I can confirm this. I wanted to buy an e-pad, which is a tablet very similar to ipad that comes with android, and I thought it should be a good deal. Instead of buying it and regretting later, I decided to download the virtual machine to test android in my PC. I thought that, since android is based on Linux, it should look like Linux, including being compatible with its programs, and that it would include gcc, make and other development tools that would allow me to compile simple Linux programs for the android.
I found out that was not the case. I went more or less through the development tutorial, I even managed to fix the snake program so it would running my PC using the keyboard, but the development method is tiresome and not very flexible. Also, Android should be very useful for a smartphone, but not the kind of OS I expected in a tablet at all.