I'd like to interrupt your Thanksgiving with three small stats which hint at how people use their Apple [AAPL] iPhones. Interestingly, other platforms seem less well-used, according to Flickr and Web OS market share figures, while games dominate Apple's newly-revealed weekly UK apps sales charts.
Flickr says...
The iPhone is the leading smartphone camera used on Flickr. The iPhone 4S is the second most popular image capture device lagging gently behind -- the iPhone 4. In third place? The iPhone 3GS. Way down in fourth place sits the HTC EVO 4G.
When it comes to the most popular cameras across the Flickr community, the leading camera used is that of the iPhone 4.
What does this tell us?
That when it comes to capturing and sharing images, iPhone's are devices people actually use. Or, at the least, more iOS users use Flickr than users of other platforms.
Who is online?
We know all the mobile platforms offer Web access via a mobile browser. And, with Android devices creeping into market share leadership you'd expect to see this reflected in the percentage of such users being seen online.
Intriguingly, this isn't so. iOS device use is far ahead of any platform, according to NetApplications, 61.5 percent of mobile/tablet systems online are iOS devices. There's a huge gap after this, just 18.86 percent are Android systems. Why?
Games machine
Take a look at these recent Flurry statistics and you'll find that iOS and Android gaming combined now account for a far bigger slice of the mobile gaming market than do the Sony PSP or Nintendo DS.
"Combined, iOS and Android game revenue delivered $500 million, $800 million and $1.9 billion over 2009, 2010 and 2011, respectively," Flurry explains.
I would be interested to see Flurry's statistics broken down between Android and iOS usage. I suspect we'll see a similar anomaly, with iOS usage skewing the scale.
You can see the impact of Apple on gaming in the UK through the new weekly "Top of the Apps" charts, now made available in association with the Press Association.
[ABOVE: A trailer for iPad game, Shadowgun, one of the biggest paid apps in the UK iPad charts.]
OK. To be fair, some level of discrepancy between usage patterns is inevitable, after all, in their latest public statements regarding installed base, Apple and Google reported a total of 250 million iOS devices and 190 million Android devices activated, respectively.
However, it still seems clear that iPhone users make more use of their devices. Why?
Can Apple maintain its real world user advantages? Can Android systems ever become simple enough for the mass market? Will Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Nokia, RIM or even Amazon manage to beat out one of both of the two leading players?
We'll find out in time, and I'd welcome your comments below. To my American readers I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.
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