

Android Passes iPhone Web Traffic In U.S. - andr
http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/27/admob-android-passes-iphone-web-traffic-in-u-s/

======
jbarciauskas
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.

~~~
axod
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...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/27/admob-android-passes-iphone-web-
traffic-in-u-s/#ixzz0mK83QfoW). IMHO That's just lame.

~~~
dpritchett
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> _

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not_an_alien
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.

~~~
dminor
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.

~~~
ja27
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.

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nessence
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...](http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100427005564&newsLang=en)

~~~
jrockway
_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.)

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

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

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isamuel
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.

~~~
eli
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.

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IgorPartola
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 : ).

~~~
biafra
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.

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

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

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

~~~
CamperBob
_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?

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

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eli
Placing AdMob Metrics in Context: [http://metrics.admob.com/2009/10/placing-
admob-metrics-in-co...](http://metrics.admob.com/2009/10/placing-admob-
metrics-in-context/)

------
javery
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.

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

~~~
javery
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.

------
jsz0
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.

------
javery
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...](http://metrics.admob.com/2010/04/march-2010-mobile-metrics-
report/)

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chc
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.

~~~
usaar333
Unless of course you plan to make a free, ad-supported product.

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ja2ke
"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!"

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

~~~
ZeroGravitas
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).

~~~
abstractbill
_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?

~~~
czhiddy
> 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?)

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

~~~
theBobMcCormick
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. :-)

