Phone and tablet — two different animals

Musings of a Product Guy

While the use of smartphones has grown extremely fast, the use of tablets has grown even faster. Therefore, many companies are creating versions of their apps for both phones and tablets. But because tablets are a relatively new platform, and often run on the same OS as the phone, oftentimes apps for phones and tablets are treated similarly - with the tablet app being a larger version of the phone.

This is a mistake. And the reason is that usage of phones and tablets is quite different. Here is how:

Tablet usage is very different from that of a phone —so when you are looking at creating a tablet app, it’s important to consider these differences (and I’m sure there are others I have missed).

How would you reimagine your product if you knew your users were using it in the evening, via Wifi, on their couch?