Blaze, a analysis-based company, which provides a free service for measuring Mobile Web performance and a subscription service that automates Web Performance Optimization (WPO), send us a report about analysis of top 500 websites shows far more are optimized for iPad vs. Android Tablets……….
Much has been written about the race between Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android for which platform has the most apps. What has not been discussed at all is which platform has more Websites optimized for it? After conducting an analysis of the 500 most trafficked sites in the US (Alexa 500), Blaze found that 200 sites (40%) are optimized for smartphones (42% iPhone vs. 38% Android). Loading these same 200 sites on tablets showed that support for Android tablets is not as good as it is for the phones. 84% of Android aware sites returned the same page to the phone and the tablet. In contrast, for the iPad, virtually all these sites recognized the iPad and redirected to either a desktop site or an iPad-specific site. The impact is a less compelling browsing experience on Android Tablets as most sites have not have taken the time to properly format their pages for the larger screen. Mobile sites designed for a 3-4 inch screen often don’t present well on a 7-10 inch screen. Almost a third of the Top 500 sites returned mobile content to the Motorola XOOM. Only 3% of these sites return mobile content to an iPad.
The obvious reason form this finding is that Android tablets are newer and site owners have not got around to supporting them. Their sites detect an Android device requesting the page and assume it’s a small screen phone when really it was a 10 inch tablet. Another factor is that supporting Android devices is not as simple as iOS. For iOS there is only one phone and one tablet with known resolutions and screen sizes. For Android, phones and tablets come in many shapes and sizes with new ones coming out monthly. Variety provides more choice to consumers but creates a burden for sites owners to keep pace. In addition to examining device recognition, Blaze also reviewed the performance of Web sites on Tablet devices. Here are some key findings:
- iPad 2 is 25% faster than the iPhone 4 and 20% faster on the iPad 1.
- XOOM is 25% faster than the Nexus S.
In addition to releasing the Tablet research study, Blaze announced this week the availability of Tablet support in Mobitest, a free mobile Web performance measurement service. Finally Blaze announced the availability of a new mobile Web performance optimization service that helps site owners to improve the speed of their sites on mobile devices. You will find some Youtube videos below:
[ttjad keyword=”motorola-xoom”]
