Laptop–tablet convergence describes the tendency in recent years for

laptops A laptop computer or notebook computer, also known as a laptop or notebook, is a small, portable personal computer (PC). Laptops typically have a clamshell form factor with a flat-panel screen on the inside of the upper lid and an alpha ...

and

tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being computers ...

s to converge technologically. In 2011, Canonical announced

Ubuntu Touch Ubuntu Touch is a mobile version of the Ubuntu operating system, developed by the UBports community. Its user interface is written in Qt, and is designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Howev ...

, an attempt to bring

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

to mobile devices such as phones and tablets. It is still under development. In 2012,

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012, made available for download via Microsoft ...

was released, which included the

Metro UI Microsoft Design Language (or MDL), previously known as Metro, is a design language created by Microsoft. This design language is focused on typography and simplified Icon (computing), icons, absence of clutter, increased content to UI chrome ...

, a touch-style UI framework for desktop applications. Microsoft encouraged application developers to develop Metro versions of their applications. In 2014, Google announced that by late 2014,

ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes styled as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is an operating system designed and developed by Google. It is derived from the open-source operating system and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user ...

would allow Android apps to be run, meaning that

Chromebooks Chromebook (sometimes stylized in lowercase as chromebook) is a line of laptops, desktops, tablets and all-in-one computers that run ChromeOS, a proprietary operating system developed by Google. Chromebooks are optimised for web access. They al ...

and Chromeboxes would be able to access ordinary web applications, packaged ChromeOS apps, and also Android apps.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Laptop-tablet convergence Mobile computers Laptops Tablet computers

See also

References