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Mobile Browsing Just Overtook the Desktop For the First Time (alphr.com)
More users around the world are accessing the internet from mobile devices than from desktop computers for the first time, according to internet monitoring firm StatCounter. The combined traffic from mobile and tablets devices amounted to 51.3 percent, compared to desktop computers that contributed to 48.7 percent of the traffic. From a report on Alphr: StatCounter's CEO, Aodhan Cullen, believes this should be a wake-up call to professionals who still view mobile optimisation as an afterthought. "Mobile compatibility is increasingly important not just because of growing traffic but because Google favors mobile friendly websites for its mobile search results," he said. While the trend is pretty obvious worldwide, interestingly the graph is skewed by mobile adoption outside of the west. While the UK and USA still have the desktop on top (55.6% to 44.4% and 58% to 42% respectively), 78% of India's internet access is via mobile. Cullen believes that post-Brexit with a need to trade beyond the EU, these kind of concerns should be on every site owner's mind.
Joke of the year right here
I'm not going to waste my time "optimizing" a goddamn web page intended for a real computer just because some crappy little spyware device has a crappy, underpowered browser with a vastly inferior input method. If you can't properly navigate my site on your little pile of crap device, maybe you should grow up and use a real computer rather than your little government-tracks-you toy.
The world is going to see its error in going with these little botnet, spying, tracking devices soon enough, anyway when the world finally wakes up and understands how vital privacy and common sense is.
There is a big difference between opening up a browser and jumping from page to page as you follow the links; and having a mobile application ping some server for the latest NFL score so that it can update its status bar. I have tried to 'browse' the web using my phone and it is a completely different experience than doing the same thing on my desktop. What is really being measured here?
A trend I've spotted: The desktop version of some websites are now also optimized for mobile.
There's a little three-stripe menu in the corner, a bunch of icons with no hint about what they might represent, and a list of about 30 words in a huge font. The rest of my 24-inch monitor is filled with white space.
To get any further information, I need to click icons to dig down and get fed little batches of a few more words or pictures.
So, did they count laptops as desktops or as mobile devices?
As long as desktop numbers aren't decreasing (which they are not) then they aren't even slightly sickly let alone dead and rotting. With a 90% share of desktop, rapidly growing share of cloud and large enterprise server presence they will continue to grow for the foreseeable future at least (5-10 years). A new market they don't happen to do well in doesn't suddenly make all the markets they dominate irrelevant sadly.
"Desktop" is no longer on the "desktop", and hasn't been for a while. And by desktop, you also mean "Laptop". But our "desktop" isn't on our desk, It is in the palm of our hand. It is running Android or iOS, and it isn't running Windows.
Just wait till ChromeOS and Android are merged, and all your android apps run natively on your ChromeOS "desktop" (or laptop).
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
We need to keep in mind here that a sizable amount of HTTP traffic is just fetching ads for freemeium software.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
What does Brexit have to do with trading beyond the EU? The UKs biggest trading parter is the US. Is the UK planning stopping trading with the EU? What a bizarre comment.
Mobile is a fad.
Full disclosure: I get pinged by Russian servers, so I'm a commie.
I feel your pain. UI development is growing ever more complex and messy.
In the pre-web days you had pretty much one target UI platform and it all worked the same on all desktops. Life was smooth*.
Then the web came along with different browser brands and versions. You had to test the UI on multiple browser brands and combo's. One org I worked for had a testing room with about 10 variations of browsers and OS's. When the testers were not available, I had to visit all 10 for every release. I considered gluing a spring to my arse.
Now we have that AND mobile devices with a wide variety of screen sizes.
A sufficient testing room would probably need at least 50 test stations. We also have to design apps for different screen-sizes. ("Smart" frameworks that do all it automatically is a pipe-dream. It takes human judgement to adjust, machines are too stupid still, unless you live with half-ass junk, which is common.)
This is crazy, something has to give.
I've kicking around going back to WYSIWYG and/or client-side vector rendering instead of auto-flow (at least client-side auto-flow.) It would simplify the client by moving most rendering logic and flow to the server, of which there is only one version of instead of 50, like the %@$# client side has.
I'm 99.99999361% sure Vulcans would NOT do it the way we've had been. We humans F'd UI (non) standards.
The only upside is job security for trying to tame the giant steaming piles with their 7-foot teeth. If a logical standard came along, I bet 2/3 of devs would be fired.
* You had "DLL hell" back then, but what was mostly the installers' problem, not the developers'. Now we have the equivalent in client-variation-hell which screws mostly the developer, or requires more testers.
Table-ized A.I.
came out I rarely visit a lot of sites I use to as they all changed their lay out to some POS where the hell is the navigation even for desktop users. Add in the bizare layout for news sites where you have no idea what is what and mobile has ruined the internet desktop experience.
I blame it on web designers crying the sky is falling if you don't use responsive design and you'll loose all your customers just so they can scare their customers to have their sites redesigned once more.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Next year, the desktop!
I'd rather surf the 'net with my desktop than my little phone display no matter how crispy it is. What are people thinking?
You've moved the goalpost so far you're in a different game.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
And it's not like those mobile games are all that much fun.
I'd like to see him write a twenty page report on his phone, though. Poor thumbs.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
I watched lots of perfectly good websites get utterly trashed *years* ago to make them more "mobile friendly".
Now that tablet sales are stagnant, I can't wait for them to find some new destructive trend to chase.
Like, someone invents an ass-browser, so all those websites will be redone again, with a brown palette, and turd-shaped buttons to make them "ass-friendly".
How much of that traffic is bots? How much is DDOS attacks?
The power went out so I had to use my phone until I could get the generator connected, which took all morning as I've been putting off adding the inlet and junction box. The UPS kept my internet connection up for some hours, though. Sadly, I loaded G+ and that accounts for the traffic difference
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Does this mean that the anachronistic portrait-video histrionics will finally shut the fuck up?
Pair a Bluetooth keyboard, pair a Bluetooth mouse, and connect an HDTV through HDMI, Miracast, or Chromecast. At that point, the most apparent problem is the inability of Android prior to 7.0 "Nougat" to display two windows side by side, so you can't see both the document you're reading and the notes you're taking.
To bystanders, people will look like they are conducting an invisible orchestra.
And ending up with sore arms. Certain input methods depicted in the film Minority Report are a recipe for gorilla arm.
I check sites several times a day with my phone, but when I want to read, I use my computer.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Yes, niggling little problems like a completely unsuitable UI for real work.
That and mobile apps are crippled and tend to require a decent Internet connection while in use, and have no real concept of data privacy.
Plus the fact that I'm using a slow mobile chipset, which means what I'm doing takes longer, which means I'm wasting money.
And I can't plug in other peripherals I use (though I accept that some people only need screen, mouse, keyboard).
It's taken Microsoft a decade of neglecting its desktop environment for usage to finally fall below 50%. But it's also that people everywhere dick around on their phone. This doesn't mean that useful work is being done.
Anyone building a site really only cares about their own metrics. The site I work on had mobile surpass desktop back in January.
Though, given the comments, I wonder if anyone here even builds a site of their own, outside of a personal project.
I write extensively on my Android Smartphone. I can type as fast (or faster) using SWYPE keyboard as on a regular keyboard. I don't need a mouse. And I am not tethered to a desk, power, network cable. Writing 20 pages takes discipline, but that is the same regardless of the method of writing.
As a plus, I often use my voice to dictate large chunks of what I am writing, when I have a lot to say. It was very awkward at first, but it just flows now. And I can do that while driving, something I cannot do while typing on a keyboard or grabbing a mouse.
So, you're projecting your own weaknesses onto me. I have my own weaknesses, but yours aren't mine. ;)
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I haven't moved the goalpost. I'm suggesting that the goal posts aren't where you thought they were. There is a difference.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.