@ruddias, if you were referring to my not so well received description of reality below, then my response would be DUH. Yes, ‘App’ is an abbreviation of ‘Application’, but it also represents the limited type of application (hence the shorter word App) available for existing Tablet platforms.
The only OSs that are able to handle full ‘Applications’ are Windows, OSX, & Linux (and whatever other desktop OS you can think of). My response to @john rickets’s comment was to explain why the iPad/iPhone is what it is. It’s made to do certain tasks, in this case run small Apps, and Apple’s closed ecosystem prevents customization that would take away from the smooth operations of that ecosystem.
Android is making the mistake, for the most part with it’s tablet platform, of trying to do too much with it’s particular implementation (do everything a desktop can do, including unrestricted multi-tasking, with a very underpowered hardware platform).
Microsoft, on the other hand, is at least trying to differentiate the tablet and the desktop/laptop platforms by allowing it to run Apps in it’s Metro interface which restricts those Apps’ capabilities (including limiting their multi-tasking) and full Applications in it’s ‘Desktop’ interface which continue to have unrestricted processing availability.
The ‘lowest common denominator’ statement was actually a comment on why the iPad/iPhone has been so successful. It’s why everyone can use the device without any training beforehand. You don’t need to be a computer whiz to figure it out which is why so many people are buying them. Android on the other hand complicates things by putting in too many ‘Desktop’ functions on a small device where average people get lost before they get ‘used’ to where everything is. This is why Microsoft decided on the Metro UI, access to everything, or at least the vast majority of everything, is there at your fingertips.