How to differentiate between Mobile Web and Desktop Web (and Tablet as a bonus)

Hi all,

Is there an equivalent of Google Analytics Device Category in Amplitude? Here’s a post about how GA does it.

I’m looking to segment our Web platform events and user properties further by Mobile vs Desktop (and Tablet as a bonus).

Here's some Amplitude community topics, that I've found so far, and I think it requires segmenting by a combination of OS and Device type, but I can’t find a clean way of doing it.

Many thanks in advance.

Raul

Find more posts tagged with

Accepted answers

Maya

Hi Raul,

At this time, our SDK does not have a default user property that distinguishes events from web and mobile traffic. In case you can track these differences on your end, you can create a custom user property that will indicate whether an event is from a web or mobile source.

While there isn’t straight forward possibility to do so in Amplitude, we would indeed suggest that you use 'OS' and ‘Device Family’ user properties to come closer to these results without additional instrumentation (only captured if you are using the Amplitude SDKs to send data). Please note I would not position this as a solution but as an attempt to get close to these results.

Many of your mobile users have the word "mobile" in the name of their OS, and you can segment for events where with "OS contains Mobile" and "OS does not contain Mobile". Additionally, you can use “Device Family” to check if it contains “tablet”.

Things to be aware of:

The OS = "Chrome 105" would apply for mobile and desktop
The '[Amplitude] Device family' and '[Amplitude] Device type' values based on a custom mapping that we do whenever we encounter new devices. Sometimes, these might not be added to the existing mappings. You can request a new device to be added as mentioned here.

Hope this helps! If you have anymore questions, please let me know!

All comments

Maya

Hi Raul,

Things to be aware of:

The OS = "Chrome 105" would apply for mobile and desktop
The '[Amplitude] Device family' and '[Amplitude] Device type' values based on a custom mapping that we do whenever we encounter new devices. Sometimes, these might not be added to the existing mappings. You can request a new device to be added as mentioned here.

Hope this helps! If you have anymore questions, please let me know!

toby_c5k

Hi guys,

Just chiming in here as I think the solution you have offered is a real hacky/bandaid workaround. I often find myself trying to achieve what Raul has mentioned in Amplitude.

I think this would be a very worthwhile default library user trait to have!

Thanks

ascar

I agree with toby_c5k , this solution is too much of a bandaid that’s prone to error, and does not give us an easy solution on par with other standard tools in the field (i.e. Google Analytics).

Micha

Hey Maya ,

I completely agree with ascar and toby_c5k:

I do get various questions regarding usage of our product differentiating tablet vs phone from our product owners and it would be great to answer those with with confidence.

Any chance this categorization could land on amplitude’s roadmap?

dangrainger

Hey Micha - I added this (and a similar item regarding browser types) as a request to Amplitude’s ideas board which the product team has eyes on. Feel free to upvote!

Rom Shiri

Lol it’s amazing there’s no such thing in 2023

Jonathan Callahan

Absolute table-stakes functionality for a web analytics tool. Embarrassing.

dangrainger

Keep in mind this tool comes from an initial standpoint of product analytics, it’s only in recent times that it’s truly moving into also covering what many of us know as digital/ web/ marketing analytics. This of course takes time, so given how far ahead Amplitude is in the behavioural measurement/ insight space than many of the established digital analytics vendors (coupled with the great UI and integrations for easier data activation), I’m sure we can all afford them some patience to build some of the dimensions that are taken for granted in GA/ Adobe. Or for those that can’t afford the patience, there’s always the option of GA4 where you can get device category natively and instead have reams of fun with the widely publicised, lengthy list of UI and sampling issues.

Jonathan Callahan

Here’s how we set this up as a derived property, couldn’t find anything else already written up on the forums. Not perfect but it appears to work. Still would love to see this provided by Amplitude.

IF(<br />	<device family property>  contains (<br />		'tab',<br />		'ipad',<br />		'kindle'<br />	),<br />	'tablet',<br />	IF(<br />		<OS property>  contains (<br />			'mobile'<br />		),<br />		'mobile',<br />		IF (<br />			<OS property>  contains (<br />				'none'<br />			),<br />			'unknown',<br />			'desktop'<br />		)<br />	)<br />)

Cameron Ross

@dangrainger can you explain why I can’t see “derived properties” on my Tracking Plan—>Properties screen?

Saish Redkar

Cameron Ross

What plan are you on? Derived properties is available to users on Enterprise plans or those with the Govern add-on.

Quick Links

Unanswered Questions

Error in Amplitude React Native SDK - "Cannot set property 'cookie' of undefined"
Hello! In React-Native mobile project we have error: Amplitude Logger [Error]: Failed to set cookie for key: AMP_TEST. Error: Cannot set property 'cookie' of undefined Error Component Stack: ``` The package version is "@amplitude/analytics-react-native": "1.5.1", Steps to Reproduce: * Initialize Amplitude with our API key…
Send IP on native events for first party tracking
We implemented first party tracking using the basic JS SDK on the browser and pointing the payload to our servers like this: amplitude.init(AMPLITUDE_API_KEY, { serverUrl: serverUrl, autocapture: { attribution: { excludeReferrers: [/domain1\.com$/, /domain2\.com$/], }, formInteractions: false, fileDownloads: false, }, });…
Events for an Android background app
My Android app is primarily a background app. Does Amplitude track events for such an app? Please let me know.
Modifed the Change over time retantion graph
here is the referance graph: https://app.amplitude.com/analytics/demo/chart/new/363tk5og In this graph, retention is currently being calculated based on the next day, but I want to analyze it based on the previous day instead. Example: For July 27, we should compare retention against July 26, not July 28. * So for 1-day…
Landing page analysis data table
Hi everybody! I need your help with a client request: my client is used to analyze landing pages performance with the standard report from GA4 and I need to create something similar in Amplitude. What I already have: * session entries grouped by page URL * purchase event calculated as session totals grouped by page URL and…