They don't care about power or how fast it boots (the Pi3 is faster than mobile devices from an off, even faster if if SD card is set to 100 from 50, something I always have set.)
But hey ho.
Zero is slow but MotionEyeOS doesn't take too long to boot, but then it's going to be an always on device otherwise it'll see nothing and you just stick a big battery next to it.
You adapt and teach what power is needed and to spec for that and how to try and work it out.
Yes look into turning parts of the Pi off you may not need.
The IR LEDs for a bird box or animal watcher take more current out the the battery or PSU than the Pi does.
So much for a nice wildlife watcher it makes a Pi Zero get extremely hot as all the current passes through it via a camera cable on certain setups.
Android/iOS has a high investment behind them Google/Apple and then with Google all the open source people typing and moaning away to change things.
Compared to a few prople in a room selling £5to£35 computers and not £1000 mobile phones.
It would be really nice is there was a Education Lesson or two on power saving techniques or work out your battery, but someone has to write it.
As for the microbit (somebody mentioned it) it has a lot of resources now, controlling robots, being a game controller, step counter, datalogger for sensors, add all the usual sensors and things you can attach to them, GPS 1-wire blah blah blah.
It's come a long way for what is a simple device.
Though it does work best with a Tablet/Phone or *Pi*/PC to work with it.
Anyway, time to get off the bog and grab a coffee

Oh and VC4 is Nokia and early Samsung phones as well as the first FireTV (one sat next to my TV)