This needs work. Some of us think it's all small screen devices. Connected or not.

Connectivity away from the wall is another definition. But kills many game devices. And actually, GPS, and so on, since they are receiving only.

Restrictive interactions also seems valid. At least as an edge case; why can't the same patterns be applied very often to say the LCD on your photo-printing inkjet?

Need to define this. What's your opinion?

What Patterns Do You Cover?

Good question. And right now, it's purposefully muddled. We don't generally talk about hardware, except for labels and key functions and and keyboard layouts. Because those are pretty easy to change, and directly impact the on-screen interactions. Though we /could/ talk about how people with gloves, or dry fingers, or who just hate touchscreens should also have a scroll-and-select keys, at least as backup. But, that's pretty high level handset design, so not really worth fighting in a book like this.

So, the definition is pretty much on-screen, and things that directly impact the on-screen experience that are plausible to consider changing, for at least an operator/carrier to change, even if not everyone can.

If you have the ability to influence hardware design, then you can still get some hints from the patterns and principles contained here. We also, likewise, make lots of references to complying with the principles of the OS, as well as having principles that may conflict with any particular OS. So, if you design operating systems, then you have some other patterns and principles and guidelines to work off as well.