Remember when Android users used to say only Android gives users "the full web experience" since they run Flash? Seems most of them never use the Internet for anything.
Remember when Android users used to say only Android gives users "the full web experience" since they run Flash? Seems most of them never use the Internet for anything.
Maybe they do use the "full web experience" but between the browser crashes and battery drain from the Flash plug-in their web presence is so short.
This could simply indicate that iOS users surf the web more than users of other platforms. For example, up to now I doubt Blackberry was a decent device to surf the web.?
I think this is a big part of it. Not so much that iOS users surf more so much as that people surf alot more on a tablet than on a phone. If you look at the post that started the 'mobile shopping dominated by iOS' on this site it uses data from IBM research. If you look at that data and compare phones Apple had 8.7%, Android had 5.5%. Still a pretty big win for Apple given the market share distribution of phones IMO, but within margins of error still pretty close to each other.
Prior to the release of the Nexus Android tablet sales stunk. The iPad was without doubt king of tablets and IMO largely still is. Since they had 90% market share in tablets AND since more people shop/browse on their tablet than phone, when you look at (iPhone + iPad) sales vs (Android phone + Android tablet) sales the number really gets skewed. Since most of the Android tablets/Nexus devices actually sold in November were likely given as Christmas gifts, they wouldn't show any web usage in November/December.
There will likely be some lag as the Android tablets proliferate. I'm not sure how the web data is tracked. If it relies on the device most Android tablets also have the 'identify me as a desktop' option that pretty much everyone uses. Does Apple not have this option? Visit one site your used to and have it show up as an annoying 'mobile' version of the site and that option is checked quickly. Even my nieces had that option set within minutes.
The real meaningful data will be seeing the same raw data from IBM 6 months or a year from now.
Or it's just that iOS users surf the web from their devices more than Android users?
Pretty weak angle, AI.
To some extent, I can understand the assertion that "iOS users surf the web from their devices more than Android users":
Many Android phones are feature phones not smartphones conducive to web surfing
Many Android phones are purchased off contract, BOGO or because of price -- likely the user has minimal or no data plan
What I don't understand is Android Tablet devices not showing web usage commensurate with their purported market share...
IMO, one of the primary uses of any Tablet is to surf the web (along with books, games, social apps, productivity apps). If Android Tablets are not being used to surf the web -- isn't it likely that they are not being bought... or being bought and not being used.
If the latter is the case, those tablet owners are potential iPad buyers.
An uptick in mobile web usage by iOS devices, matched by an even greater decline in Android web traffic since November, is calling into question figures from IDC that reported an apparent, significant slippage by Apple in global tablet market share.
That's all we need - more good news about Apple to drive the share price lower. /s
The real issue isn't the accuracy of IDC's estimations; it's the legitimacy of conflating shipments with sales.
I disagree. That is a valid argument only in cases where the system is not at equilibrium - such as the start up of a new product. For example, their argument about Surface may hold some weight since it's brand new. Similarly, the earliest reports of HP Touchpad shipments were clearly misleading since so many of them were not actually sold until HP dropped the price.
However, for Android tablets, I don't think that's the case. While new models get released all the time, they are replacing existing models. If the old models were piling up in warehouses, there would be massive fire sales which we just don't see. Furthermore, people have been using the same argument for years. If Android tablet sales were that much below shipments all those years, even the densest of companies would eventually slow down production.
I think it's simply that the estimates provided by companies like IDC are far off the mark. When Samsung released sales figures for their products, they were far below what the market research companies have estimated, yet there's been no obvious change in methodology or reporting of the data since then, so they are probably using the same methods. There's absolutely no verification of the accuracy of third party numbers and no way to know if their grossly overestimated.
I have a friend who bought his entire family <$100 Android tablets for Christmas.
They were struggling, badly, just to get the app store working as they'd expected (it was the manufacturer's and therefore much more limited) and getting WiFi networking operational.
I tried them. The touch screen was awful. Responsiveness was abysmal. If I had owned one of them I would have tossed it in a drawer and bought an iPad. But since he bought one for each family member that was an option he could not afford . Since many people think of the tablets as rough equivalents to iPads, I'm sure this spoiled a lot of Christmases for people.
I got one of those cheap Android tablets as a prize in a contest and played with it for a couple of hours before it was just too frustrating so I sold it on eBay. Yet the reviews for this tablet were pretty decent--I guess some people have very low standards.
Android is on some very low-end phones. And that is in the US. Who knows what they got in other countries. Android on feature phones?
If you have a crappy device that can barely get on the internet then you aren't going to be using it. I have an old feature phone that can get on the internet. Do I use it for that purpose? Nope.
Remember when Android users used to say only Android gives users "the full web experience" since they run Flash? Seems most of them never use the Internet for anything.
Maybe they do use the "full web experience" but between the browser cashes and battery drain from the Flash plug-in they web presence is so short.
edit: Autocorrect issues.
Sol, you should use AutoEdit to rectify those pesky AutoCorrect * issues...
I suspect we are also seeing that junk gets used less. People talk. People who bought iPads this Christmas will (IMHO) be happier than those who bought most Android tablets. As the year rolls on, they will think of correcting their error.
I had to edit that 3x to get it all that one might think I'd started using beer money. This was from a recent change in Safari where I turned on Correct Spelling Automatically. I have just turned it off so now you should only get my usual misspelled words that typically don't spell other words, which is oddly better than correctly spelled that alter the meaning of the sentence. Now I know it's my fault for not proofreading my comments and I take full blame but I would really like spell checking to evolve to understand the intention of the writer. I hope someone is working on that.
Do landfills count as warehouses for Android devices?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
Couldn't another possibility be that the iPhone users are just using the web more? There will be a lot of people that purchase their smartphone and only use it as a normal phone, just like there are lots of people that purchase laptops and never move them off the table they sit on.
If that's the case, which it probably is, then developers can't rely on shipment "market share" to see whether to develop for a platform or not. Another reason why Android isn't "winning".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cash907
Or it's just that iOS users surf the web from their devices more than Android users?
Pretty weak angle, AI.
Isn't Android suppose to be for techies because it's "open" and you can modify it at will?
This article was one of the better researched and written articles by DED in a long time -- it was reasoned, even-handed and informative... a good read! ...from one of DED's biggest critics.
Or it's just that iOS users surf the web from their devices more than Android users?
Pretty weak angle, AI.
Well if I were the CEO of Google, I'd be pretty concerned since web surfing is the company's main source of revenue. AFAIK, Google still makes more money from iOS than it does Android.
This is a serious problem with IDC group. They should know the numbers can be very different between shipped and sold. Then they conveniently mix Apple's sales number with a very uncertain shipped number causing Apple investors great amount of loss.
I call into question Android's numbers also. As a matter of fact, I've been calling into question those bogus numbers for years now. Why should anybody just believe in estimates that somebody decides to whip up? There's a reason why official Android numbers are rarely revealed by certain companies.
Here's some info that might in handy when forming debate points...
PHONE USAGE IS NOT DIFFERENT -- ONLY TABLET USAGE IN THE USA
Note that when they break out phones and tablets separately, the cellular web usage is the same for both OSes. There is no such thing as some kind of Android feature phone gap or poor buyers or other such nonsense.
Only tablet over WiFi usage seems to vary, and apparently only in the USA. Why? I think it's because...
THE ANDROID "TABLETS" BEING COUNTED INCLUDE MILLIONS OF E-READERS
The device numbers include millions of Android base e-Readers which are mainly used to read books and view videos. They are not used that much for web browsing. For example, webstat sources show that Kindle Fires account for less than 1% of mobile web browsing.
MOST OF THE ANDROID E-READERS ARE USED IN THE USA
In addition, surveys show that quite a few American tablet owners have both an Android based e-Reader and an iPad. Guess which is used for browsing?
STAT COUNTER NUMBERS SHOW THERE IS NO WEB GAP OUTSIDE THE USA.
On the contrary, it shows what we expect: more Android usage. Below: USA, then the World. Link here.
THE ARTICLES THAT CLAIM SOME KIND OF DISCREPANCY USE WEB STATS
WHICH ARE ARTIFICIALLY WEIGHTED BY COUNTRY
The charts above are from StatCounter. The chart used in the article is from Net App.
StatCounter does not weight their data. Net App weights their data by country, using numbers we don't know.
StatCounter uses 3 million websites. Net App only looks at their own group of 40,000 websites.
StatCounter counts page hits. Net App only counts unique visitors, which does not indicate the amount of web usage.
The upshot is, it seems pretty obvious that the discrepancy in web stats is because of:
Including e-Readers in the Android count, and
Looking at USA only or USA weighted data.
More later. The original article is full of other mistakes.
Everything Samsucks does is a lie. Their phones and tablets they claim were inspired by nature is a lie. The trumped up Samsung Experience stores are a lie, Their TV commercials are a lie, even their CEO Gee Sung Choi outright lies to his customers and the press. And now we have IDC on the payroll and they're lying for Samshit.
Hey Gee Sung, can't you compete against Apple without lying like Iran? Is the the best you can do?
I have a friend who bought his entire family <$100 Android tablets for Christmas.
They were struggling, badly, just to get the app store working as they'd expected (it was the manufacturer's and therefore much more limited) and getting WiFi networking operational.
I tried them. The touch screen was awful. Responsiveness was abysmal. If I had owned one of them I would have tossed it in a drawer and bought an iPad. But since he bought one for each family member that was an option he could not afford . Since many people think of the tablets as rough equivalents to iPads, I'm sure this spoiled a lot of Christmases for people.
There was probably more of a spike of iPad ownership in Christmas 2012 than 2011 thanks to the entry-level iPad Mini, thus the change in market share numbers whether derived indirectly from web use or not. I think a lot of crummy Android tablets were sold, and gained respectable market share. Since the target audience is likely to throw them into a drawer after the initial novelty wears out, I don't think they are any threat to Apple.
D
Exactly! I lost my IPhone last weekend (left it in a taxi in China - ugh! - 6 month old 4S, US version) and not wanting a Chinese version (Chinese mandatory wifi standard is used, not global standard version) I had a friend pick up a new 5 from Hong Kong (also 17% less expensive due to high tax in China, none in Hong Kong). Meanwhile I had to have a phone during the few days I waited for my new one, so picked up the cheapest Android phone I could find at the local computer mall to find out what all the noise is about Android first hand - it is a $150 USD Ares brand phone running android V 2.3.6, the OS version which currently makes up 47% of all android phones. (The newest version is 4.1 and.2 with only 10% share). The phone is a total POS - impossible to type on, buggy, clunky, the standard browser is a total POS, downoaded Firefox and it crashes all the time, google's own browser, chrome, can't run on it (go figure), the screen is low res, etc. etc. etc. this is not a device that is usable to any meaningful extent on the web like an iOS device. The world is loaded with 100's of millions of these less expensive low end android phones that are barely usable. It is grossly misleading to even look at Android collectively as some unified OS or platform. What a frustrating experience! Now how to sell it to some unsuspecting fool with a clear conscience...
This article was one of the better researched and written articles by DED in a long time -- it was reasoned, even-handed and informative... a good read! ...from one of DED's biggest critics.
Agreed. One of the best discussions I've seen of the 'shipments' vs 'sales' issue in the press.
The only thing I would have added is: if Samsung's shipments were anywhere close to sales, you can bet they'd be shouting out the audited numbers from their rooftops. The fact that they're still coy about channel data tells you all you need to know. It's bogus.
Only fools believe Android's so-called market share numbers (to the extent that, ultimately, market share even matters).
Comments
Maybe they do use the "full web experience" but between the browser crashes and battery drain from the Flash plug-in their web presence is so short.
edit: Autocorrect issues.
Did you mean browser crashes or beer money? Lol
Quote:
Originally Posted by ajmas
This could simply indicate that iOS users surf the web more than users of other platforms. For example, up to now I doubt Blackberry was a decent device to surf the web.?
I think this is a big part of it. Not so much that iOS users surf more so much as that people surf alot more on a tablet than on a phone. If you look at the post that started the 'mobile shopping dominated by iOS' on this site it uses data from IBM research. If you look at that data and compare phones Apple had 8.7%, Android had 5.5%. Still a pretty big win for Apple given the market share distribution of phones IMO, but within margins of error still pretty close to each other.
Prior to the release of the Nexus Android tablet sales stunk. The iPad was without doubt king of tablets and IMO largely still is. Since they had 90% market share in tablets AND since more people shop/browse on their tablet than phone, when you look at (iPhone + iPad) sales vs (Android phone + Android tablet) sales the number really gets skewed. Since most of the Android tablets/Nexus devices actually sold in November were likely given as Christmas gifts, they wouldn't show any web usage in November/December.
There will likely be some lag as the Android tablets proliferate. I'm not sure how the web data is tracked. If it relies on the device most Android tablets also have the 'identify me as a desktop' option that pretty much everyone uses. Does Apple not have this option? Visit one site your used to and have it show up as an annoying 'mobile' version of the site and that option is checked quickly. Even my nieces had that option set within minutes.
The real meaningful data will be seeing the same raw data from IBM 6 months or a year from now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cash907
Or it's just that iOS users surf the web from their devices more than Android users?
Pretty weak angle, AI.
To some extent, I can understand the assertion that "iOS users surf the web from their devices more than Android users":
Many Android phones are feature phones not smartphones conducive to web surfing
Many Android phones are purchased off contract, BOGO or because of price -- likely the user has minimal or no data plan
What I don't understand is Android Tablet devices not showing web usage commensurate with their purported market share...
IMO, one of the primary uses of any Tablet is to surf the web (along with books, games, social apps, productivity apps). If Android Tablets are not being used to surf the web -- isn't it likely that they are not being bought... or being bought and not being used.
If the latter is the case, those tablet owners are potential iPad buyers.
That's all we need - more good news about Apple to drive the share price lower. /s
I disagree. That is a valid argument only in cases where the system is not at equilibrium - such as the start up of a new product. For example, their argument about Surface may hold some weight since it's brand new. Similarly, the earliest reports of HP Touchpad shipments were clearly misleading since so many of them were not actually sold until HP dropped the price.
However, for Android tablets, I don't think that's the case. While new models get released all the time, they are replacing existing models. If the old models were piling up in warehouses, there would be massive fire sales which we just don't see. Furthermore, people have been using the same argument for years. If Android tablet sales were that much below shipments all those years, even the densest of companies would eventually slow down production.
I think it's simply that the estimates provided by companies like IDC are far off the mark. When Samsung released sales figures for their products, they were far below what the market research companies have estimated, yet there's been no obvious change in methodology or reporting of the data since then, so they are probably using the same methods. There's absolutely no verification of the accuracy of third party numbers and no way to know if their grossly overestimated.
I got one of those cheap Android tablets as a prize in a contest and played with it for a couple of hours before it was just too frustrating so I sold it on eBay. Yet the reviews for this tablet were pretty decent--I guess some people have very low standards.
If you have a crappy device that can barely get on the internet then you aren't going to be using it. I have an old feature phone that can get on the internet. Do I use it for that purpose? Nope.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
Quote:
Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee
Remember when Android users used to say only Android gives users "the full web experience" since they run Flash? Seems most of them never use the Internet for anything.
Maybe they do use the "full web experience" but between the browser cashes and battery drain from the Flash plug-in they web presence is so short.
edit: Autocorrect issues.
Sol, you should use AutoEdit to rectify those pesky AutoCorrect * issues...
* AutoMissTypeAhead
Keep at it. Still reads browser cashes.
I had to edit that 3x to get it all that one might think I'd started using beer money. This was from a recent change in Safari where I turned on Correct Spelling Automatically. I have just turned it off so now you should only get my usual misspelled words that typically don't spell other words, which is oddly better than correctly spelled that alter the meaning of the sentence. Now I know it's my fault for not proofreading my comments and I take full blame but I would really like spell checking to evolve to understand the intention of the writer. I hope someone is working on that.
Do landfills count as warehouses for Android devices?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
Couldn't another possibility be that the iPhone users are just using the web more? There will be a lot of people that purchase their smartphone and only use it as a normal phone, just like there are lots of people that purchase laptops and never move them off the table they sit on.
If that's the case, which it probably is, then developers can't rely on shipment "market share" to see whether to develop for a platform or not. Another reason why Android isn't "winning".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cash907
Or it's just that iOS users surf the web from their devices more than Android users?
Pretty weak angle, AI.
Isn't Android suppose to be for techies because it's "open" and you can modify it at will?
This article was one of the better researched and written articles by DED in a long time -- it was reasoned, even-handed and informative... a good read! ...from one of DED's biggest critics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cash907
Or it's just that iOS users surf the web from their devices more than Android users?
Pretty weak angle, AI.
Well if I were the CEO of Google, I'd be pretty concerned since web surfing is the company's main source of revenue. AFAIK, Google still makes more money from iOS than it does Android.
This is a serious problem with IDC group. They should know the numbers can be very different between shipped and sold. Then they conveniently mix Apple's sales number with a very uncertain shipped number causing Apple investors great amount of loss.
I call into question Android's numbers also. As a matter of fact, I've been calling into question those bogus numbers for years now. Why should anybody just believe in estimates that somebody decides to whip up? There's a reason why official Android numbers are rarely revealed by certain companies.
Here's some info that might in handy when forming debate points...
PHONE USAGE IS NOT DIFFERENT -- ONLY TABLET USAGE IN THE USA
Note that when they break out phones and tablets separately, the cellular web usage is the same for both OSes. There is no such thing as some kind of Android feature phone gap or poor buyers or other such nonsense.
Only tablet over WiFi usage seems to vary, and apparently only in the USA. Why? I think it's because...
THE ANDROID "TABLETS" BEING COUNTED INCLUDE MILLIONS OF E-READERS
The device numbers include millions of Android base e-Readers which are mainly used to read books and view videos. They are not used that much for web browsing. For example, webstat sources show that Kindle Fires account for less than 1% of mobile web browsing.
MOST OF THE ANDROID E-READERS ARE USED IN THE USA
In addition, surveys show that quite a few American tablet owners have both an Android based e-Reader and an iPad. Guess which is used for browsing?
STAT COUNTER NUMBERS SHOW THERE IS NO WEB GAP OUTSIDE THE USA.
On the contrary, it shows what we expect: more Android usage. Below: USA, then the World. Link here.
THE ARTICLES THAT CLAIM SOME KIND OF DISCREPANCY USE WEB STATS
WHICH ARE ARTIFICIALLY WEIGHTED BY COUNTRY
The charts above are from StatCounter. The chart used in the article is from Net App.
StatCounter does not weight their data. Net App weights their data by country, using numbers we don't know.
StatCounter uses 3 million websites. Net App only looks at their own group of 40,000 websites.
StatCounter counts page hits. Net App only counts unique visitors, which does not indicate the amount of web usage.
The upshot is, it seems pretty obvious that the discrepancy in web stats is because of:
Including e-Readers in the Android count, and
Looking at USA only or USA weighted data.
More later. The original article is full of other mistakes.
Hey Gee Sung, can't you compete against Apple without lying like Iran? Is the the best you can do?
Agreed. One of the best discussions I've seen of the 'shipments' vs 'sales' issue in the press.
The only thing I would have added is: if Samsung's shipments were anywhere close to sales, you can bet they'd be shouting out the audited numbers from their rooftops. The fact that they're still coy about channel data tells you all you need to know. It's bogus.
Only fools believe Android's so-called market share numbers (to the extent that, ultimately, market share even matters).