Are Tablets Truly Mobile Devices?

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No, I am not trying to make a Thorsten Heins-like splash (the BlackBerry CEO who recently stated that “In five years I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet anymore.”).
If you pose the above question in one of those Jay Lenoesque “Jaywalking – Man on the Street” episodes, the response would undoubtedly be “of course”. Since their debut, both con­sumers and busi­nesses have gen­er­ally con­sid­ered tablets to be a form of mobile devices.  The interfaces for both the iPad and its Android brethren cer­tainly look and feel more like their smaller smartphone siblings than a Windows 7/8 desk­top.  But does that really make sense considering how tablets actu­ally used?
While growing nearly 50% in Q1 of 2013, cellular-enabled tablets still only account for 12% of the tablets sold. So, what’s my point? Tablets are not primarily mobile devices and should not be treated as such.  When creating a mobile app, quite often, tablets are looked at as an oversized smartphone.  Instead, they are truly their own platform and designers/developers must create a differentiated tablet experience or risk dissatisfying the very consumers (either customers or internal business people) they are targeting and thus, missing an opportunity.  As an example, for a given business app, the smartphone version can be seen a summary/quick perusal of a certain set of business information while the tablet should be used to discover and the plumb the depths of whatever the business person is investigating through the tablet.