"Your Name" <your.name@isp.com> wrote in message
news:i5jrce$e1m$2@lust.ihug.co.nz...
> "Todd Allcock" <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote in message
> news:2jafo.35720$yr6.6332@newsfe05.iad...
>> > The iPhone (and iPad) together with the upgrades to 3G networks have
> made
>> > it much simpler and much more popular. The iPhone brought mobile web
>> > browsing to the general public, and it is still the mostly widely used
>> > device for the task by a huge margin. The March 2010 numbers for the UK
>> > have the iPhone at 70.2% of mobile web users. Every other mobile
>> > company
>> > has since been rushing around trying to make a clone.
>>
>> Still quoting AdMob stats? AdMob includes ads served up within iPhone
>> and
>> Android _apps_ as "mobile data usage" which heavily skews the data
>> towards
>> iOS and now Android. Even AdMob admits its data is useful only for trend
>> analysis, and not hard market share or usage statistics.
>>
>> http://metrics.admob.com/2009/10/pla...cs-in-context/
>
> ALL surveys / polls / studies / statistics are skewed and faulty ... but
> unfortunately there are too many idiots around who insist on numbers,
> which
> is why I gave one.
Quoting the current usage statistics don't support your contention that few
used mobile web browsing in the past. You might as well try to prove that
since personal computers make typing much easier than in the past, few books
were written prior to 1980, when people had to use typewriters and pens.
Opera, the browser maker, regularly publishes a report called The State of
the Mobile Web. The following link, from April 2008, records the number of
page views transcoded by Opera's servers by Opera Mini users.
http://www.opera.com/smw/2008/04/#chart_pages
It shows a steady rise in usage, both pre- and post- iPhone. (Keep in mind
this is just the mobile web usage of Opera Mini users, which typically
excludes smartphones, which have their own browsers.) Even in June 2007,
the last month pre-iPhone, Opera Mini users hit 3/4 of a billion web pages
that June.
http://www.nielsenmobile.com/documents/CriticalMass.pdf (Warning- this PDF
is 1.5MB, and I know you've got issues with your ISP.) Nielsen research,
the guys and gals behind American Television ratings, published this report
in July 2008. It says there were 22.4 million active mobile internet users
in the US in July 2006, 29.7 million in May 2007, and 40.4 in May 2008. A
significant jump in that 1st iPhone year. Do you want to guess what was the
handset used by more mobile web users in the US in Q1 2008?
Nope. The Motorola RAZR, used by 10% of US mobile web users. The iPhone
was second, at 4%.
>> While certainly much more popular today, mobile browsing has been around
> for
>> quite some time, and has been used by quite a few people even before the
>> iPhone and its iPhoney successors. If it were as unpopular as you seem
>> to
>> think, why were there literally thousands of mobile sites in existence
>> pre-iPhone? Because web developers had nothing better to do?
>
> Of course there were, but the devices made it difficult and tedious, which
> is why mobile web browsing didn't really happen until the iPhone came
> along
> and made it MUCH easier.
>
> But, believe whatever you want ... I'm done going around the same circle.
> :-\
Me too, except I backed up my point.