In a study of 500 of some of the top sites on the Internet, mobile performance consultants Blaze found less than half of the top destinations in the United States were optimized for smartphones.
Of the Alexa 500 top sites in the U.S., 40% were optimized for smartphones (42% iOS, 38% Android). Yet when it comes to Android, those 200 sites overwhelmingly returned the same page to both a smartphone and a tablet, meaning that developers have not rendered Android specific versions of their sites for Android tablets. See the infographic after the jump.
In contrast, the iPhone and iPad were optimized for mobile rendering by nearly every one of the 200 sites.
“For iOS there is only one phone and one tablet with known resolutions and screen sizes,” Blaze said in a release. “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 site owners to keep up.”
Android device fragmentation has been a problem for developers since the beginning of the platform. It is very difficult to create a native application or a mobile optimized site for Android when devices have screen sizes ranging from 3.5 (various smartphones), 4.3 inches (HTC Evo), 7 inches (HTC Flyer, Samsung Galaxy Tab) to 10.1 inches (Galaxy Tab). There are phones and tablets that range in between all those screen sizes as well.
Blaze also did a speed test on tablets and smartphones. It says that the iPad 2 is 25% faster than the iPhone 4 and 20% faster than the iPad 1. The Android Motorola Xoom tablet is 25% faster than the Samsung Nexus S smartphone.
