The iPhone, Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
by Ewan Spence
Is the iPhone a massive success because it opens up the regular American user to the power of the internet on the move; or is the iPhone a success because a significant number of the purchasers are the tech elite that continually push their equipment to the limit?
(I’m dispensing with the more straightforward question of “is the iPhone a success or not” because the straightforward answer differs depending on the territory you are in. The results in the US I think are on or ahead of any sensible prediction, but the European take up has been slow and low. A discussion for another time, perhaps).
With every survey that comes out promoting the iPhone as the best thing to hit the mobile internet, I always come back to the central questions of why people are measuring ‘the phone’ rather than measuring ‘the user?’ After all, the difference between my Dad getting any internet capable phone, and myself, is going to be huge. My Dad is likely to use it to check the weather online before he goes out for a round of gold – I’m more likely to be uploading 10mb long videos, streaming live conversations, a Twitter client polling every 180 seconds, and a thousand and one other data services. I might even call someone if I have to get an immediate answer!
There’s no escaping the fact that the iPhone has created a greater buzz in the American marketplace – and having now experienced the consumer side of the US market it’s no wonder that the tech savvy users are swithching to the iPhone, but I don’t think that’s a basis for declaring it as a complete game-changer in the space. When using a cellular data connection, it has a cute web browser, a passable email client, and some look-up functionality for weather and stocks.
But I’d be doing that on any phone… in Europe. If I was to move over to the States, my options are much more limited in terms of handsets that would have these capabilities. The iPhone is very much the only mainstream option available, beyond grey imports or manufacturers web shops. So is it any wonder when you have one phone in a territory that the lions share of geeks are using it? And of course does that answer the European [lack of] uptake issue as well?
Oh and before you leave some statistical ‘evidence’ in the comments… that spike of visitors to Google from mobile devices such as the iPhone and Nokia’s N95 has everything to do with people using the mobile internet more, and nothing to do with Google being the default home page for the browsers and search clients in these devices… No sirreee.
