Cloud Four Blog

Another big story yesterday was the fact that the NY Post is no longer letting iPad users access their web site and is instead forcing them to pay for an iPad app to read content. This has been one of my biggest fears for the future of the web.

The contributions that the web has made to the our collective knowledge are so large that they can’t be measured. It is this collective knowledge that I fear losing.

I am not a subscriber of the New York Times. On occasion, I am told that there is a good article in the New York Times that I should read.

Before the web, it is unlikely that I would have known about the article. If I did hear about it, then I would have to find a store that carried the New York Times and go buy it. Good luck finding the back issue of the newspaper if I heard about it the following day or week.

Today, I can simply follow the link and read the article for free. Removing the friction of physical distrubtion and having this information freely available is a tremendous boon to people everywhere.

John Gruber writes that the NY Post’s iPad policy “is a bad idea, and likely doomed to failure, but it shows just how problematic the web is, financially, for traditional newspapers.” There’s the rub.

All of this online knowledge that helps humans across the globe, but we’ve still not found a way to make it financially viable on the web. That is worrisome.

The promise for years was that there would be some sort of micropayment system that would help ensure a frictionless way to consume content on the web while ensuring authors and publishers got paid, but that promise hasn’t been realized.

I doubt that iPad apps are the savior for the publishing industry. But we do know that they have some things going for them that the web doesn’t including more reader engagement and easier payments.

Why shouldn’t more publishers follow the NY Post’s lead and drive people to their apps? In fact, if the web is losing money, at some point why wouldn’t they just stop publishing to the web at all and instead keep all the content inside the app.

I’m not opposed to paying for content. In fact, I want to do so, but subscribing to a newspaper that I only read one or two articles a month from doesn’t make sense. And that problem is amplified when articles are only available via an app that must be downloaded, installed and a subscription purchased.

The first time I read about the Financial Times success on the iPad and their pay wall, I wondered if our days of serendipitously finding useful articles will soon end. I don’t know how realistic these fears are, but I find it difficult to dismiss them.

The Washington Post is asking if new messaging apps are going to disrupt the carriers’ SMS cash cow. I’ve read articles like this in the past, but two seemingly unrelated news items from yesterday and today make me wonder if we’re finally seeing the first signs of this disruption.

First, Boy Genius Report had an exclusive that BlackBerry Messenger will launch on Android and iOS.

For those unfamiliar with BlackBerry Messenger, it is texting like service that allows you to send instant messages to any other BlackBerry for free—bypassing SMS charges.

BlackBerry Messenger is one of RIM’s greatest assets and is the reason why BlackBerry phones remain popular among youth in Latin America and the Middle East.

Second, Facebook acquired Beluga, a group messaging service. This was both a talent and technology acquisition indicating that Facebook has designs on some sort of mobile messaging solution.

When Facebook Messages was announced, everyone talked about it as a Gmail killer, but my first thought was it could take on SMS eventually. Facebook Messages are intended to be short messages without subject lines and the formality of email. Sound familiar?

More importantly, Facebook is the number one app on nearly every mobile platform which means it has an installed base that likely the nearest competitor to the pervasive presence of Facebook. When you consider that people normally text those they know best and Facebook has the largest social graph in the world, it seems like a natural fit.

Sooner or later someone is going to take on SMS with an alternative service. SMS is just too lucrative and addictive for other companies to stay away.

I wonder if this Blackberry and Facebook news is the first hint of that players lining up their pieces to make a run at replacing SMS.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. How the sources were selected
3. Types of Statistics Available
   • Sales market share
   • Installed base market share
   • Financial information
   • Platform breakdowns
   • Carrier data
   • Demographic surveys
   • Mobile web metrics
   • Advertising networks reports
   • App store metrics
   • Other fun sources
4. Which stats should you care about?
   • App developers
   • Web developers
   • Marketing
   • Investors
   • Your role here

Introduction

At least once a week, I see people arguing over mobile statistics. Usually, they’re not even arguing about the same thing.

The arguments go something like this:

iPhone fan: Apple is totally kicking ass. The only thing holding it back is the fact it is stuck on this crappy AT&T network.

Android fan: Take off your iPhone blinders. Android has passed the iPhone in market share in the whole world, not just the U.S. The Verizon iPhone won’t make a difference.

iPhone fan: That’s not a fair comparison. You should be looking at all iOS devices, not just the iPhone. If you don’t count the iPod Touch and the iPad, you’re missing the point.

Android fan: Whatever. You’re comparing apples to oranges. Besides, there will be at ton of Android tablets in the next year. This is Windows vs. Mac all over again.

iPhone fan: Whatever. I’ll be sitting here laughing my way to the bank with my Apple shares as Apple gobbles up all of the profits.

Typically, the people arguing aren’t even talking about the same thing. They probably aren’t even asking the same questions or if they are, they are asking questions that are too simplistic like “Who’s going to win?”

There are two things you need to know in order to effectively use statistics on mobile:

1. What statistics are available and where to find them.
2. What question about mobile that you’re seeking to answer.

Until you understand these two things, you can’t use mobile stats to inform your decisions. Worse yet, you may end up fruitlessly arguing with people about mobile only to realize later that you’re not even talking about the same thing.

How the sources were selected

When you have the audacity to call something a “comprehensive guide,” you know the moment you hit the publish button that someone is going to point out something you’ve missed. I not only expect that to happen, I’m hoping it does. I’m looking forward to learning new sources from people who comment on this post.

My bias is for finding free or inexpensive sources of data. We’re a small company and can’t afford expensive reports. That said, many of the sources listed provide their free information as a teaser for more in depth reports that they you can buy.

Types of Statistics Available

Sales market share

Sales market share is the most common statistic used to track the current trends in the mobile market. This information usually comes out a month or so after the end of a quarter and tells you how many products a company or platform sold in the previous quarter.

What this stat is good for

• Following the trends in success of the various platforms and manufacturers to see where the market is headed. This can help you anticipate what platforms or handsets you need to watch next.
• When the entire market is growing as fast as mobile is, a company can have record sales and still lose ground to its competition. You’ll see it here first.

What to watch for when you use this stat

• Sales numbers are not the same as installed base numbers. A new platform may sell well in the previous quarter, but it will take some time before the sales of new products exceed the existing devices that people already own.
• Know whether or not the statistic is measuring platform sales or manufacturer sales. Some analysts only look at manufacturer sales which will tell you how HTC is doing in comparison to Apple, but won’t tell you how Android is doing compared to iPhone.
• It helps to understand the seasonal nature of sales. Apple historically releases a new iPhone model in late Q2 or early Q3. Ergo, Apple sales historically jump in Q3.
• Understand what market is being defined. Most of what I look at is smartphone market share. Some people believe that you should look at the entire sales of a platform. So market share for the iOS platform should include iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Even if this argument was correct, you’ll find that it is next to impossible to find data that looks at the world that way.

Sales market share sources

Gartner ( Press releases | Recent example )

Gartner is my favorite source. They have a good reputation and they include both overall device sales and smartphone platform market share. They also have begun tracking tablet market share. Gartner’s data comes out every quarter about a month after the quarter ends. It is usually the last of the big analyst firms to release their numbers. Free information can be found in their press releases or you can pay for detailed reports.

IDC ( Press releases | Recent example )

IDC also has a great reputation. I find their numbers a little less useful because they focus on manufacturers not platforms. However, their press releases will often mention the relative success of the platforms in the prose just not in the breakdown tables.

Canalys ( Press releases | Recent example )

Canalys has been monitoring mobile for quite some time. They are usually one of the first to report the results for the previous quarter. They were also one of the first to start looking at smartphones instead of PDAs. Others have complained that their definition of Android in their Q4 2010 report was including Android forks (OMS and Tapas) that shouldn’t be included. My main beef with Canalys is superficial—the typeface on their site is too small and the site is difficult to read.

Strategy Analytics ( Press releases | Recent example )

Strong focus on mobile, but less well known compared to Gartner and IDC. Does not include platform numbers. They have started covering tablet market share and have some info on mobile internet usage.

ABI Research ( Press releases | Recent example )

ABI has an extensive mobile research component. Much of the value is only available to people who sign up for their research service.

NPD Group ( Press releases | Recent example )

Focuses on the US market. Uses large online surveys weighted to match US demographics and asks recent smartphone buyers what they bought. Often includes information on top five handsets in the US. First analyst to report that Android had passed iPhone which prompted Apple PR, which normally doesn’t comment, to criticize the report. Later analysts validated NPD’s early numbers.

Tomi Ahonen ( Search for smartphone blood bath articles | Recent example )

Tomi provides quarterly analysis in his bloodbath series. He has his own models, but always incorporates the numbers from the major analyst firms. Tomi’s name might as well be Tome based on the fact his posts are always epic in length. As a former Nokia executive, he has soft spot for Nokia which can blind him on occasion, but there is a reason why Tomi is someone the mobile industry continues to read. He also self publishes the TomiAhonen Almanac and TomiAhonen Phone Book.

Asymco ( Posts tagged with market | Recent example )

A relative newcomer, Asymco is a blog run by Horace Dediu. As far as I can tell, Horace isn’t a source of new statistics even though the first place you can hear of new research is often his blog. Instead of new research, Horace provides insightful analysis of the market. He often hightlights aspects of the data that others ignore. He provides great graphs to accompany his pieces and you can download data from the blog into an iOS app where you can manipulate the data. He has a soft spot for Apple, but has a realistic view of the market having recently said that he “still holds that 20% smartphone share is possible for the iPhone.” Asymco is a must read blog.

Installed base market share

Whereas sales market share looks at what was sold recently, the installed base market share—sometimes called subscriber market share—attempts to figure out what percentage of each type of phone is currently in use in the real world. These numbers don’t change as rapidly as the sales numbers.

Because phones will eventually be lost, stolen, broken or replaced, you can’t simply add up all of the phones sold in the past to find out how many phones are currently being used. For that reason, information on the installed base comes from surveying end users.

What this stat is good for

• If you can find a match between installed base and a market that you want to target, it can help you determine what devices you need to worry about.
• It helps you understand how quickly changes in the sales numbers are resulting in changes in the number of people using new devices.

What to watch for when you use this stat

• Almost all of the numbers are based on a particular geographic area and not worldwide data.
• Just because someone has a phone, doesn’t mean they are likely to use the capabilities of that phone in a way that makes sense for your business. For example, if someone has a feature phone, they are less likely to have a data plan and thus less likely to browse the web.

Installed base market share sources

Comscore ( Mobile press releases | Recent example )

Comscore and Nielsen are my go to sources for current information on the installed base of phones in the United States. Comscore reports include both handset and platform percentages. They also include information on mobile content usage. In 2011, they released their first annual report which looks at U.S., Europe and Japan.

Nielsen ( Blog | Recent example )

I like Nielsen’s blog posts better, but the information they highlight varies which is why makes following trends more difficult. (Comscore has the same data from month to month so it is easier to compare). They also highlight interesting information like the fact that “Hispanics, Asians are Most-Likely Smartphone Owners in the U.S.” Bonus points for using a blog format and being easy on the eyes.

Other than Comscore and Nielsen, I don’t have good sources for the installed base of phones. It would be nice to add to this list some sources for data in other countries.

Financial information

I’m the first to admit that I’m not someone you want to take financial advice from. But as I mentioned above, at some point in a debate about mobile phones, someone will issue the trump card that while Apple may not be dominating in market share, that they dominate in profits. Where does that information come from?

The simple answer is that it comes from each companies quarterly financial reports. It’s not hard to find the financial reports of each company so I’m going to leave that as a exercise for the reader. Instead, I’ll want to highlight a few sources that talk a bit about the profit breakdown of the market.

What this stat is good for

• If you’re investing, this is obviously critical to make sure you make smart stock decisions.
• Most companies provide some information about the units sold in their financial statements or their earnings phone calls.

What to watch for when you use this stat

• Unless you own stock in these companies, I’m not sure what good this information does for you. Obviously if a company is in dire financial trouble, that will impact the longevity of a platform. There are theories that we misunderstand the lesson of the pc market and that market share doesn’t matter as much as we think. That we should be watching profits instead. Others say the only thing matters is market share because it has it own momentum. That companies should stomach lower profit margins for a few years while the gold rush is on to secure a large market share that will drive long term value. Who’s right? I don’t know.
• When you compare RIM financials to other companies, note that their financial quarter is one month off from everyone else’s. It makes direct comparisons more difficult.

Financial information sources

Seeking Alpha ( Earnings calls transcripts | Recent example )

I often find little gems come out during the earnings calls for various mobile companies. Whenever I’ve searched for transcripts of those calls, I often end up on sites where I have to pay to read the transcript. Seeking Alpha usually has the transcripts available free of charge.

Asymco ( Posts tagged financial | Recent example

I talked in more detail about Horace Dediu in the sales market share section. His blog is the place I see the most information on profit share breakdowns.

Platform breakdowns

Sometimes you need to find information within a given platform. Maybe you want to know how many handsets are still using a particular version of an operating system to determine if you need to support it.

What this stat is good for

• Determining what versions you need to support.
• Understanding how OS version plays into any platform fragmentation

What to watch for when you use this stat

• Data is usually extremely high level. When you encounter a bug in a particular point release of an OS, it is hard to figure how may people are currently using that point release.

Sales market share sources

Android ( Versions report )

Google provides up to date information on Android versions.

Bada ( Developing Applications for Different Device Model )

Bada is too new to have much fragmentation, but they do describe how to plan for different models. Hopefully they will add platform percentages when they release newer versions of their OS.

Blackberry ( Choosing a target OS )

Decent high level numbers, but doesn’t distinguish between 5.x and 6.x. Also, there can be significant differences between point releases and the inability to know how many people are using a particular point release can be frustrating.

iOS versions ( ReadWriteWeb article from August 2010 )

There is no official source for iOS version breakdowns and no third-party that releases the information on a regular basis.

S40 / Symbian / Nokia ( Forum Nokia | Device breakdown )

With Nokia’s recent decision to move to Windows Phone 7 and the dismantling of the Symbian Foundation, I’m not sure how you find good information for existing market of handsets.

Windows Phone 7 ( App Hub

So new that all of the phones are on the same version. When it does publish data, it will likely be on App Hub.

Carrier data

There is a lot of information available about carrier market share, average revenue per user (ARPU), and what services are being used on each carrier. I generally don’t find this information as useful for our business or customers. That said, some of the information on how phones are being used can be fascinating.

What these stats are good for

• Looking for other ways to augment your plans with services like SMS and MMS.
• Understanding the total market for something like location based services.
• Random information to wow your friends at dinner parties (Did you know the average teenager in the U.S. sends and receives 3,338 text messages per month?)

What to watch for when you use these stats

• General data may not be indicative of what your customers are going to do or the services they use.

Carrier data sources

ABI Research ( One Billion Mobile Broadband Subscriptions in 2011: a Rosy Picture Ahead for Mobile Network Operators )

ABI is often quoted when people are looking for the number of mobile phone subscribers in the world.

Chetan Sharma ( Blog | US Mobile Data Market Update Q3 2010 )

Chetan has a long history in the U.S. mobile industry. His consulting practice helps large organizations understand the mobile market. Every quarter he publishes a market update that contains information comparing the carriers, the services that are being consumed, and the average revenue per user. His blog is also a great source of information on U.S. carriers and wireless usage.

CTIA ( CTIA Reports )

CTIA is an international organization, but its main focus appears to be on the U.S. They survey U.S. carriers every six months and publish a report showing revenue, average call time, number of text messages, etc.

Netsize ( Netsize Guide 2010 )

Netsize publishes an annual look at the worldwide mobile industry. It contains market data on 41 countries as well as interviews with thought leaders.

UN’s International Telecommunication Union ( Stats Index | Jan 2011 Statshot | Country Mobile Penetration Level Over Time )

The UN’s ITU tracks access to mobile networks and competition in mobile across the globe. The Google spreadsheet is very cool.

Mobile Active ( Mobile Data by Country )

Mobile statistics by country. BTW, Mobile Active is an amazing non-profit worth your support.

Demographic surveys

Demographic information is one of my favorite areas of mobile statistics. I believe there are trends in mobile that the tech press misses because they aren’t able to step outside the tech bubble and see how the demographics of smartphone users is shifting from the early adopter tech enthusiast to the general population and what that change means.

What these stats are good for

• If you know the demographics of your customer base, it can help ensure your mobile strategy lines up with how your customers are likely to be using mobile devices.

What to watch for when you use these stats

• The survey methodology is always important, but it is particularly important for demographic information. It is easy to find surveys that claim to have some demographic insight that have sample bias (e.g., only asking people who respond to mobile advertising).

Demographic information sources

Pew Research Center ( Publications on Internet and Technology | Cell phone activities by race and ethnicity )

Every time Pew releases new information related to use of mobile phones, I find something interesting. They’ve researched app usage, teens, race, and age differences.

Nielsen ( Nielsen Wire Blog | Among Mobile Phone Users, Hispanics, Asians are Most-Likely Smartphone Owners in the U.S. )

In addition to the market share information, Nielsen also provides information on demographics. The latest report even included smart phone operating system share by race / ethnicity.

TNS Digital Life ( TNS Digital Life Data Explorer )

Global study of almost 50,000 consumers in 46 countries. Website has really cool data exploration tool.

Mobile Marketing Association ( Research | Press Releases )

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) keeps track of data and surveys by others in their research section in addition to conducting their own research. They publish report called the US Mobile Consumer Briefing which is supposed to come out monthly (November 2010 Report). I say “supposed to” because I can’t find the more recent reports on their site which I find confusing. The MMA also often issues press releases containing interesting information like the the fact that over half of U.S. consumers planned to use their mobile phone for holiday shopping last year.

Demographic articles I find interesting

I don’t have very many reliable sources of demographic data. I went through my bookmarks and nearly every link came from Pew or Nielsen. So instead of listing more sources that may not have a lot of demographic data, I thought it might be interesting to look a some demographic articles that I find fascinating.

How the Verizon iPhone Announcement Could Influence the Mobile Market

While this Comscore blog post is primarily about the impact of the Verizon iPhone on the smartphone market in the United States, it contains information about iPhone users including age, gender, and household income.

TNS survey: Smartphones gain traction for both businesses and consumers

Details on smartphone platforms in the United States by race and income.

African-Americans, Women and Southerners Talk and Text The Most in the U.S.

Voice and texting numbers organized by state.

Early U.S. iPad Users are Mostly Male, Aged 21 to 44

This information came out shortly after the iPad was released. I’m very interested in seeing newer data. Lots of people say that the iPad is the computer for people who don’t work on computers, but the only data I’ve seen says that the people buying iPads are the same people who buy tech overall. I don’t think it will remain that way, but I’m curious how far the iPad has gone beyond early adopters.

Among Mobile Phone Users, Hispanics, Asians are Most-Likely Smartphone Owners in the U.S.

There is a lot of information that indicates that minority populations are using phones to access the Internet in greater number than caucasians. Mobile phones are being used as leap frog technology for those with lower incomes. Because of this, I believe we will find a lot of hidden innovative uses of mobile phones within these populations. When you don’t have a computer to fall back to, you look at the phone in a different way.

For minorities, new ‘digital divide’ seen

This article in USA Today talks about the negative implications of the fact that minorities are increasingly using mobile phones to access the Internet. On the one hand it is good because they didn’t have ready access before. On the other hand, it presents challenges like filling out job applications on mobile phones and dealing with web sites that are only designed for desktop.

Generations and Gadgets

Pew Research study on technology ownership among age groups.

Rise of the ‘Apps Culture’

App usage demographics

Mobile web metrics

Back in early 2008 when Google created an iPhone optimized version of their search engine, one of the Google representatives justified the decision to develop a special version by saying, “It’s about usage. Not unit.”

When you’re looking at mobile web statistics, you’re looking at usage patterns to try to make decisions about what you need to support.

Unfortunately, nearly every public source of data about mobile web usage is problematic for reasons I’ll list below. The only data that is really useful is your own data about what your customers are using and what traffic your web site gets. And even the latter can be problematic.

If your site has a crummy mobile experience because it is slow or has requires flash, then current traffic to your site is likely not indicative of what will happen when you have a mobile optimized site.

What these stats are good for

• Trying to understand what phones and browsers are being used on the mobile web.
• Understanding how people are using the mobile web.

What to watch for when you use these stats

• Technical problems may cause mobile usage to be under reported. Many web analytics packages require javascript to function. Many mobile phones don’t support javascript or even if they do, the javascript can be take too long to process on a device and fail before it can report back to the analytics server.

  Nearly every analytics engine provides a server side alternative that should be used to get accurate mobile information, but many sites owners don’t implement them or don’t implement them correctly. When looking at aggregate data about mobile usage, you have to wonder how much the data is skewed by this fundamental problem.

• To expand on that previous point for a moment, PPK has been providing reports from StatCounter which is mentioned below. On a mailing list for mobile web, Luca Passani, the lead developer of WURFL, said that he had “4 million lines of logs from a major social network” and that his analysis of those logs showed Openwave at 8% of traffic and NetFront at over 12%. Unfortunately, he can’t share the source of the logs. What do you do with this information? I think you have to look at multiple sources for common elements and then get your own data from your own site and customers.
• Mobile web usage of non-mobile optimized sites is unlikely to tell you much about what the usage will look like when a site is mobile optimized. Most of the aggregate analytics information lumps desktop and mobile web sites together in the reports.
• And to beat a dead horse, here is a great article on Why You Should Take Mobile Web Traffic Statistics With A Grain of Salt

Mobile web metrics sources

StatCounter ( StatCounter Global Stats Reports | Press releases )

The interactive reporting tool for StatCounter allows you to look only at mobile browser usage. You can narrow the usage by country. For all of its flaws, it is only one of two sources that allows you to look at real time data over a large numbers of sites in every geography.

Quirksmode ( Market share blog posts | Jan 2011 data )

Quirksmode is the blog of web guru PPK. PPK publishes monthly reports based on StatCounter data. Every quarter he will dig into the data deeper to compare countries. His recap on 2010 mobile browser stats explains his plans.

Clicky Web Analytics ( Mobile web browsers market share)

Clicky is the other source in addition that StatCounter that allows you to inspect traffic by mobile browser. Unfortunately, it doesn’t identify as many browsers so 14% of traffic falls into the “other” browser category. I also suspect the service requires javascript and suffers from the same problem as StatCounter. I believe StatCounter has a wider reach and more accurate numbers.

Percent Mobile ( Blog | USA Mobile Web Overview – Sept 2010 )

Percent Mobile is a cool mobile web analytics service. They occasionally publish numbers and infographics from their aggregate data. They also have a good post explaining why Blackberry web usage in the USA is often underreported.

Bango ( Press releases | Blog | Q2 2010 Mobile Web Statistics

Bango provides analytics and payment systems for mobile. They’ve been at it for quite some time. While they don’t publish aggregate data all of the time, when they do publish it, I pay attention. My assumption is that because the value of their analytics comes from being able to identify mobile traffic and their relationship with carriers, that their analytics data is dominated by mobile sites and not desktop sites. BTW, Bango is a service more people should consider because of the relationship with carriers. That relationship allows them to uniquely identify users in a way that other analytics services cannot.

Opera ( State of the Mobile Web Monthly Report )

Opera publishes monthly information on usage of the Opera Mini browser.

Quantcast ( Inside Quantcast (Blog?) | August 2010 Mobile OS Share )

Quantcast is an audience measurement company. They have a helpful post that explains their mobile web measurement methodology. Quantcast also provided an extremely detailed look at 2009 mobile web traffic in a 35 page report. Let’s hope they do the same for 2010.

Ground Truth ( Mobile Internet Usage Builds Throughout the Day )

Ground Truth provides mobile measurement tools by gathering data from carriers. They occasionally publish data on their blog. For example, a recent post showed that “32 percent of page views occur between 7 p.m. and midnight, peaking at 9 p.m.“

Device Atlas ( Device Atlas Data Explorer )

Device Atlas doesn’t provide usage data, but what does provide is a data explorer that can be used to look at the characteristics of mobile devices. What to know what percentage of Blackberry phones have a 240 pixel screen? Match those two properties in the data explorer to find out. Keep in mind that Device Atlas is telling you how many Blackberry models have a 240 pixel screen, not how many people are using those phones right now. Still, this is great resource if you’re trying to determine mobile device classes.

Tera-WURFL ( Tera-WURFL Explorer )

This isn’t strictly a metrics resource. Instead, it allows you to enter a user agent string and see what information WURFL has on file for that device.

Comscore ( Dec 2010 Market Share Report )

With every survey that Comscore publishes, they also publish information on the percentage of mobile phone subscribers in the United States that are accessing the mobile web.

Mobile web articles I find interesting

Like the demographic information, I’ve bookmarked some one off articles that are interesting, but I can’t call them a source for mobile web data because they’ve only published one or two pieces of information.

Mobile Web Usage: Smartphone Drives 600% Growth; BlackBerry Takes Lead, Wi-Fi Access Going Strong

This is interesting to me because Bango has always shown more Blackberry usage than other analytics companies. This was from Feb 2010, but at that time, Blackberry was the top web browser client in their network which you don’t see in other reports. Also, 600% growth is insane.

BlackBerry overtakes Apple in Mobile Wars

More recent data from StatCounter indicating that Blackberry caught up in web browsing. Blackberry has always had a fairly large base and unlimited data plans. The only thing holding people back from browsing the web more was the horrid browser. With Blackberry 6, the browser is now webkit-based and consequently Blackberry usage has gone up.

In Defense of Blackberry

Percent Mobile explains why Blackberry is often under reported. If you can’t tell, I like articles that make you question conventional wisdom.

Mobile Web Surfers Visit 24 Sites Per Day!

Also talks about time of day and what types of sites were visited.

PercentMobile Maps – 2nd Quarter 2010

Cool maps showing what devices are being used in what parts of the world.

Orange says UK mobile users prefer browsers to apps

I’ve tired of the mobile web vs. native debate, but I like to keep stuff like this around for when people claim that apps are all that matter and that the web is dead.

Adobe Says People Prefer Mobile Web, Not Apps

“Respondents favored mobile Web experiences over apps in the products & shopping and media & entertainment categories. 66% said they prefer mobile Web to apps (34%) in these categories.” Download the full report.

Lack of Standardization Around Mobile Web Conventions Presents Hurdles for Mobile Publishers

Talk about an understatement. Everything on the mobile web lacks standardization. This report though looks at mobile web domain naming conventions.

Tumblr Mobile OS web-browsing share

Marco published some data on what Tumblr sees on its network. Data is from May 2010

Advertising networks reports

A few of the mobile advertising companies publish reports on what devices they see on their networks. There are some interesting things that can be found in these reports. At the same time, I feel like the data from these reports is commonly either misunderstood or misused.

The reports are most useful when people take them for what they are. They have inherent sampling bias because every advertising network has some sort areas where they do better and where they don’t. When they offer ads both on the mobile web and inside native apps, the reports are going to skew heavily towards platforms with robust app ecosystems.

The worst data comes from when people try to infer more from the reports than is possible or when the advertising networks use their own networks to do a survey of users.

BTW, two of the ad networks that used to provide information on a regular basis—AdMob and Quatrro Wireless—no longer provide reports as they’ve been bought by Google and Apple respectively.

What these stats are good for

• Some sense of the relative numbers of devices being used in different geographies.
• The reach of advertising networks if you’re trying to decide which to use.

What to watch for when you use these stats

• As mentioned above, the networks all have some sort of bias. Figuring out what it is can be difficult.
• Beware networks that offer advertising both inside apps and on the mobile web. Usually these networks will only offer advertising inside apps on a couple of platforms (e.g., iPhone and Android) which means those platforms will account for more impressions.
• Surveys that solicit participants via the ad network that don’t have someone working to balance the data with known demographics are likely to be inaccurate. This is why when companies do any sort of surveying, they have to know the demographics and weight the results to match the complexion of the audience. I’ve seen studies that ask people who responded to ads inside apps how many apps they had installed. By definition, this excludes people who either don’t use apps or don’t use apps that feature advertising on that network.

Advertising network report sources

Millennial Media ( Mobile Mix | S.M.A.R.T. Report | State of the Apps Industry )

Millennial Media is my favorite advertising network report. They are independent. They claim to reach of 80% of the mobile web. And they publish reports monthly. Plus, there are interesting things to find in the reports. For example, the number 9 mobile device in their January 2011 Mobile Mix report is the Samsung Freeform. What’s that device? Well, it’s not Android, Blackberry, or Symbian. It’s a feature phone with a decent browser available with unlimited voice, text and web on MetroPCS for $40/month. Interesting, huh?

JiWire ( JiWire Mobile Audience Insights Report Quarterly )

JiWire provides ads for WiFi hotspots. Lots of traffic through the network.

InMobi ( InMobi Research )

Reports on their network separated by region. Top platforms, devices, and manufacturers.

Mobclix ( Moblix Index )

Monthly infographics based on Mobclix data.

Chitika ( Chitika Insights )

Chitika’s research group chimes in on a lot of different topics. Recent posts have covered the Google/Bing search bar controversy and whether or not Chrome OS is a viable desktop operating system. They look for ways to test these theories using their ad network data. This can lead to good insights, but it can also lead to high profile mistakes such as when they attempted to use their ad network to estimate the number of iPad purchases—even going so far as to create a real time tracker—only to find the numbers were way off when Apple announced real sales numbers.

Mobile Advertising Networks Compared

Infographic comparing the various networks in December 2010.

mobiThinking guide to mobile advertising networks (2011)

Data and profiles on the various networks to help you pick a network.

Apps metrics

Because of the popularity of app stores and the success developers have had selling apps, there is a LOT of information about app usage. Much of it comes from services providing analytics to app developers.

What these stats are good for

• Understanding how people are using apps..
• Helping to determine your app strategy.

What to watch for when you use these stats

• Like all of the other statistics, understanding the source of the data. Is it a survey? What was the methodology? What platforms were included in the source data?

App metric sources

Distimo ( Publications | App Stores)

Most comprehensive monthly report covering the major mobile app stores. They also keep track of all of the available app stores.

Wireless Industry Partnership (WIP) ( App Store Reports )

WIP helps connect developers with carriers and handset manufacturers. They recently started tracking all of the app stores available. In addition to being able to find app store info on the WIP site, they provide a monthly report.

Flurry ( Flurry Blog | Android Special Report: Is Samdroid the new Wintel?

Flurry provides analytics for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry and Java ME apps. They also survey developers that are using their analytics on a regular basis and publish the results.

Localytics ( Localytics Blog )

Competitor to Flurry. Their blog has had some great insights lately including the fact that “26% of apps downloaded in 2010 were used just once.”

Xyologic ( Facebook | Twitter )

Xyologic provides insight for developers and businesses. Unless you are a customer, it is easiest to follow them on Twitter or Facebook to learn about new articles or research.

App Genome Project

This is a fairly new report. It says, “The App Genome Project is the world’s largest mobile application dataset created to map the anatomy of mobile applications across multiple mobile platforms and app markets. To date, the project has analyzed more than 500,000 Android and iOS applications.”

Sizing up the Global Mobile Apps Market

Report by Chetan Sharma on the app market.

AndroLib ( Android Marketplace Metrics )

Number of apps, paid vs. free, total downloads in the Android Market.

148Apps.biz ( iPhone App Store Metrics

Number of app, paid vs. free, total downloads, most popular categories, etc.

Urban Airship ( 2010 Mobile App Developer Survey Results )

Urban Airship provides push notification and in app purchasing tools. They published a developer survey in December that was interesting. They also have a unique perspective on what is happening when it comes to push notifications and in app purchases. Thus far they haven’t published an reports, but I’m keeping my eye out for them. [Full disclosure: I'm on the board of advisors for Urban Airship and keep bugging them to publish data. ]

Pew Research ( Rise of the ‘Apps Culture’ )

Pew research into app usage and culture

Comscore ( Dec 2010 Smartphone Report )

Each smartphone report contains a note on the percentage of US phone users who download apps.

Mobclix ( Mobclix Index )

Mobclix monthly infographics have recently included the Monthly Value of an App User and the Android Marketplace.

Other fun sources

There are some resources that span multiple categories but need to be included somewhere. They go here.

Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends ( Top 10 Mobile Internet Trends Feb 2011 )

Mary Meeker was a long time analyst for Morgan Stanley and published yearly reports on Internet trends. She now works for venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. Her slide decks are legendary for their density and information. Must read.

Tomi Ahonen ( An 8 Segment Model to Analyze Smartphone Market, Consumers and Handsets | All the Numbers, All the Facts on Mobile the Trillion-Dollar Industry. )

I listed Tomi in the market share section because he talks about market share most often. But Tomi covers a lot of other areas when it comes to mobile. He is some times crazy and always too verbose, but there is a lot of good stuff on his blog. In particular, I wanted to highlight his post called An 8 Segment Model to Analyze Smartphone Market, Consumers and Handsets There are few things more frustrating for me than reading someone write about the mobile market assuming that everyone is evaluating phones the same way there are. I’m not saying Tomi’s model is correct, but reading it helps you understand that a certain percentage of people are going to make finding a phone with the best possible keyboard a priority even if the keyboard doesn’t matter to you.

Mobile Phone Development by Simon Judge ( Mobile Market Research )

Simon’s blog tracks many of the studies that come out. His Mobile Market Research page contains an archive of market share and other information going back several years.

Yiibu ( Mobile Web Reference )

Yiibu is a small development company led by Stephanie and Brian Rieger. Their Mobile Web Reference page contains quite a few resources. In fact, had I remembered they had this page, I might have been saved from writing this epic post.

My Pinboard Bookmarks ( Statistics | Demographics )

I’ve bookmarked a lot of mobile articles. You can follow new entries on Pinboard.

Which stats should you care about?

Depending on what type of business you have and your role, the mobile statistics that you care about are different. Figuring out what questions matter to you is the first step in finding the statistics that will help you make decisions.

App developers

App developers need to figure out where they have the best chance to sell their apps or make money from advertising. In particular, developers are often trying to determine which platform to develop for first.

Because the factors that make an app successful are not necessarily the same ones that make a platform dominate, market share and sales numbers don’t matter as much. Developers will probably weigh the benefits of building something for an established market like iOS where development is easier but the competition is more intense with the opportunities of new markets like Windows Phone 7.

App developers need to look at the app store metrics, advertising data and demographic information (particularly for things like adoption of location-based services).

Web developers

Web developers are accustomed to being able to look at high-level statistics on browser market share and screen resolution and make educated decisions about what platforms they need to support. If they are working on an existing site, there is likely existing analytics that can be used.

When it comes to mobile web, there aren’t the same easy answers. Existing analytics on a desktop site are not going to provide much insight into how a site will be used once it is mobile optimized. Some analytics systems don’t even handle mobile web very well.

Aggregate information on mobile web usage is also problematic because it requires site owners to add server side alternatives to the normal javascript-based analytics code. Finally, global numbers on mobile browser usage may not match the target customer base.

In addition to reviewing mobile web metrics, web developers should also look at demographics to try to match their target audience to the devices they are likely to use. The installed base of phones can also be useful.

The ultimate data comes from the customers of a web site or service. The more you can learn about what devices they are using and how they are using them, the better you can target your efforts.

Marketing

From a pure marketing perspective, you’re going combine your objectives with demographics, installed base and advertising information to determine where to spend your money.

Investors

They should obviously look at financial information, but looking at trends in sales market share also makes sense as an indicator of how companies are competing against others in the market.

Your role here

The point of this list wasn’t to be definitive about what anyone in particular should be concerned with. The data that matters to you should be determined by your interest and objectives when it comes to mobile.

I track a lot of mobile statistics, but I know the ones I care about and why I care about them. They matter because of the type of work I do and my theories on what will happen in the mobile market. (And yes, I’ll write about them in a separate post soon).

But the data that matters to you may not be the ones that matter to someone else. Assuming they should care about the same things you do is the most common mistake I see people make when trying to understand what is happening in the mobile market.

My previous post on CSS Media Queries kicked off quite a bit of conversation. I wanted to follow up on a few points that have been made and a couple of things I failed to communicate well in the original post.

CSS Media Queries are a Useful Tool for Mobile

One of the unfortunate side effects of the strident title I chose was that it gave many people the impression that I didn’t think CSS Media Queries were useful at all for mobile.

That’s not the case. We’re using them in two mobile projects right now and contemplating using them for a third.

I wrote in the post that “CSS media queries are a tool, but they are not a silver bullet.” But that point was overshadowed by the post title and the rest of the article talking about the problems that you need to be aware of when using them.

I got a chance to chat with Ethan Marcotte via Twitter. He wrote:

I think we agree on the fundamental points, honestly—the implementation should always be tailored to the site/audience.

I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, Ethan wrote in his article about Responsive Web Design:

That’s not to say there isn’t a business case for separate sites geared toward specific devices; for example, if the user goals for your mobile site are more limited in scope than its desktop equivalent, then serving different content to each might be the best approach.

In the same way in which my more nuanced opinion about media queries was skewed by my poor choice of title, I think Ethan’s nuanced opinion about when and how media queries can be used for mobile has been skewed by the enthusiasm that people had in response to his A List Apart article and how they might use the technique for mobile.

As I said in my post and reaffirmed to Ethan over Twitter, I’m actually quite excited about Responsive Web Design. I’m going to write more about that separately.

What I really meant to say was…

Even though Ethan never intended media queries to be seen as a total solution for mobile, that view has been enthusiastically adopted by others. I’ve read many blog posts and tweets on the topic. There was a session at Web Visions called Mobile Web Dev without Developing a Mobile Site based on building sites using media queries.

PPK got is right when he said that I “challenged the conventional view that media queries are all we need to make a website mobile-friendly.” There was a growing consensus that media queries were all that was needed and that consensus needed to be challenged.

In rereading my post, there is one sentence that I think best summarizes my view:

The way in which CSS media query has been promoted for mobile hides tough problems and gives developers a false promise of a simple solution for designing for multiple screens.

I’ve modified the sentence slightly to make it clearer that it was the way media queries were being promoted as a solution for mobile that was the real problem.

It is also clear that fool’s gold is not the right phrase. Fool’s gold is something that looks like something of worth, but in reality has no intrinsic value. Media queries do have value and are useful tools.

I’m sorry for poor title choice.

Great Ways to Use CSS Media Queries

There are a few great use cases for media queries for mobile. I highlighted selected web apps and html emails in my previous email. A few others are:

• As PPK suggests, pairing media queries with javascript could be the core of a mobile web solution. The javascript can be used to swap the correct images in for each context. This is most effective if you start from a mobile design and use media queries and javascript to add functionality for desktop users. You also need to understand which devices your customers are using to make sure this technique works for those browsers.
• As Pim Derks commented on my post, in situations where “a client has a limited budget, but wants his site to look good on iPhone.” Given the alternative of no mobile web site, it makes sense. I’d suggest looking to see what you can do to stop unnecessary downloads where possible.
• And the most likely use of media queries, as a small part of a larger mobile optimization effort or a discrete tool being used in one off situations like web apps or html emails.

You’ll notice that the solution that PPK suggests is quite a bit different than starting from the desktop web and simply adding media queries.

It requires images to be uploaded in multiple sizes. For optimal use, it requires html to be retooled to start with mobile web appropriate html only and then javascript to enhance it.

It is entirely possible that a great mobile solution could be built that way. I question the likelihood that web sites are going to be retooled to deliver mobile html first and then progressively enhanced with javascript and css. But I’d be happy to be wrong about that.

What are the Tough Problems that Discussion of Media Queries Obscures?

I’ve enumerated many of the technical challenges with media queries, but when I talk about media queries hiding tough problems, I’m not talking about any of the issues I raised in my previous post.

What I was referring to was the idea that there was a simple solution to creating a mobile web site obscures a series of infrastructure issues that I believe web developers are going to be confronting over the next few years.

Let’s assume for a moment that there are situations in which you need to deliver different html and associated assets to different mobile devices. To do so requires that your content management or ecommerce system is equipped to do the following:

• Detect different devices and the capabilities of those devices.
• Select the correct template based on the device. This implies that your system gracefully handles multiple templates.
• Separate assets added by authors from the words that they write so that those photos, video, etc. can be resized and reformatted appropriately for the device.
• Provide tools or establish processes for resizing images and videos. Either manually, or better yet automatically, encode video in multiple formats based on the device.
• Support non-web consumption of content (e.g., native applications). This will likely require further consideration of how to remove markup and presentation from content.

And many more obstacles created by legacy web publishing tools designed long before we started thinking seriously about mobile.

The big challenges our clients face are rethinking and retooling their infrastructure for mobile. It’s going to be a massive undertaking for a lot of businesses.

The sooner we realize this fact, the sooner we can get to work figuring out the best ways to build that infrastructure.

Ethan Marcotte’s article Responsive Web Design has caught the imagination of web developers. Several subsequent articles have touted the CSS media query feature as a way to build mobile-optimized web sites.

Even I’m guilty of contributing to this meme with my article on CSS orientation.

Unfortunately, CSS media query is fool’s gold for mobile devices. It hides tough problems and gives developers a false promise of a simple solution for designing to multiple screens.

The Short Version

Ferreting out the problems with CSS media queries for mobile devices is easy if you look at what media queries purportedly promise:

All you need to do to transform your desktop web design into something optimized for devices with smaller screens, less powerful CPUs, and slower network connections is to add more code.

The idea of adding more code—adding more to download—in order to optimize for mobile should be the first clue that this isn’t a good solution.

Core Assumption: Speed Matters More on Mobile

I’m going to point out several technical flaws with media queries. Nearly all of them rely on my belief that speed matters more on mobile devices.

That isn’t to say that we’re more tolerant of slow desktop web pages. Instead, that mobile is more likely to be used in situations were the speed of access matters more (urgently looking for a business) and under conditions (network speed, device processing power) that are less optimal for speed.

When designing for mobile, performance is a key consideration.

Letting the Browser Scale Images is a Bad Idea

Ethan’s article on Responsive Web Design relies on a technique he calls Fluid Images.

The idea behind fluid images is that you deliver images at the maximum size they will be used at. You don’t declare the height and width in your html, but instead let the browser resize the images as needed while using CSS to guide their relative size.

This technique is a bad idea for mobile for a couple reasons.

Full Images = Unnecessarily Large Files to Download

The full image is downloaded despite the fact that it will only be seen at a fraction of the size on a mobile device. In the Responsive Web Design example page, the images are 330 x 345 pixels in true size, but when viewed on an iPhone, they are only ever seen at approximately 150 x 157 pixels.

The six images of characters from Sherlock Holmes that are included in the example page total 208K. Resizing those images and optimizing them reduces the total file size for all six images to 45K. That’s an 78% reduction in file size and download time.

	Original	Resized	K Saved	% Saved
Total	208.3K	45.8K	162.5K	78.0%
Holmes	34.7K	8.1K	26.6K	76.6%
Watson	39.0K	8.4K	30.6K	78.4%
Mycroft	30.5K	6.7K	23.8K	78.0%
Moriarty	43.4K	8.2K	35.2K	81.1%
Adler	26.0K	6.6K	19.4K	74.6%
Winter	34.7K	7.8K	26.9K	77.5%

Downloading 162K unnecessarily on a mobile device is nothing to sneeze at no matter how good the mobile phone is.

Browser Resizing Can Be CPU and Memory Intensive

Yes, desktop browsers and iPhones have no trouble resizing images, but what about older or cheaper phones with less formidable CPUs? With this technique, we’re asking them to download larger images, uncompress them to their full size in memory, and then resize them to fit the screen.

Even Apple’s Mobile Safari documentation says “You need to size images appropriately. Don’t rely on browser scaling.”

Using Media Queries to Deliver Different Images Doesn’t Work

I know what many of you are probably thinking. So the fluid images technique doesn’t work. Let’s just use media queries to deliver different images depending on screen size.

There are two ways this can be accomplished. The first is to have image tags that are hidden by CSS. The second is to use CSS background images and switch the background image. Let’s look at both techniques.

Hiding Image Tags Using CSS Media Queries

Rachel Andrew‘s article about CSS media queries showcased dConstruct’s web site as an example.

The dConstruct site is beautiful. The site grows bigger as your browser gets bigger. The photographs come to life when you hover over them. It’s truly worth a look.

The large photographs of the speakers are placed on the page using image tags. The black and white images are a single sprite that is layered over the color photographs using CSS.

And if you view the site on a mobile device, the large photographs of the speakers are hidden from view. You get a simple list that fits well on the screen.

A CSS media query instruction is used to set display:none on the div containing the speaker images.

However, the iPhone still downloads the images even though they are not displayed.

There was a some speculation during the Big Web Show interview with Ethan Marcotte that perhaps the tools that were reporting what the browser was downloading were erroneously inflating the number of files that were truly download.

To verify that images are downloaded despite CSS media queries, I tested two different ways. First, I made a copy of a page using the responsive design onto a local server, loaded it on an iPhone, and then watched the web server logs to observe what was downloaded. Second, I set my iPhone to use my Mac as a proxy server so every request to dConstruct’s site was logged.

In both cases, it showed the image files are downloaded despite the fact that the media query has set them to display:none. This means that the iPhone downloads an extra 172K for photos that the user will never see.

Hiding CSS Background Images

Surely CSS background images will work better than image tags, right? Wrong.

I tested a few different combinations of CSS background images and media queries. What I found was:

• Using CSS media query to set display:none on an element containing a background image does not prevent Mobile Safari from downloading it.²
• Using CSS media query to override a background image with one created specifically for mobile results in both the desktop and the mobile image getting downloaded.⁴

Two methods that appear to work are:

• Setting the parent of an element with a background image to display:none.³
• Using media query min-width declaration to only specify a minimum browser width for the desktop image and a max-width for the mobile image does result in only the mobile image being downloaded in Mobile Safari.⁵

These two options mean that using CSS media queries isn’t completely impossible, but using the parent element to hide images and changing existing desktop CSS to add min-width declarations are significant changes to existing CSS. It isn’t going to be as simple as adding a CSS media query for mobile and calling your job done.

FWIW, it is this behavior of downloading images even if they are currently not displayed that allows us to have images show up in pull down menus and on other hover events without a delay while the image is downloaded. This is generally a good thing.

CSS Media Queries Do Not Optimize HTML or Javascript

My first introduction to media queries was when we were asked to assist another web developer who had built a page that contained a Google Map on the desktop version, but the div containing the map was hidden on the mobile web version using a media query.

Unfortunately, even though the map no longer showed up, the 180K javascript library was still downloaded by the browser.

CSS media queries will not remove unnecessary html nor remove javascript that will slow down mobile browsers.

CSS Media Queries aren’t Supported Well

If you can overcome all of the challenges I’ve outlined above, you’ll find that CSS media queries are not supported by many mobile browsers. PPK’s compatibility table shows that even amongst modern smartphones, the support is spotty and inconsistent.

The picture is much worse when you decide to support older browsers.

If you choose to use media queries to provide a mobile version of your web site, you’re not only picking a poor solution, but you’re excluding a large number of mobile users.

People with modern smartphones may be the demographic you care about, but you should be make a conscious decision about what device classes you support.

Ignoring the Mobile Context

The promise of CSS media queries is that you can take your existing desktop web site html and add this additional presentation layer for mobile. Doing so ignores the fact that a mobile user may have very different needs than a desktop user.

There is a great quote from Brian Fling in his book on mobile design:

Create a product, don’t re-imagine one for small screens. Great mobile products are created, never ported.

Does your desktop web home page use geolocation lookups? Probably not. Should your mobile site home page? Quite possibly.

If you send the same HTML and Javascript to the mobile user that you do for the desktop user, even if you format it to fit their screen, you’re likely missing opportunities to provide a great mobile experience based on the capabilities of the device and the context of the mobile user.

Separate Mobile Web Sites are a Good Thing

I know separate mobile web sites are a pain to develop. We have a lot of infrastructure to build to make the mobile web go, and I’m going to be writing more about that soon. But there are good reasons why we need separate mobile web sites.

During Ethan’s interview on the Big Web Show, some time was spent discussing how sharing links from the New York Times doesn’t work the way you would hope. If you send a link from the mobile site and someone opens it on their desktop browser, it is still formatted for mobile.

The conclusion drawn from this during the podcast is that CSS media queries might be a better solution because there would only be one URL, and it would work for both desktop and mobile.

Here’s some hard numbers to consider from a YSlow examination of the New York Times desktop and mobile home pages:

As you can see, the mobile web site has a fifth of the HTTP requests of the desktop version and is 583K smaller. That’s over 90% smaller and significantly faster on a mobile device.

(As an aside, HTTP requests are much more expensive on mobile devices than on desktop due to the latency of wireless network connections.)

I agree that the NY Times links should work, but the solution isn’t to take the bloated desktop home page and add more CSS code to make it mobile (un)friendly.

Some Good Uses of CSS Media Queries

There are some good uses of CSS media queries. If you’re building a discrete web application where you have more control and can make sure that the desktop web isn’t bloated, it can make sense.

Also, Ros Hodgekiss from Campaign Monitor wrote an exceptional article on how you can use media queries in html email to provide a mobile optimized layout. This is perhaps the ideal use case because when you send html email, you have no choice but to send a single html document regardless of what device the recipient will be using.

Responsive Web Design Still Rocks

Wait? Responsive web design still rocks? Hard to believe after everything I’ve written, eh?

I’m not talking about CSS media queries, but instead of the idea of building around a grid, planning your design for different screen sizes, and thinking about the modular building blocks and how they can be moved based on screen size.

That is the real gem in Ethan’s article. I hope we see two things come from his responsive web design piece:

• More desktop web sites that take advantage of fluid grids and CSS media queries to optimize for the multiple sizes of desktop screens. Media queries still make sense for desktop designs.
• More designers and developers thinking about design as modular even if it isn’t implemented with media queries.

I find his comparisons to responsive architecture to be fascinating and the designs we’ve seen using these techniques to be compelling. But the core mechanism used to accomplish them, CSS media queries, isn’t up to the task when it comes to mobile development.

No Silver Bullets

Developing for the mobile web is difficult. There are no simple solutions that make it easy to provide a great mobile-optimized experience. CSS media queries are a tool, but they are not a silver bullet.

This shouldn’t be a surprise to us. We now take our content management systems for granted, but it wasn’t always this easy for the desktop web. We forget how difficult it was to simply get Apache running properly.

During the last big wave of technology, we had a lot of infrastructure to build before we could reliably deliver quality experiences for desktop browsers. We’ve got a similar road ahead when it comes to mobile.

But no matter how difficult, mobile is worth it. The power of having information in people’s hands—no matter where they are in the world—makes mobile worth the extra time and effort.