I think that was the intent behind the netbook, where it was thought that the gap could be filled by putting a desktop OS in a smaller form factor.
It looks like the gap has been more readily filled by using a scaled down OS. That reduces the hardware demand, allowing small, clean, well-designed hardware that still meets the reduced computing needs desired in a device that falls between laptops and phones in size.
Apple's OS X scales beautifully to accommodate the size of the device it runs on.
The iPhone and iPad variants of the OS are tightly integrated and related to the desktop OS, which is what allowed Apple to develop such a sweet tablet OS interface.
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