iPhone Users Number One at Mobile Web Surfing

iPhones are the best

Trying to surf the Web on a mobile phone used to be an exercise in futility. Although smart phones have included Web browsing for quite a few years now, it is only recently that mobile Internet speeds and interfaces have improved to the point where accessing the Internet on a mobile phone is practical and enjoyable.

The introduction of the Apple iPhone set a new standard in mobile phone Web browsing, and a new study from M:Metrics reinforces the commonly held assumption that, given a good mobile Internet browser, users will take full advantage of Internet services on their phones.
The study, which followed the phone habits of over 10,000 adults for a period of six months following the iPhone’s release in the US, found that a full 85% of iPhone users access news and other Web content on a regular basis. The study found that users of other smartphones used the mobile Internet considerably less — only 58% surfed the Web regularly from their phone.
The numbers get even worse for users of regular mobile phones, with only 13% regularly surfing the web from their cell phone.

Mobile Internet experts attribute this to the iPhone’s groundbreaking touchscreen interface and intuitive Web browser. And although many new smartphones have attempted to emulate the intuitive iPhone interface, so far none have succeeded in creating a more user-friendly mobile Web surfing experience.

The study by M:Metrics confirms information released by Google in February, indicating that the Google search engine received 50 times as many search requests from Apple iPhones as from any other competing smart phone.

Another contributing factor may be Apple’s partnership with AT&T. The company offers an unlimited data plan, which thousands of iPhone users have taken advantage of. If they’re not paying anything extra for surfing the web heavily on their phone, it stands to reason that users will take advantage of Web content and services more often.

But experts agree that what really separates the iPhone from its competition is the uniqueness of its Web interface, and the simplicity of the phone’s touchscreen. This allows iPhone users to maneuver their way around the web intuitively, and even provides possibilities unheard-of with a desktop PC.

For example, by touching and “pinching” the screen, iPhone users can manipulate web sites in ways a regular desktop or notebook PC cannot. This allows for a slightly different web surfing experience, but one that is not so different that it requires any additional thought. In other words, the iPhone has managed to strike a careful balance between uniqueness and familiarity — something we all want in any new technology.