3 ms·

If iPads are mobile, why aren't laptops?

• toast0 5y ago
  Laptops use mobile cpus, but desktop oses and software. PC based tablets are kind of weird, but iOS/Android mobile OS based tablets are more or less phones with big screens and no/limited calling features.
  • wvenable 5y ago
    "Desktop OS's and software" is an arbitrary definition. Smartphones are just computers that make calls. Steve Jobs even famously said that the iPhone ran "OS X" when it was first launched.
    • toast0 5y ago
      It is somewhat arbitrary; yeah, smart phones can run whatever, but practically, they don't. For many reasons, the vast majority of people stick with the OS a device ships with, and mobile OSes are directed towards app stores and limited filesystems, and desktop OSes are directed towards applications (with a side of app stores) and visible filesystems and what not. You can run Android on a desktop PC, and you can (if you try really hard) run desktop Windows on a phone or a game console, but that's not how the devices are generally sold, and that's not how the devices are generally used. Apple sometimes claims their tablets are as useful as a computer running a desktop OS, but they don't provide Xcode for the iPad, do they?