I don't know about Chrome OS, since that's vapor at this time (why even bother with this?), but you can absolutely do all the things you just mentioned with an iPad. Both with and without jailbreaking in fact.

It's not as general purpose as a desktop, but then a notebook isn't either and a netbook even less so. Consumers and business are using iPad to replace, or rather use instead of, other computers for many tasks. That's important to financial investors and developers. Leaving that product off the count doesn't tell the whole story.

I think the only metric being used by the research groups and many observers is, does the product run an OS that can also be installed on any desktop. The iPad is the odd man out in this case, because even though iOS finds its core in Mac OS, they're different and you can't buy iOS in a box to install elsewhere.

The argument about developing software that touches hardware, etc. is just a smokescreen and I don't think anyone else considers it. It might be a better definition, but it's not the one being used now. And as mentioned, this one would allow inclusion of the iPad.

In the end, an investor has to be smarter than the research groups and look beyond a single chart. The proof is in the financial results and here Apple is most definitely dominating, no matter how you look at it.