iPhone grew more than Android in May

Your first paragraph: the most sensible words you've ever written on TUAW (never thought I'd be agreeing with you". Then you spoil it with that last sentence, 2nd para...

I do not believe the use of dedicated apps has in any significant way decreased the amount of web surfing people do. If they had, we'd know about it, since web surfing statistics are regularly monitored by dozens of companies.

And even if it were the case, it wouldn't affect the relevance of the results unless you could establish that "apps on iPhone are causing people to do less web surfing *to a different degree* than the apps on Android are causing people to do less web surfing".

Obviously, if both iPhone apps and Android apps cause their users to do (say) 10% less web surfing, then the results remain perfectly valid, in terms of being a comparison between the two platforms.

Were your mistrust genuine (and not merely a manifestation of your prejudice) I would point out that while Net Applications uses visitor statistics, NPD gets its results from online consumer research surveys and comScore monitors the usage of a couple of million volunteers. None of these will produce perfect results.

Market researchers are not dumb, however, and they try to account for the shortcomings of their respective methodologies. It's their business. Not trusting certain companies for baseless, spiteful and spurious reasons is your business.

Doesn't the iPad use iPhone software? It seems pretty logical that a device that's sold as many units as the iPad would give a nice percentage boost.

"...Android sales were much better than the iPhone in the U.S. But that wasn't unexpected -- there are many more Android handsets to sell..."

Hmm, what does that remind me of? Oh yeah, Mac OS vs. Windows! It amazes me that they didn't learn their lesson. Before you all get mad at me, I own a 3gs... still, I've played with various android phones, the difference between the platforms isn't that big, this game is over, and not in the favor of Apple, unless they do something crazy like actually open up the system and allow other vendors to make phones with their OS. It seems highly unlikely that they will do that at this point though and really they should have already done it.

This is only talking about people browsing to select websites and the platform they are using.
In reality android has a larger marketshare and faster growth.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/05/comscore-android-market-share-continues-to-gain-on-the-iphone/

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/05/10/npd_android_phones_now_outsell_apples_iphone_in_us.html

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/android-market-share-passes-iphones-npd-data-2010-05-10

Uh, 25% of us are waiting for the EVO release date this Friday.

Another 75% are waiting to see if the iPhone has any unexpected surprises that would make anyone possibly consider re-upping with AT&T (so far, I haven't heard of anything remotely qualifying), or waiting until November for Verizon version.

Just keep waiting another 5 years for Windows Mobile 7. It'll kill everything you see there!

Android has been out 2.5 years. Verizon, only recently, spent the cashola to market it. Android's growth has been tied to Verizon cash. Can't get around that reality. Android is not a hit other than in China and the U.S. In China because it's free and can be used on the KIRF gadgets, it is on all the carriers. In the U.S., android has fair shares because the big V, Sprint, and TMo don't have the iPhone but want one, and the best looking thing they have to throw at the wall is a droid phone. But it takes carrier cash to market android devices. Carriers has to drum up support, which is precisely what Verizon did with its droid campaign. The big V needs to sell data packages to make cash -- so it needed a device that used it -- enter primetime droid TV ads.

The iPhone, on the other hand, has interest due to Apple marketing. AT&T spends nowhere near the cash that Verizon does because Apple directly markets the iPhone to consumers.

If the rumors are true that the iPhone will land on Verizon shelves at some unknown point, it'll be interesting to see what happens to droid marketing shares from Verizon's budget.

Nice!

I doubt I'll see this published on Apple-hating, Android-lusting Engadget though. It conflicts with their fanboyism.

Awesome! The iPhone's been out almost 4 years now, and all Android can muster (with it's plethora of BRAND SPANKIN' NEW phones) is not quite double the growth rate. Ouch.

Eh. Npd. All the xbox and ps3 fanboys like to play analyst when the numbers arrive, and the silliest thing is most people think of world results when they hear of npd.