Can we please stop referring to tablets as mobile devices?!
Thanks to @gumboshowjoe for sharing this mashable report on mobile commerce. Some really good stuff in it. However…
My problem with reports like this is that they add tablets into their consideration set for “mobile”. But tablets are mostly used at the same time and place a person would use a laptop. It confuses the results when you say “people shop more on mobile devices at night than they do on computers”, with the main source being tablets on the couch. As a marketer, that means nothing to me.
Your tablet isn’t with you everywhere the way your phone is. You typically don’t use your tablet while walking or driving. Or while you’re in a restaurant. Or in a store. Or at an R.E.M. Concert. You use your phone.
I’ve been saying for a long time that tablets are not “mobile devices”, at least not any more than laptops are.
I usually get a lot of people disagreeing with this point, so let the debate begin…
Mobile, tablets and laptops are all different. They’re used differently. They require different UX design to optimize the experience. They’re owned by different people (although this gap is closing.) So no, tablets aren’t mobile devices… but they’re not laptops either
Agreed. Tablet ≠ Mobile Device ≠ Laptops. If they were the same, wouldn’t the two be in competition with each other? Stated differently, why would Apple get in a market they already dominate by creating a competing product? They didn’t. They helped create a market that did not exist prior to the iPad.