Maybe Android is kind of like small laptop. But Windows phones and iPhones definitely aren't.
I can use my laptop without having any cloud identity tied to it - I don't need to give anyone my email address or card number just to log in. I don't have to upload my contact list or communication history to the cloud. I can install software on it that Microsoft or Apple haven't approved, and if I pay for software Microsoft or Apple don't take a cut. I can install different operating system, if I want. I can develop software on my laptop without special license and without paying Apple or Microsoft. When I develop software, I can share it with other people with laptops and they can run it. I can access filesystem in any way I want and directly modify, share or create files without them being transferred to the cloud.
Modern smartphones are very not like laptops.
Android is perhaps more like actual computer, but I'd guess that's mostly legacy - if Google made Android now, I'm sure they would make it more closed, and they are making it more closed with every release.
Ah, but I'm referring to stacks and protocols. From the perspective of having an OS, TCP/IP stack, wireless connectivity and access to the Internet via a web browser, you'd be hard-pressed to identify the PC from the phone in a functional diagram from which the label for the device was removed. Here is where the "mimic" of PC architecture comes in, not so much in how easy it is to access the file system, so forth. Sure, I realize even if there is an argument here, it's loose at first. I do believe there needs to be more separation, however, between how "we do" PC and how we do phone.
I can use my laptop without having any cloud identity tied to it - I don't need to give anyone my email address or card number just to log in. I don't have to upload my contact list or communication history to the cloud. I can install software on it that Microsoft or Apple haven't approved, and if I pay for software Microsoft or Apple don't take a cut. I can install different operating system, if I want. I can develop software on my laptop without special license and without paying Apple or Microsoft. When I develop software, I can share it with other people with laptops and they can run it. I can access filesystem in any way I want and directly modify, share or create files without them being transferred to the cloud.
Modern smartphones are very not like laptops.
Android is perhaps more like actual computer, but I'd guess that's mostly legacy - if Google made Android now, I'm sure they would make it more closed, and they are making it more closed with every release.