I run a small business online so have used a laptop for web related work now for many years - site maintenance, building, etc. Obviously a lot of this kind of work doesn't fit well 'in-app', so an ipad or phone would be arsey.
Reading my stats I am aware that over 96% of my visitors are using Android mobile, followed by iphone. Of course I see this all around me, so it isn't quite news, but it did make me realise that I have a preference.
Whenever I have to access the net via my phone the experience always feels much poorer, a bit hemmed in, and less immersive?
At home I will watch film, view art/photography and shop on my laptop, as well as using it for work purposes. It isn't just the larger screen, I find it better for posture, general chilling out and just moving around the web. I do prefer the ipad to view app related stuff such as instagram, but would always use my laptop to view mumsnet, because the app feels a bit too 'locked in' and and there seem to be fewer choices around navigation and jumping between browsers, etc.
ipads seem to be somewhere in the middle, and according to stats, a much younger age group prefers them. That makes sense, especially for children, but I can't get my head around why adults prefer to do most of their browsing on a phone. My sister is one of them, and has barely used her ipad in years. She's developing a bloody hump!
But what probably concerns me the most is that in-app browsing feels very corporate controlled and restricted, so many apps are like a walled garden that don't have much fluidity regarding getting out of them without losing your place, IYSWIM?
So if I am reading a site like Reddit in an app, if I pop somewhere else for a moment the damn thing resets when I pop back. This feels really limiting and utterly fucks with my attention span.