Mapping smartphone use: Tweets for research!

Despite the best efforts of Microsoft and RIM, it seems that most of the world’s smartphone markets are largely divided into iPhone and Android users. As iteration after iteration of the latest and shiniest devices appear on our shelves, the debate over which is best grows ever more intense. While it would be impossible to pick a definitive winner in the smartphone race, we could go a long way to figuring it out by looking at how many users each system has attracted.

Enter Gnip, an IT company from the US that specializes in social media, and their beautiful, firework-like, Twitter maps!

Mobile handset distribution maps

Gnip has created a global distribution map of smartphone handsets using Tweets!

See? Twitter is good for more than just finding out what your favorite celebrity had for breakfast.

Compiling data from over 180,000,000 tweets from mobile users, Gnip is able to get an idea of how many Twitter users have which smartphone. Additionally, the company maintains that they are able to determine where said Twitter users are, giving us a fairly clear image of smartphone distribution.

So, where do you think we’ll find iPhones and Androids in Japan?

iPhone for the urbanites, Android for the suburbanites

By plotting the data out on a map, with one dot for each tweet, Gnip created a world map showing which phones are used where.

▼Here’s Tokyo.

The red dots are for iPhones and the green dots are for Android, with Blackberry, relatively unknown in Japan, in purple. It looks like iPhone users are a bit more concentrated in the city, while Android users are found slightly more in the outskirts and suburbs. This may reflect socio-economic differences, though it’s hard to say. We’re too mesmerized by the pretty colors to think clearly!

▼Tokyo, Android only

▼Tokyo, iPhone only

Blackberry makes an appearance!

Despite what many might think, Blackberry isn’t completely out of this fight yet! In some Asian countries, such as Thailand, Singapore, and the Phillipines, Blackberry shows up a bit more clearly. In fact, Blackberry dominates the competition in Jakarta.

▼Jakarta, Land of Blackberry!

And in some European countries, such as the UK, Spain and France, it looks like Blackberry is still pretty popular.

A few words of caution

As interesting as this data is, there are a few issues that make it difficult to take at face value. The first issue is that Twitter location information was used to compile these maps. That means that people who have location sharing turned off might not show up, which could severely skew the results.

Also, not everyone uses Twitter, as shocking as it may seem. Still, the maps help us get a better idea of the current landscape of smartphones. And they’re super pretty too!

You can check out and play around with the maps on MapBox.

We’ll leave you with a few more maps from around the globe. Man, they sure would look great under a black light in a college dorm room, wouldn’t they?

▼Nagoya