We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Smartphones and tablets are popular because they deliver value, from realtime mapping to field sensing to communications. Entertainment and consumption are only one use among many.

The consumer demand for these is causing the hardware to become commoditized, and thus standardized and cheaper. That has huge benefits for the other fields you mention, since the hardware is cheaper, more familiar to decision-makers, and has a larger base of potential developers, testers, and collaborators. For example, here's a story from a couple months ago about NASA experimenting with Android phones for computing duties in mini-satellites: http://gigaom.com/mobile/google-in-space-nasa-powers-mini-sa...

I see your point but let me pose the following question.

What if the demand for smartphones wasn't as strong over the last few years and thus the technology didn't grow as fast... instead the demand for electric vehicles was as strong as it has been for new smartphones over the past few years and thus the technology had grown faster?

It's swings and roundabouts. The success of mobile has indirectly accelerated the development of self-driving cars (Google being a major player in this emerging area), and I think such vehicles have enormous potential to reduce orad accidents, fuel consumption, traffic, and all the ancillary waste that goes with our existing car culture.