Facebook held a press conference today focusing on its mobile platform. At the event, Mashable editor Ben Parr took the opportunity to ask whether Facebook is developing an iPad-specific application. All of today’s official announcements were around Facebook’s features on Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iPhone (and I’ll have posts up soon describing the news), but the iPad is a mobile device too, Parr argued.
“The iPad’s not mobile,” Zuckerberg responded. “It’s not mobile, it’s a computer.”
That prompted laughter from the audience, so Zuckerberg added that he isn’t trying to be “rude” to Apple. He just that wanted to focus on truly mobile products today, and the iPad “is not a mobile platform in the same way that a phone is.”
Maybe this is just a minor definitional dispute, but it’s still interesting to see Zuckerberg pushing back against a common practice in the tech industry to talk about the iPad and other tablets as mobile devices. One of the reporters at the conference noted that Apple would probably dispute Zuckerberg’s characterization of the iPad (especially since the iPad runs the iPhone operating system and iPhone apps).
Devindra Hardawar, VentureBeat’s lead mobile writer, sounded pleased when I told him about by Zuckerberg’s comments. (His response over instant message was, “VALIDATION.”) We keep sending him iPad and other tablet announcements because we see it as mobile news, and he keeps complaining that the iPad isn’t really a mobile device. Now he knows at least one person agrees with him.
[image via Facebook for Business]
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