Why aren’t Android users browsing?
Let me get a few things out of the way before getting into my blog.
- Yes, I have an iPhone.
- No, I don’t think it is amazing and I am not hung-up on it. I don’t like Macs as a general rule.
One of our UX Designers at Wiliam has a particular penchant against Apple and the iPhone.
He’s not hung up on it, though he thinks the iPhone is overrated.
He thinks Apple is an aggressive, sometimes immoral company that fights like Microsoft and IBM in the ‘90s. (On that I certainly agree…)
He thinks the iPad has sent us sideways at best with its non-widescreen screen. Indeed, he wrote a pretty good blog about it.
Generally, his arguments are good and whilst I pretend to be an Apple fan-boy, I pretty much agree with all of his points.
Except one.
The iPhone is not overrated.
If you reread my opening points (and specifically point 2), I really don’t think the iPhone is amazing, though for what it does and how well it does it, I don’t think its overrated.
I could write all day about its limitations and why Android is so much more sophisticated, though that’s not the observation I’m blogging about.
As powerful as they are, I don’t believe Android users get nearly as much from their phones as iPhone users.
And here is why I think it, simple argument that it is.
- Android is what, half the Smartphone market? Maybe a bit less, though let’s keep it simple.
- If I look across the statistics of my client’s websites, mobile is consistently at least 20% of traffic. Some websites will hit 25% by June 2012.
- Yet consistently, iOS devices – the iPhone and the iPad – account for 90% of the mobile traffic, equally split between the iPhone and the iPad.
- It is true that there are hundreds of Android devices in the world, though collectively, they add up to half the world’s smartphones and should be at least half of the world’s mobile traffic. Roughly speaking.
- Interestingly, when I look at the website statistics, Apple users make it far farther into websites as well: I’m talking about un-optimised websites too.
Why this stat?
Most people don’t care about mobile phones. They either want an iPhone because they think it’s cool, or they walk into the closest Optus store and ask someone there for their opinion.
That opinion will invariably be for one of the inexpensive Android devices hanging on the wall.
Customer walks out.
And statistically browses less than the iPhone user. Much less.
Perhaps they’re playing more games or perhaps they’re fighting Android.
Who knows, except that for whatever reason, they’re missing out on the Web unlike me and my Apple fanboy mates.
The iPhone isn’t overrated. Android is.
