Thanks to Russell for reminding me to open up AdMob's latest Metrics report (PDF link), revealing the top devices and OS used for browsing mobile web sites. Symbian OS has a big worldwide lead here, at 58%, with Windows Mobile and RIM tied on 13%. Apple's share is tiny, but then the iPhone's browser doesn't work well with mobile sites (I've tried).
Read on in the full article.
Apple's share is tiny, but then the iPhone's browser doesn't work well with mobile sites
What the...? Really? Aren't mobile sites the easiest kind of site to render?
Yes, but Safari is all geared up for handling desktop layouts. More than half of the mobile sites I tried it with were unusable because the fonts used were too tiny to read....
Not the iPhone's fault, per se, and its user agent means that sites serve up full versions anyway - but if you do try and specifically go to a mobile site, it often doesn't work out well.
I am not sure that it is something to be proud of though.
Nokia's browser is capable of showing full websites not just the mobile versions, sadly the s60 browser user agent now causes many sites to dish up the mobile version, some of which are no better than the wap sites of old.
I am not against mobile sites, some are done very well, but i'd prefer to have the choice as to whether I visit them or not by using a different .mobi or m. url
For example it is now near impossible to view the full bbc.co.uk website using the s60 browser, you are always redirected to the mobile site, if you then go to the bbc preferences and click to always use the desktop version of the site, it just redirects you back to the mobile version again, it pisses me off to be honest.
Sadly the only way to view the main BBC website seems to be to use Opera Mini.
For this reason I am sad to say that I have started to use the browser on my iPod Touch more than the s60 one on my E71 & N82
Sadly the only way to view the main BBC website seems to be to use Opera Mini.
I think this might be partly the fault of the BBC as they use redirects rather more than most sites.
The odd thing is that older phones like the E61 can still display the PC version of the BBC site, the BBC doesn't redirect them, which implies there is some setting which S60 should let the user vary to choose what kind of site they want. So S60 is definitely to blame as well.
Sadly now I know why Nokia couldn't care less about US customers...look at the US #s. Symbian is at the very bottom with a minuscule percentage. It's actually a drastic difference from other countries.
Tzer2 wrote:I think this might be partly the fault of the BBC as they use redirects rather more than most sites.The odd thing is that older phones like the E61 can still display the PC version of the BBC site, the BBC doesn't redirect them, which implies there is some setting which S60 should let the user vary to choose what kind of site they want. So S60 is definitely to blame as well.
I totally agree, obviously the BBC never got round to adding the E61's user agent. (actually I remember why, it is because the E61 still has two browsers, 'web' and 'services' the BBC sees 'Web' as a full browser and 'Services' as a mobile browser)
What would be handy would be to allow the S60 browser to select other user agents like Safari does on the Mac.
the same thing happens here in the USA with my n95. i CANNOT get to the full website version of cnn.com, foxnews.com, etc <insert news site here>. and i hate it. so are ALL these sites just clueless, or are they trying to control the universe? my point is that i dont think it shows symbian browser in good light by being so high % in mobile website versions. from my experience, these news sites in the USA must not be aware symbian has a full browser, hence they would give the option of viewing either version. though i have no excuse for the BBC site over the pond.