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iPad beats BlackBerry for browsing

Apple's iPad is now generating more web traffic than RIM's BlackBerry in North America, though at least a BlackBerry can do other things too. One per cent of all web traffic, as measured by Quantcast, is now being generated by iOS-based devices, with a tenth of that being attributed to sofa-surfers fondling their iPads. Android …

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Jonathan White
FAIL

Err.. what?

"Of course, that might just mean that BlackBerry users are busy checking their email, or that Android users spend all their time playing games rather than browsing websites"

Yeah, because you can't do either of those on an iPad after all.

There are plenty of things you can validly criticise the iPad about but I'd be a bit more careful about flinging the 'fanboi' moniker about if you're going to post rubbish like that in an article to be honest.

Jolyon
Reply Icon

Flinging fanbois

Overreaction and misinterpretation like that, whether prompted by leaping to the defence of a loved one or not, will make them far less likely to hold back on fanboiing.

Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
FAIL

I guess business must be slow at Quantcast...

The iPad is primarily a web surfing device whereas Blackberries are more about telephony and email.

I shoud have titled this comment : "no shit sherlock".

petur
FAIL

meaningless statistics

browsing on ipad should be compared with devices with a comparable screen, like netbooks... Nobody is going to do long browsing sessions on a smartphone

Jimmy Floyd
Dead Vulture

It's not that difficult

"As it becomes more difficult to pigeonhole devices into categories so arguments about what makes a fair comparison will proliferate, but few would argue with the conclusion that the iPad is really, really, good at surfing the web from the sofa."

So? Quantcast was right in the first place: there's no point in comparing an iPad with mobile phones. Compare it with other tablets if you must. There are some out there and clearly the iPad will win on the traffic stakes, if only because their owners like things pretty / bandwidth hungry.

Why not compare it with laptops, since it's apparently going to destroy them? Well, probably because it would fail - even against Macbooks.

Junk article by El Reg here. Really bad science, and I think perhaps you knew that before you published...

Anonymous Coward
WTF?
Reply Icon

RE: It's not that difficult

"Compare it with other tablets if you must. There are some out there and clearly the iPad will win on the traffic stakes, if only because their owners like things pretty / bandwidth hungry."

Last I looked, sending a request for a web page used a standard protocol which means the messages are the same size on every platform.

What this means is that the iPad isn't going to be "bandwidth hungry", it just can't be!

Matt Bryant
Happy

Hey, I'll argue!

".....few would argue with the conclusion that the iPad is really, really, good at surfing the web from the sofa...." Actually, this is the 2m odd fanbois and associated suckers trying to find someting to do with their overpriced toys. I'm betting that within six months the traffic has dropped off as the iPads end up gatehring dust on a shelf, their owners having gone back to surfing on their iMacs or PCs (or iBones and other phones).

BingBong
Troll
Reply Icon

Yeah right

And the iPod will never catch on and the iPhone will not sell as it's just another smartphone and the app store is just a flash in the pan.

Just crawl back under your stone troll B-)

Jolyon
Reply Icon

Dustgathering

I use my iPod Touch for most of my casual web browsing at home and the only way that'll change in the near future is if I get something that's similarly suited for the task with a bigger screen.

If only someone would make an oversized iPod Touch ... that wasn't stupidly expensive.

Matt Bryant
Happy
Reply Icon

RE: Yeah right

You obviously didn't read fanboi Rik Myslewski's article on how soon his iPad became an iDustGatherer:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/28/ipad_love_affair_goes_sour/

Centering on surfing - one of the few things an iPad is reasonable for, and nowhere near as good as even a tablet PC, let alone a laptop - and then comparing it to a BlackBerry - which is a business smartphone, not a surfing toy - is just another poor feature-sell by the fanbois. Honestly, it's as bad as saying that a kid can sit in the backseat of a car and eat an icecream, which the rider of a motorbike really wouldn't want to do, therefore the car is the better transport device! If you want a transport device for shifting kids eating icecream then the car probably is the better idea, but try telling the millions that commute daily on motorbikes, past queues of stationary traffic, that they should give up their bikes for that reason, and they'll tell you how stupid you are. Same goes for the BB - it's a business tool, not a fanboi toy.

And seeing as it is nice and sunny today I'm going to stay out and sunbathe on my stone, thanks, with my large-screen laptop on an extension cord (so I don't have to worry about eyestrain and the battery going flat, and I get great WiFi connectivity that works!).

/SP&L

BingBong

Blackberry browsing sucks

I never use a web browser (opera or BB) on my employers BlackBerry as it sucks big style .. It's an awful experience ... The iPhone is an order of magnitude better and the iPad is better again. However you cannot really compare web browsing or any other function running on an iPad to a BlackBerry .. The huge difference in screen and keyboard size makes a huge difference in a web browsing experience, so you are not measuring like for like anyway. The difference between iPhone web usage and any other "smartphone" is what should be compared.

If my employer used Exchange or ran the latest version of the Notes webmail front end, I would hand the BB back and use my personal iPhone for works email !

Email on the iPad is even better and with iOS4 coming autumn time to the iPad then I will have a unified mailbox.

Annihilator
Alert

Not to mention..

Most corporate blackberry users I know have their internet access disabled.

fatchap
FAIL

Look at the Graph!

It does not say that the iPad is generating more traffic than the other devices at all!

The iPad is represented by the very small triangle on the right hand side of the graph, showing that since March 2010 (when it was 0% unsurprisingly) usage has risen to about 0.1% which is roughly similar to the level the Blackberry has been running at for the last year.

If one looks at all Apple iOS devices then yes they are consuming more but as that covers all form factors other than laptop and desktop machines it is hardly a meaningful comparison.

Kevin Johnston

Hmmm....I see an assumption here

'iPad is really, really, good at surfing the web from the sofa'

So you are assuming that a higher volume of traffic implies a higher quality....

Of course it could be that it is actually a much lower quality with multiple downloads per page and added junk to get a viewable image.

Not that I would want to start a flame war in any way

Samuel Williams
Joke

And in other news...

...Pope finds practising Catholicism preferable to other religions.

Ralph B
Thumb Down

News at 11

Big screen better for browsing than small screen?

Who'd've thunk it?

Matt Hawkins
FAIL

How is this even news?

News Flash - Web surfing device generates more web traffic than a mobile phone!

Next up - Cars cause more road traffic than ... err ... toasters !!!

Is it really a surprise that an internet enabled device with a large touch screen is used more on the web than a phone with a screen 10 times smaller?

How about we compare iPad vs Blackberry and volume of telephone calls made. That would make an interesting graph.

rcdicky
WTF?

Hmmm...

It does seem a bit unfair that the iPad has been compared to smartphones for browsing tbh, even on my iPhone I didn't browse the net that much but I do on my iPad.

Also strange is that the article suggests the iPad can ONLY browse the internet :S

"Apple's iPad is now generating more web traffic than RIM's BlackBerry in North America, though at least a BlackBerry can do other things too."

I'm fairly sure I play games and stream video from my PC on my iPad (amongst many other things)

Not knocking the BB, I've had some decent one's in the past (and one shockingly bad one, I'm looking at you Storm) but putting the BB and iPad against each other doesn't work, at all...

Rogerborg

Apples to car analogies

Comparing smart phones with a dumb netbook.

Anthony Shortland
FAIL

source of stats?

I wonder how they gathered these stats - with the header meta tags I assume?

In which case the android stats at least are unreliable as android users (unlike iOS users) have a good choice of browsers, including Dolphin (which seems to be more popular than the build in browser) which has options for changing the user agent to allow fooling sites into showing desktop type pages instead of mobile sites.

richard 69
Coat

dare i mention....

"the iPad is really, really, good at surfing the web from the sofa"

if you're not looking at anything using flash.......opps i've said it....

Eddy Ito
FAIL

Did anyone RTFB?

"The iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch) are shown stacked, the others as individual lines."

The iPad is the tiny dark green triangle in the corner and peaks very close to the BlackBerry and if it beats it, it's not by much. Perhaps the intent was iOS beats BlackBerry.

From the chart, the iPod, on top, has been fairly steady showing only modest growth and the iPhone saw a surge between May and July of '09. It also seems that the iPad is eating into iPod/iPhone use as there is a slight decline in both just prior to the iPad popping up on the radar. What remains to be seen is how will this change when other tablets are introduced.

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