Thank You. Is there something that would keep another company from producing a tablet that would be similar enough to “fool” the OS?
Install Linux. It’s the same darn thing.
While this has been done with Mac OS (some users create machines known as "Hackintoshes"), it would be extremely difficult to do that with iOS.
First, the hardware used in tablet or smartphone platforms is HIGHLY customized, with low odds of a component merely being "generic" enough where Apple's drivers are easily fooled.
Second, ever since the first few iPhones, Apple makes a customized version of the ARM microprocessor. So the iOS may very well try to execute instructions, that on a more generic ARM processor, just aren't there.
While I appreciate many things about Linux, the fact is, that after you have an initial operating system install, if you go to update either the OS, or a piece of software that didn't originally come with the platform, problems crop up left, right, up, and down. New/Updated software might require a newer version of some-or-such library in the operating system. Updating that library suddenly breaks other critical software.
Get a new piece of hardware? Good luck finding a linux that supports everything on your hardware, completely, properly, and bug free!
(I've been battling a lot of Linux issues the past few months....)