company dissolved before any GridOS apps could be released, the tablet could run a wide range of Android apps downloaded from Amazon's Android app store.