The smartphone wars would continue for years. The OS war is one of the most notorious and long lasting in the history of computer systems. While the industry keeps debating Windows 8 vs Mac OS vs free operating systems like Ubuntu, we wonder if there can be one single option for consumers? No, certainly not. One size wouldn’t fit all.
Coming back to the mobile market, one of the most aggressive debates has been Android vs iOS (iPhone, iPad). While Apple is credited to have re-invented the mobile market with iPhone and later with the iPad, Android commands huge numbers in terms of sales. While iPhone has steadily falled back from its dominant position, iPad continues to be the best selling tablet by far. However with recent surge in Android tablet shipments, it is interesting to note a statistic that often comes around – web usage from Android vs iOS.
We have an interesting statistic comparing web usage of iPad with the rest for web traffic for Black Friday shopping. iPad stands at 88.3% compared to 2.4% of Kindle and 1.8% of Samsung’a Galaxy. The report also shows that mobile web usage is ruled by iPad and iPhone, with 18.5% share between both of Apple’s iOS compared to 5.5% by Android. Android sure has its dominance with 75% marketshare for smartphones.
Effectively it means that people use more internet on the iPad compared to any other Android tablet. App makers have told us for long that engagement on iOS platform is far more than Android. This only points to the fact that, cheap tablets and smartphones result in shipment numbers for Android, but when it comes to meaningful usage of these devices, iPad (iOS) does far better. However given the pricing, the iPhone sure isn’t the device for cheap phone calls.
Given a tablet is closer to an actual work system, more web usage happens on this form factor. Apple is sure to love the lead it carries, despite being criticized extensively for missing out on Adobe Flash on its iPhone OS back in 2007. Things haven’t changed for Apple since then, it still avoids Adobe Flash on iOS and refrains from bundling it on Mac OS as well. What has of course changed is the market, that now favors HML 5 over Flash.