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Definition: mobile platform


The hardware/software environment for laptops, tablets and smartphones. Windows and Mac are the dominant operating systems in the laptop world, with Linux-based Chromebooks in third place.

While iOS (Apple) and Android (Google) rule the smartphone OS universe, tablet platforms are iPadOS (Apple), Android (Google) and Windows (Microsoft). See iOS, iPadOS, Android and Windows tablet.

Mobile Hardware
Laptop computers use x86-based CPUs and so did Mac computers until 2020 when Apple began switching to ARM CPUs. However, all smartphones and non-Windows tablets employ ARM processors. For example, the following system-on-chips (SoCs) use ARM CPUs: Apple's A series, NVIDIA's Tegra, Qualcomm's Snapdragon, Texas Instrument's OMAP and Samsung's Exynos. See SoC, ARM, Tegra, Snapdragon, OMAP, Exynos, Intel Atom, mobile compatibility, mobile device vendor control and platform.