Mobile computing devices will probably overtake the personal computer as the most common means for accessing the Internet worldwide sometime in 2013 and it may not be a seamless transition, according to Eli Tilevich, associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech.
Since “mobile devices differ in their screen size and input/output facilities,” porting applications across mobile devices and platforms present “several difficulties,” Tilevich said. “A graphical user interface (GUI) may need to be adjusted significantly when ported to run on a different device.”

As an example, Tilevich explained that software vendors often provide two very distinct application versions for a specific platform’s smart phone and tablet in order to accommodate for the differences in screen size and the presence of special hardware such as a Global Positioning System receiver.