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Feature Phones Make Java ME, Not Android, the #2 Mobile Internet OS
bonch writes "According to a report from NetApplications, which has measured browser usage data since 2004, Oracle's Java Mobile Edition has surpassed Android as the #2 mobile OS on the internet at 26.80%, with iOS at 46.57% and Android at 13.44%. And the trend appears to be growing. Java ME powers hundreds of millions of low-end 'feature phones' for budget buyers. In 2011, feature phones made up 60% of the install base in the U.S." Looking at the linked chart, it looks Java ME's been ahead of Android for all of 2011, too, except for the month of October.
Duh, since when was Java ME an OS?
I wonder how much Christmas played into those little bumps. It's almost like people head off buying expensive new phones during that period, possibly in hopes in getting them for gifts.
Sounds like "gifting" someone a puppy or a kitten. Hey, here's a phone as a gift. Whoops it comes with a $120/year two year contract, so sorry your "gift" actually cost you about three grand over the next two years, hope you don't mind.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I have access to a great deal of actual and current mobile usage data, and this is just completely at odds with reality. "Feature phone" owners in the United States typically do not have data plans and do not use the Internet.
Actual measured usage of mobile Web services by "feature phones" is slightly above that of Windows Mobile, which is to say "irrelevant noise at the bottom of the chart" in the range of 1 to 2 percent.
Grandpa's Jitterbug may in fact run J2ME, but Grandpa doesn't use it.
You are correct. Here is a link to a chart with a slightly longer time frame.
JavaME has been rapidly losing share to Android. Thanks bonch for bringing this to everyone's attention.
Android may have the highest market-share, but what the Article -- and several others done that have rather consistently said the same thing -- is that despite being #1 in number of phones, it has trailed significantly behind iOS in actual web browsing.
For whatever reason, though less people buy an iPhone, a significantly higher margin actually use their iOS device on the web. It is the #1 mobile platform for web browsing. Perhaps because iOS is more then iPhone by a large margin, but Android people tend to hate it when the iPod Touch or iPad are brought up and conflated with the iPhone (even though Apple people tend to view iPhone + iPad + iPod Touch as a single platform). Perhaps its just that iPhone users do use the web more. I have no idea.
But this is not at all an isolated report in that regard. Even Google has stated that about two thirds of their mobile ad revenue comes from the iPhone.
The J2ME thing is weird though and its the first time I've heard of it showing up at all in the top lists, so I dunno what's different about this report then others.
I find it odd that the editors take submissions from people like bonch, or other known partisan trolls here. If you read slashdot with any regularity, you learn to recognize and disregard those names quickly. I'm forced to conclude that the editors either don't read slashdot, or like to post trolling headlines.