About a Phone (part 1)

"  The site doesn’t scale to mobile. Unfortunately with over 50% of internet users moving to phones and tablets, google feels like it is priority number 1 to have a website built for mobile.  "

from a recent e-mail - name withheld


Well, maybe not.
And from the look of it, certainly not those seriously interested in the Wareham Forge (or reading this right now, for that matter).

First Statistic : Population of Canada
December 2017 = 36.7 million (1)

Reported number of ‘mobile device internet users’ (so smart phones and tablets)
December 2017 = 24.4 million
December 2018 = 25.7 million (2)

Something to watch here.
1) The number of ‘subscriptions’ is reported at over 30 million.
Other reports indicated that Canada has one of the highest mobile device ownership world wide. But indicated at roughly ‘3 out of 4 people’. Which would put the number of ‘unique owners’ at closer to 27.5 million.
2) A good percentage of these would actually own more than one device - but would count twice here. (I own both a cell phone and a tablet, for example.)
3) A significant number of those would children or teens. The teens clearly show as major users, and warp some of the numbers as this goes along.

But just what are those ‘users’ actually doing?
By the data at Statista.com :

• text message / e-mail
• watching videos
• finding locations (maps)
• games
• mobile banking

https://www.statista.com/statistics/686890/canada-leading-mobile-activities/

You can see general information searching on the internet does not even make up one of the top five uses. (Appears to be less than 1/3 of 'user time')

Ok - and quite importantly here - just what machines are Canadians using to actually ‘surf the web’?
As it turns out, still primarily using actual computer screens :
January 2018 = 55%

https://www.statista.com/statistics/505773/canada-online-traffic-device-share/

The table indicates that only 33 % of unique users are using the internet on small smart phone screens.

Combine that with the reduced fraction (not indicated, but obviously some amount less than 38%) who would be attempting general internet searches.
That makes at best roughly 1/3 of 1/3 of all web site views =
11 % of all viewers.


A double check off my own main web site portals. Stats for operating systems accessing :
’Hammered Out Bits’ - my blog / month of December (2018)

• Android = 14%
• iPhone = 4%

‘the Wareham Forge - main web site / month of December

• Google Android = 3.8% (3)

full site on an iPad mini *

full site on an iPhone *

Now, I had created a separate ‘mobile’ version of the Wareham Forge web site (about a year ago) :

• (should) automatically load when a mobile device is used
• sized to fit the smaller iPhone screen
• stripped to single images and limited text
• links back to the main web site if viewers want any details

view direct at www.warehamforge.ca/mobile

mobile version on iPad mini *

mobile version on iPhone *

Over the entire Wareham Forge web site however / month of December :
Total page views = 24,908
‘Mobile’ page views = 646 (2.5%)
These two sets of numbers seem to work against each other. I may be incorrect on either end :

• Android operating system may not just be on phones ?
• Some mobile users may not be moved to the special mobile versions as intended.

Over the past year especially, from younger (less than 30 year old) people specifically, I have had many suggest I should re-work the entire Wareham Forge web site (!!) so it views 'easier' on those tiny smart phone screens.

(Next : 'Viewing the Universe through a Tiny Hole' )


* Made with use of the Mobile Phone Emulator (by COWEMO)
I made an attempt to match these images to the actual sizes of the devices indicated. I suspect the size of these images will be altered by your own viewing screen.

• iPhone : continues to increase in size, older ones = 13 cm (diagonal)
• iPad mini : (mine is iPad 2) = 20 cm (diagonal)

These also show the vertical arrangement, which is what the mobile site version of the Wareham Forge was designed for. The images used there actually are a size that fills a horizontal view on the iPhone screen.

1) Statistics Canada
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/12-581-x/2018000/pop-eng.htm
An estimate of the current (end December 2018) = 37.1 million
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/canada-population/

2) Statista
https://www.statista.com/topics/3529/mobile-usage-in-canada/

3) The separate statistics sheets for these two sites record and track different information.
The main Wareham Forge site does not track  macOSi  individually