iPhone and iPod Touch dominate handheld web traffic race

The iPhone and iPod Touch each generate more web traffic than any other handheld device. That's according to new figures by the advertising firm Admob, which measures online traffic based on ad requests. Its January metrics place Apple's iPhone and its derivative non-Phone device in the first and second spots for internet …

[Richard Cartledge]

Admob

I wouldn't trust Admob stats to be a true reflection, as they only show webpages accessed with their adverts which may not be representative, and some devices have ad-free standalone apps which are better than the equivalent websites. e.g. Facebook or Skout.

[Mick F]

The only sad twats..

..pretending their crap phone is something special. Spent all that money so have to justify it by using it all the time.

[Andy]

Ad requests?!

Does this seem ass-backwards to anyone else?

The numbers seem logical – there are a _lot_ of Nokia phones out there, after all – but still, ad requests seems a bizarre metric. I suppose it's more a case of drawing attention to their ad network than being about the actual usage stats.

[Mark Simon]

Missed Metaphors

Loved the Missed Universe type metaphor. I suppose their hobbies are mainly traveling and meeting people and they’re all aiming for World Pieces. Perhaps, like the real thing, they all look good, but disappoint with their chosen talent.

I wonder where the horse race came in. Shouldn’t it have been a cat fight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't surprise me

I use Safari on the iPhone all the time, it's particularly good for some surreptitious browsing while in meetings... Now if they could just add Flash (or stop preventing Adobe from writing Flash)...

[Anonymous Coward]

ihaz mobile web is pwned

w00t!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia

I use my Nokia N95 all the time for web surfing. I don't think I have ever hit one of their adds. I am in the US and using ATT but can't use 3g on the N95 due to the frequency. Still the web browsing is great and I use more wlan anyways. Same as I did with my previous N80ie. Just wish there were more decent phone options in the US.

Why can't we get an evil Steve shaking hands with an evil Bill? The Weekly World News has had every us president shaking hands with aliens.

[Patrick O'Reilly]

Browser not phone

this is a report on hardware usage.

what i'd find interesting would be the mobile browser share. i use Opera Mini all day every day and very rarely get served mobile ads as most mobile browsers (including the whyPhone browse full webpages.

[Walker]

Why are iPhone & iPhone 3G numbers not separate?

Given that all the Nokia handset figures are separated?

There are four N-Series handsets in that list. Why not lumber them all together, as was done with the Apple handsets?

[Greg Kerr]

Makes sense

I don't think this is particularly surprising, for all the Jesus Phone's flaws it offers the best mobile browsing experience. There are other handsets better for email, texting and, er, making phone calls but mobile Safari with multitouch is still the winner for surfing from where I'm standing.

[Joe K]

Biased

Admob ads infest a lot of Appstore stuff, are they counting accesses from those?

That said, after using the iphone/touch using another phone for browsing, no matter how good, is like typing with boxing gloves on.

[D@v3]

re: Mick F

Having had web enabled phones in the past, and now having an iphone, i can say you are soooo far off the mark, id be surprised if you can see it.

On my previous phones the screens were so poor, the cost of using the almost non-existant connection was so high and the interface was so laughable that i rarely used it.

Now being on an iphone, same price monthly contract ('unlimited' data included) , decent screen size, good connections and simple interface not only makes it a pleasure to use, but also means im more likely to quickly look things up, because i can, wheather i want to check somthing iv just seen on TV, or if i want to try and settle a pub argument.

Obviously i dont know what 'phone you use, but compared to any others I have used, the iPhone deffinately is something special.

[James]

V3?

What surprises me is the V3 in third place. How? I loved my old V3i, but it was pretty poor for web browsing.

[Ascylto]

@ Mick F

Troll away, saddo!

You just don't get it do you? The iPhone may not be the best phone out there, it may not make your coffee or make love to you, but just look at the latest exhibitions ... there are more 'me too' iPhone look-alikes and swipe alikes than you can shake a stick at! They ALL want to copy the iPhone ... some may even produce better gadgets.

Give Apple, the iPhone in particular, it's due. It has woken up a sleeping industry which was content to take your dosh for very little in the way of innovation. Why, even Microsoft, that 'innovator' par excellence, has jumped on the bandwagon with it's store of applications ... just 3 years late (as usual).

Surprise, surprise ... I use an iPhone! Far from being a 'crap phone', it does exactly what I want and it does it simply and without fuss. Of course it doesn't have some features I would like (cut 'n paste) and I have to use my camera if I want decent photos, but it suits me just fine. And furthermore I don't rubbish other phones which, I'm sure, suit their owners just as well.

[RichyS]

WinMob

So, where are all the Win Mob devices? Or does Pocket IE crash before AdMob can serve up an ad?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's rubbish

I surf using Opera Mini 4.1 on my BB Curve....it in no way highlights the device behind it.

Sounds like this survey is a FAIL.

Besides, they would have to look at the stats for the text-only BBC news and football pages and Avantgo-tuned feed for HitB to catch me. If they can.

Most of my BB surfing is either football scores or reading whilst I'm pooing. Interestingly, I never use my Touch to surf the interwhatsitsname.....

Paris....because her figures on her number of partners is just as crap... ;-)

[Goat Jam]

Razr V3

Third?

I have a 4 y.o. Razr V3. I could not imagine the web surfing "experience" that I would get on it. It's OK as far as a phone goes but as a net browsing device?

Unless there are new Razr V3's and the "V3" is an irrevelant marketing label or something.

[Anonymous Coward]

@MickF

What's the matter Mick? Santa didn't get you an iPhone for Christmas so now you just have to look on enviously at people who have got one?

> Spent all that money

Yeah, £99 or free on a average contract is such a lot of money these days... (guess it would be to someone still receiving pocket money from Daddy-kins).

> so have to justify it by using it all the time.

Yeah, or maybe they're just using it all the time because that's what they bought it for, and because using the internet on it is such a pleasure compared with pretty much every other device on the market.

Just look at the reports from MWC Barcelona for all the "me too" iPhone copies from every major manufacturer. Only 2 years late...

[Tom Richardson]

V3?

I'd seriously question the V3 usage stats. Not least because on some handsets combined with certain builds of Opera Mini, the Opera Mini proxy just defaults to sending a Motorola V3 user agent instead of the one for the handset you're actually using.

[Paul]

Not to piss on their chips...

...but that assumes the user agent contains the phone model. I use Opera on my SE C902, so it doesn't send my model number.

I doubt any of the mobile versions of sites I go to bother with Admob's ads, either. What websites to they monitor, anyway? :D

[Tom Richardson]

User Agents

@ Paul, AC. When using Opera Mini, to some sites it sends a generic Opera Mini user agent, to others, it makes a combined Opera Mini/handset specific user agent generated by the proxy. Try it on a couple of those "what's my IP" sites, you'll see. Even when it's just the generic opera mini one though, your device is still being identified in the header seperately fromthe user agent by "X-Opera-Mini-Phone-UA=<original deviceUA" and "OperaMiniPhone = <device name>".

Maybe this is different if you've installed OM yourself rather than getting a phone with it reloaded.

[Andy Hards]

Opera

I agree with all those talking about their use with Opera. If it's not recognising the browser then it's not very good. And the N Series should be viewed as a whole as the iPhone types are.