iPhone surfs to mobile web domination

The iPhone dominated the market for mobile web surfing last month, and there were relatively healthy showings from Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows Mobile.

Net Applications found Apple's handheld status symbol accounted for 66.61 per cent of mobile traffic browsing the web during February.

The phone's nearest competitor was Microsoft's Windows Mobile, with 6.91 per cent of traffic.

Making a strong play was Google's Android, which tied with Symbian for third place with 6.15 per cent of traffic. While that's a long way behind the iPhone, it's not bad considering Android is just over a year old and Symbian has been in the market for longer.

It's the latest demonstration of the iPhone's pull. Open-source projects are also beginning to switch their programming allegiances from long-time favorite - and Microsoft bolthole - Palm.

Software license tracker Black Duck Software found that the iPhone led the industry in terms of number of open-source projects targeting its platform - 266 - followed by Android with 191 and Microsoft's Widows Mobile on 164. Long-time leader Palm saw just 113 projects, while Symbian lagged with 64. Black Duck tracked 185,000 projects on 4,000 sites. ®