Android Passes iPhone Web Traffic In U.S. | Hacker News Reader

Android Passes iPhone Web Traffic In U.S.

techcrunch.com

84 pointsandr57 comments

Please forgive the metacomment, but god TechCrunch is terrible, I've never been so frustrated reading a blog

1) What's with the unreadable, unlinked graphs? I can barely make them out

2) I tried to go to the source by clicking the "released" link, which took me to... another TechCrunch article!

3) All the other links in the article are to other TechCrunch articles too! How's that for sourcing...

4) I looked all over for a Source: link at the bottom, like Engadget and virtually every other news aggregator blog out there has, but unless I'm blind, no dice.

5) When I copy and paste a line from their article, they add "Read more: http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/27/admob-android-passes-iphone.... IMHO That's just lame.

You can thank Tynt for that - and it's not just used by TechCrunch. The easiest way to opt out is to block tcr.tynt.com in your hosts/adblock/privoxy settings.

Offending file: http://tcr.tynt.com/javascripts/Tracer.js

Especially if you are trying to address specific points from the article on your comments on their site (or anywhere else).

One wonders what percentage of the time that gets manually edited out right after pasting. 95%+?

It's Admob ad traffic, not "web traffic". Very important distinction.

Still, hooray for Android! This is just the first of many passes Android will do in the future.

Our analytics data has US iPhone visits at 5x Android, so there is quite a way to go. I think as long as iPhone remains exclusively at AT&T it will happen eventually.

For the last month, my most mobile-friendly site is about 8.2% iPhoo, 1.6% Android, 0.9% Blackberry and 0.03% Palm (tied with SunOS and Playstation 3). Now, that's not a mobile site, but it's the one I have that gets the most mobile users.

Exactly. My article here explaining the difference: http://www.businessinsider.com/no-android-did-not-just-pass-...

The stats are for "AD" content, not Web Traffic.

I would estimate Android has more ad-supported applications so I'm not surprised at all.

To reiterate, this statistic has nothing to do with web traffic.

Original release: http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmV...

> would estimate Android has more ad-supported applications so I'm not surprised at all

Always interesting when people refute metrics with hand waving. "I would estimate" is a good sign that you shouldn't.

AdMob isn't secret about their metric methodology. http://metrics.admob.com/

It is overwhelmingly driven by mobile web sites (which, humorously, usually call themselves "iPhone versions"), which I think is pretty fair to use as a comparison point.

I would estimate Android has more ad-supported applications so I'm not surprised at all.

I can't think of any ad-supported Android apps. (I have a lot of apps, and none of them have ads.)

Really? There are tons of them. Some of the AdMob supported apps on my phone at the moment include:

* Movies (Flixster) * Load Monitor * MixZing * Virtual Beer * BlueTooth File Transfer * Carr Matey * Aldiko * Camera Magic * VG Classics Board * Dolphin Browser

The Hacker News Reader app is also ad supported, although I think they're using a different ad network.

... and I can't think of any iPhone app using AdMob

From mine, HeyWay and AccuWeather use AdMob, while Instapaper Free uses "The Deck"

It would be a wee bit more accurate to say that Android phones fetched more ads on the AdMob network (which is owned by Google) than the iPhone did.

No one's claiming it to be a perfect sample of all traffic on the web, but that doesn't make it worthless. And I really don't think Google is juking the stats.

As someone who doesn't know much about the ad business nor Android phones: do we expect that most of those ad requests came from Android browsers or from Android apps? Do iPhone apps often use AdMob ads?

AdMob is still not owned by Google for now.

My prediction is that we will be in the same situation with iPhone vs Andriod that we are now with Mac vs Windows in 5-7 years. Andriod will be the cheaper but less polished product sold to the masses, while the iPhone will be a more upscale, more expensive product for the people with discriminating taste. Right now there is a lot of innovation going on in the mobile market, but the reality is that soon some features will become standard or even (gasp!) interoperable. At that point rapid "breadth-first" innovation will stop and we'll be looking at a competition of who has the nicer screen or longer battery life or faster processor, etc., and not at all at how apps are distributed, or multitasking is done.

P.S.: In 100 years works like "cell phone" and "app" will be SAT words : ).

The gap in usability between Android devices and the iPhone is pretty small. With Sense from HTC, it's even smaller. I've been lucky enough to get to test-drive the HTC Incredible and it's most certainly on par with anything the iPhone currently offers. Google is pushing Android in the right direction at a really fast clip.

I absolutely think Android will dominate in terms of market-share in the next two years (unless Apple starts loosening control over the iPhone). I think that issues like how applications are distributed and those particulars over multi-tasking (Android still has an entire class of Apps that won't run on iPhone OS 4.0) are going to continue to play a big role in the competitive environment for years to come. I just don't see Apple coming off of it's hard line position on these things.

In the end I think Android wins because it simply opens the door for more innovation from a much larger group of smart people. It enables broader categories of application development. At the same time the shotgun strategy phone development is a proven one. Just look at Series 60 or even windows PC's for a roadmap.

I think Apple will have to loosen its grip the same way it had to do it for their desktop/laptop offerings. They used to offer really cools stuff but then the cost of not having them be able to talk to the beige boxes became too high.

Also you are comparing HTC Incredible to 3G/3GS. I guess we'll see if the 4G iPhone is actually another step above everybody else.

> Also you are comparing HTC Incredible to 3G/3GS. I guess we'll see if the 4G iPhone is actually another step above everybody else.

Well if you try and review the iPhone 4G you get arrested.

> Well if you try and review the iPhone 4G you get arrested.

Only if you buy a stolen unit to review :-)

I agree, but only if Apple allows unsigned apps on the iPhone. Then its a matter of taste & money. Money that I would be willing to spend if I owned the phone after purchasing it, like I own my MacBook Pro.

My hope is that Android is so successful that Apple has to allow unsigned App. Until then I am happy developing apps for Android.

I think it will have to. On the other hand, I try to remind myself that 95% of iPhone/SmartPhone users out there don't care about Apple's embargo on certain apps. The most visible one was Google Voice, and that's still in a very closed beta. Things will dramatically change when the Andriod phones have something the iPhone doesn't that matters to those 95%.

I think that at the very least they're going to have to provide some method for Enterprises to load custom or semi-custom enterprise specific apps without going through the app store.

They have that. See here: http://developer.apple.com/programs/iphone/enterprise/

Shoot. How'd I miss that? Anyway thanks for pointing that out!

You're effectively saying, I hope that Apple becomes such a minority platform that they're forced to open up. But why would you want to develop for a minority platform, even if the stop actively chasing people away? It's a catch-22.

This stance benefits Apple now, when they have the early mover advantage, and delays the advance of Android but unless they're very quick to change strategies and smooth things over with developers then it's only going to accelerate things when (and it seems like a when, not if) they become a minority platform.

  But why would you want to develop for a minority platform

You may want to do that if majority of paying customers are on that minority platform.

Allowing only signed apps has one huge advantage: no malware.

I do feel that Apple should weaken its requirements and only disallow bad apps.

I understand what you're saying, but what the iPhone really excludes is unapproved malware.

I understand what you're saying, but what the iPhone really excludes is unapproved malware.

Which has always seemed like an elephant in the room for Apple, legally speaking. By aggressively vetting applications, aren't they warranting to their end users that the applications are free from harmful or illegal side effects? What stops me from writing an app that only turns into malware after a certain date, for instance?

I think that's a pretty unproven assertion. There's no evidence that Apple's review process is anywhere near comprehensive enough to detect zero day malware.

Actually Android apps are required to be signed too. It's just the restriction on who is allowed to sign it that is looser.

> Andriod will be the cheaper but less polished product sold to the masses, while the iPhone will be a more upscale, more expensive product for the people with discriminating taste

Okay a lot of people have given you a pass for this (as Hacker's News, almost entirely as a reflection PG's spoken beliefs, is very Apple-fawning), but this is silly. You aren't special for buying a Mac, nor are your tastes better.

Everyone's anecdotes are different, but personally I equate owning an Apple PC with being very susceptible to marketing. The iPhone was a clear winner until maybe 6 months ago, however since then anyone choosing an iphone again is mostly a "Consumer" and not a discerning purchaser.

My point is that that's the higher ground that Apple will be forced to take. Good design is not something you achieve and then have in your back pocket, so the fact that Andriod UI is "getting there" doesn't mean much in terms of comparisons of future products. OTOH, Apple has historically been very good at creating UI/UX that is a head above the rest. They have also been very successful at selling their products for a price points way above what is absolutely minimally profitable. I think Andriod will force them right to this basic model when it comes to smartphones.

Odd to remove the "Admob: " prefix in the headline, it's very important to the story.

Placing AdMob Metrics in Context: http://metrics.admob.com/2009/10/placing-admob-metrics-in-co...

Of all the apps I use on a daily basis I can think of only one that has AdMob ads running. I think what this says more than anything else is that the apps being written for Android are being forced to rely on ad sales as their revenue model more than the apps being written for iPhone.

Wouldn't the stats here be for web sites rather than apps? Otherwise the metric "web traffic" wouldn't make much sense?

It's tough to tell what they are really reporting here since I don't see it in the original AdMob report. If it's just web traffic then it is fairly useless to look at AdMob's numbers when there are much better sources out there. AdMob represents a whopping 18k websites of the 100M or so out there.

Probably worth mentioning few paid apps display ads. As such it seems like paid apps would be excluded from this sampling for both iPhone & Android. There's definitely some value in the trends but that's about it.

Link to the full report form AdMob - much better reading than the TC articles.

http://metrics.admob.com/2010/04/march-2010-mobile-metrics-r...

The only number I want to see from Android is app sales. Until then, it will always be second banana because nobody develops for a platform just because its users see a lot of AdMob ads.

Unless of course you plan to make a free, ad-supported product.

"Google ad service sees more traffic on Google device." AdMob wasn't always Google but they are now. "iAd traffic surges on iPhone OS devices! Android left in the dust!"

I don't see how this can be true. iPhone far outsells Android, no?

Sales are not the same as usage. Also see this: http://industry.bnet.com/technology/10005344/android-unit-sa...

I don't see how this is surprising. iPhone is a single device. There are many Android phones with many more to come. I would be surprised if any one device (say, Motorola's Droid for example) surpassed the iPhone but the Android OS as a whole? Not surprised.

The biggest flaw with the numbers is that it doesn't include iPod Touch or iPad traffic, as they are not smartphones. A second issue is that, because it is US numbers, there is only one carrier with iPhones, which will limit their numbers (presumably in exchange for a big bag of cash).

The biggest flaw with the numbers is that it doesn't include iPod Touch or iPad traffic, as they are not smartphones.

Why is that a flaw? Why should the numbers include those devices?

> Why is that a flaw? Why should the numbers include those devices?

My guess is that he's trying to compare OS vs OS, as opposed to OS vs device. Do these #s include traffic from Android tablets or MIDs? (Are there even any available for purchase at the moment?)

It's a (currently unique) advantage to the iPhone that it has a very popular sister device in the iPod Touch that is interchangeable in most respects e.g. designing a website, codec support, App market size.

Ignoring it would be the equivalent of comparing iPhone sales against a single Android phone (which I've also seen done repeatedly) which ignores the Android advantage of being available on multiple phones from multiple manufacturers.

Almost any actual decision you'd want to make about iPhone or Android as competing platforms will need to take into account the existance of iPod Touches or Android phones by a variety of manufacturers.

The numbers in each case may be correct for the limited arena they cover, but they're still misleading for any realistic purpose.

1. Admob is Google. 2. This is AD traffic. 3. != news

Given how many are predicting that the mobile web is a key component, if not the dominant component of the future of the web itself, and further given how many HN readers are running, or would like run some kind of web-focused startup. I don't see how this can NOT be HN relevant news.

Regardless of what your personal preferences are for one mobile platform vs another, the increased competition among the leading mobile platforms is driving down prices and driving up innovation in the mobile market. All of which is driving greater penetration of web-capable smartphone vs plain old "feature phones". All of which is likely to make the "mobile web" and important part of being competitive in any web-based venture.

Or at least, that's my perspective. :-)

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