iPhone 3G dominates mobile data in Australia

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 23 September 2008 12:40

Your IT - Mobility

Amethon thinks this is due to iPhone users going to 'full' sites rather than mobile versions. They don't need a cut-down version, so why would they choose one?

Possible answers are reduced data transfers and correspondingly quicker page loads, but it seems that's not enough to offset the satisfaction gained from using the primary site rather than the mobile version.

This even extends to search behaviour. "iPhone users were found to be almost twenty times more likely to use desktop versions of web search engines than the average mobile user who is predominantly using the mobile version, at 97 per cent versus 43.6 per cent for mobile," said Amethon officials.

There seems to be a mismatch between the "twenty times" observation and the numbers presented, but it's pretty clear that most iPhone searching is done via the regular version of Google.

Furthermore, Google takes 97 percent of iPhone searches, compared with 95.5 percent of overall mobile searches.

And each web 'session' is longer - 2.8 minutes for iPhone users, 1.6 minutes for mobile users, and 2.4 minutes for desktop users. Is this is the result of reading more pages per session, relatively slow page loads, or is it simply takes longer to read a web page on an iPhone than on a desktop computer due to the need for additional scrolling and zooming?

Amethon suggests it's the result of reading more pages - the average page views per visit were said to be 73 percent higher for iPhones than other mobile devices.

Is high web use by iPhone owners a flash in the pan? Please read on.