Google Sees Surge in iPhone Traffic

Form the NY Times:

Of all the iPhone's features, none had reviewers gushing more than
its Internet browser. It was the first cellphone browser that promised
something resembling the experience of surfing the Internet on a PC.
Santa helped deliver on that promise.

On Christmas, traffic to Google from iPhones surged, surpassing
incoming traffic from any other type of mobile device, according to
internal Google data made available to The New York Times. A few days
later, iPhone traffic to Google fell below that of devices powered by
the Nokia-backed Symbian operating system but remained higher than
traffic from any other type of cellphone.

The data is striking because the iPhone, an Apple product, accounts
for just 2 percent of smartphones worldwide, according to IDC, a
market research firm. Phones powered by Symbian make up 63 percent of
the worldwide smartphone market, while those powered by Microsoft's
Windows Mobile have 11 percent and those running the BlackBerry system
have 10 percent.

The iPhone has taken the frustration out of browsing on a mobile
phone, said Charles Wolf, an analyst with Needham & Company.

Other companies confirmed the trends, if not the specific data,
observed by Google. Yahoo, for instance, said iPhones accounted for a
disproportionate amount of its mobile traffic. And AdMob, a firm that
shows billions of ads on mobile Web sites every month, said it saw
traffic from iPhones surge drastically around Christmas.

"Consumers are going to demand Internet browsers" as good as Apple's,
said Vic Gundotra, a Google vice president who oversees mobile
products.

Mr. Gundotra said Web browsers as capable as the iPhone's could also
prove a boon for developers of mobile software, who have long
struggled to adapt their programs to different types of phones. As it
does on the PC, he said, the browser could provide a more homogeneous
"layer" for programmers.

"The reason no one considered this seriously is that the Web layer on
mobile devices was terrible," he said. Google has taken advantage of
the capabilities of the iPhone browser to create a product, internally
called Grand Prix, that it says provides easy access to many of the
company's services, including search, Gmail, Reader and Picasa.

Google, which developed the first version of Grand Prix in six weeks,
is introducing a new version on Monday, just six weeks after the first
one. That is a speed of development not previously possible on mobile
phones, he said.