Twitter as a window into smartphone distribution
This is fascinating. Mashing twitter metadata against maps. Produced by Mapbox. Blackberry is purple, iPhone is red, Android is green. (Click to zoom)
First, Africa. Mostly Blackberry, mostly South Africa, Nigeria and a little Kenya.
Next, a look at South Korea. Android everywhere, but a cluster of iPhone in the centre of big cities.
Bombay: mostly Android, but iPhone and Blackberry in the richest areas?
Central London: Blackberry on the roads, iPhone in the richest areas
New York area - a cluster of Blackberry in the Midtown business district, iPhone in the richer areas (and JFK), Android further out.
And western Europe: iPhone and some Blackberry in the UK, Android and some Blackberry in Spain, and Germany and France (as usual) late adopters.
Finally, northern and Central Italy.Lots of iPhone, despite the lack of subsidy.
Lots more to explore looking at this, but one point stands out. I sometimes feel like Cato saying this over and over, but the iPhone is more expensive than most of the phones on the market, and this shapes the kind of people who buy it.
Also, it's worth pointing out that the site that made these is laying iPhone on top of Android rather than blending them. There's Android in the central/rich areas too - though often less. But iPhone is concentrated in those areas.