iPhone surfs to mobile web domination The iPhone dominated the market for mobile web surfing last month, and there were relatively healthy showings from Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows Mobile. Net Applications found Apple's handheld status symbol accounted for 66.61 per cent of mobile traffic browsing the web during February. The phone's nearest …
Despite using unimpressively specced hardware, Apple have managed to put together a hardware/software package which actually does what people want and so they are willing to pay a premium for it. Have we seen this before somewhere?
This isn't MS style lock-in at work here. Nobody buys an iphone just to be compatible with everyone else or because of some FUD. Apple have nailed their market. Well done Apple!
I'm impressed with their focus on their strategy. They know what they do well and they stick to it. I walked into a retail computer shop the other day and was horrified at the astoundingly ugly hardware on offer. Even Sony's "almost looks like a Mac" Viao looked clunky.
No, I don't have an iphone or mac. Apart from a 4g ipod which was given to me, my only Apple product was a ][+ although I have very fond memories of that.
Any idea as to browser usage? Given that Opera is cross-platform, except the iPhone, it would be interesting to see if non-stock browsers are being used, or if people are downloading other ones to use. Clearly this fails with the iPhone lock-down, but it'd be useful to see...
Given that the iPhone was the first (and on many networks still the only) phone to come with an all you can browse data package then it is hardly surprising that the iPhone is the phone most used for browsing...
Statistics are just that. Figures used selectively to prove or dis-prove an argument.
There are a few 3rd party browsers, I use a useful one which deletes all browsing history when finished for "special" occasions however I think @ Whaddayaknow has it right, the iPhone does what people want and the apps that are supplied work just fine. The phone has many, many limitations (no cut and past, no forwarding of text messages, crap camera) but on the whole it is a nice bit of kit. First apple hardware I have ever owned and I only bought it because I like nice shiny gadgets.
If you want a totally open phone where you can hack away round the Kernel etc then those phones are only ever going to be sold in small numbers but the iPhone seem targeted at vain, shallow, possibly technically dumb people who dont care that you cant recompile your binaries or whatever, they just want to have the latest gadget and, despite all the flaws and the locked down approach of the app store it is a nice bit of kit.
You ever tried watching TV on a "normal" phone? I did, it was crap and I thought what a waste but now, streaming the iplayer to a widescreen in my hand, well that's just showing off!
More news from the office of the blindingly obvious...
The Apple iPhone has the lion share of mobile broadband usage.
Or to put it another way...
The phone will a free, all-you-can-eat mobile data plan has the lion share of mobile broadband usage.
Is it really a suprise that the guy sat next to me uses the (free, unlimited) O2 3G connection on his iPhone more than I use the (£7.50/few-hundred Mb) Vodafone 3G connection on my Nokia?!?
How many of these figures include user-agent spoofing whether deliberate or unknowingly? For example the Iris WebKit-based browser which runs on Windows Mobile uses a similar user-agent string to the iPhone since pages written for the iPhone will largely work perfectly with Iris also, whereas nobody in their right mind would attempt to spoof as Mobile Internet Explorer.
The third party browsers are just safari with the buttons moved around.
Apple will not let another browser into the app store as they are scared of the competition , although the Apple fanboys wont admit that - they will claim security.
I have a jailbroken phone and still do not have another graphic browser and neither does anyone else. However, unsure if a text based browser like lynx has been ported.
@gerard - your right in thinking that some user agent spoofing has been going on. In addition to your windows mobile - I tried that when trying to get the 'special' bbc iplayer content on a desktop. Same boat as linux is/was.
Blackberry is at 2.24% share; figure is in the original data which you can easily view for free at NetApplications rather than relying on the dis-information filter applied by El Reg and the rest of the commentards who post here.
@ others re: US only:
NetApplications data is usually worldwide and not just the US, but they don't state either way in their chart this time around. It is probable that it is for all countries as it would be incredibly difficult for them to know the location of the phone accessing the sites as it isn't as if they have a fixed IP address or IP range when going over 3G or EDGE.
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