Mobile Browser Marketshare: Safari still leads

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/02/android-browser-leapfrogs-opera-mini-but-safari-increases-its-l/

With all this talk about Android outselling iOS, it's interesting that iOS marketshare is still huge when you look at the browser usage alone.

What does this mean? That we sell millions and millions of Android phones, but people don't use them to browse the web?

I personally think that a huge majority of Android users are just average users. True smartphone gurus are the ones using the browser and apps, and using their phones like a workhorse, and in the office, at trade shows, I still see a huge number of iPhones.

Or is it that iPhone users spend all day on Safari while Android users are doing other things? Playing games? Rooting their phones? Installing ROMs? Shrug.

 

[s44]

I believe a lot of Android webkit-based browers report themselves as Safari.

 

[Ns1]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/02/android-browser-leapfrogs-opera-mini-but-safari-increases-its-l/

With all this talk about Android outselling iOS, it's interesting that iOS marketshare is still huge when you look at the browser usage alone.

What does this mean? That we sell millions and millions of Android phones, but people don't use them to browse the web?

I personally think that a huge majority of Android users are just average users. True smartphone gurus are the ones using the browser and apps, and using their phones like a workhorse, and in the office, at trade shows, I still see a huge number of iPhones.

Or is it that iPhone users spend all day on Safari while Android users are doing other things? Playing games? Rooting their phones? Installing ROMs? Shrug.

I've been wondering this myself

I just visited a page on a site I have admin privileges to. I watched my apache access log. Here's the line:

[02/Nov/2011:12:39:09 -0500] "GET <masked>.jpg HTTP/1.1" 200 421839 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_3; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.16 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0 Safari/533.16"

This was done from my Evo4G on the default browser. I have mobile view OFF, which is what I have it set to most of the time.

Here it is with my mobile view set to ON:

[02/Nov/2011:12:43:37 -0500] "GET <masked>.jpg HTTP/1.1" 200 421839 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.3; en-us; Sprint APA9292KT Build/GRI40) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1"

Both Safari and the Android default browsers are webkit based (at least in Android 2.x). In order to get the "full view" for websites, it actually appears I'm coming from OSX using Safari, of all things (WTF?). So, that first hit didn't even count towards "mobile", and even if it did, it still shows up as Safari. My mobile view was the only one that could tell me which OS in a semi-accurate fashion.

Calm down fanboys, this report is flawed because the statistics collection is flawed. All this tells you is most mobile traffic is from webkit-based browsers.

*EDIT* This makes me question what devices and Android OS versions report what user agent string in which modes (if the mode can be set). I know Motorola mucks with their browser, or HTC does, because they have different options available. They could also be using different user agent strings? Maybe only vanilla Android is reporting as Android browser?</masked></masked>

 

[Oyeve]

I dont use my android to browse much.

Also, I didnt even know there was a battle of the browsers going on. Which douche camp started that one?

 

[WelshBloke]

I believe a lot of Android webkit-based browers report themselves as Safari.

This.

 

[Anubis]

umm of course it does, apple has a huge userbase and they dont have a choice of what browser to use

android has an equally huge userbase with IDK 10? (+/-) different browsers to choose from

 

[trmiv]

umm of course it does, apple has a huge userbase and they dont have a choice of what browser to use

android has an equally huge userbase with IDK 10? (+/-) different browsers to choose from

Mercury, Atomic, Opera, Skyfire, iCab are all alternate browsers available for iPhone.

 

[Anubis]

Mercury, Atomic, Opera, Skyfire, iCab are all alternate browsers available for iPhone.

really? i thought i remember apple not allowing them on the ap store (opera specifically). has that been fixed?

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

I dont use my android to browse much.

Also, I didnt even know there was a battle of the browsers going on. Which douche camp started that one?

I'll give you a hint. <Apple> It was a metric they saw and latched on to without understanding it. I just tested my HTC with 2.3.7 on it and the browser reports as Safari.
These browser metrics are useless.

 

[theeedude]

If thinking of yourself as a "smartphone guru" makes you feel better, just go with that.

 

[trmiv]

really? i thought i remember apple not allowing them on the ap store (opera specifically). has that been fixed?

Yea Opera Mini came out over a year ago.

 

[boomhower]

Yeah, a lot of them report as Safari to get the iPhone formatted mobile pages. That makes this report completely useless.

 

[Anubis]

Yea Opera Mini came out over a year ago.

well then i stand corrected

 

[Bateluer]

Yea Opera Mini came out over a year ago.

As I recall, prior browser submitted to the Apple app store were declined. I can't recall if Opera was initially denied as well, but I do remember there being some press attention when they submitted Opera Mini to the app store.

 

[trmiv]

As I recall, prior browser submitted to the Apple app store were declined. I can't recall if Opera was initially denied as well, but I do remember there being some press attention when they submitted Opera Mini to the app store.

Yes they were declined, but haven't been for awhile. I used Opera Mini when it first came out on my iPod touch before I got my Droid. At that time it was pretty bad, but has steadily improved. There are now at least five quality alternative browsers available. There are others, but the reviews aren't great for those.

Now one thing to keep in mind is that on the iPhone you can't set a browser other than Safari to the default, so links clinked elsewhere will always open Safari.

All of that said, I still prefer Safari, just like I prefer the default Android browser on my Transformer.

 

[badb0y]

I use Atomic Browser now, it has tabs on my iPhone 🙂 .