Is the iPhone the way of the future?
April 3, 2008
I read a fascinating report from Rubicon Consulting that talks about iPhone use. Facts from the report as published by the authors:
* iPhone users are very satisfied. The iPhone users we surveyed report very high levels of satisfaction with the product. They are using its features extensively. (Page 12.)
* E-mail is the #1 function. The most heavily used data function on the iPhone is reading (but not writing) e-mail. (Page 13.)
* The iPhone increases mobile browsing… More than 75% of iPhone users say it has led them to do more mobile browsing. (Page 14.)
* …but it has drawbacks. About 40% of iPhone users say the iPhone has trouble displaying some websites they want to visit. (Page 25.)
* The iPhone is expanding the smartphone market. About 50% of iPhones replaced conventional mobile phones, 40% replaced smartphones, and 10% replaced nothing. Among conventional phones, Motorola Razr was the phone most often replaced. Among smartphones, Windows Mobile and RIM Blackberry were most often replaced. (Page 19.)
* A third of iPhone users carry a second phone. There have been anecdotal reports of iPhone users carrying a second mobile phone, either for basic voice calling, or for other functions like composing e-mail. The survey confirmed those reports. (Page 20.)
* A quarter of iPhone users say it’s displacing a notebook computer. 28% of iPhone users surveyed said strongly that they often carry their iPhone instead of a notebook computer. (Page 22.)
* Users are young. About half of iPhone users are under age 30 (page 29) and about 15% are students (page 31).
* Apple sells to its installed base. At least 75% of US iPhone users are previous Apple customers — they used either iPods or Macintosh computers. (Page 28.)
* The iPhone increases phone bills. The iPhone has increased its users’ monthly mobile phone bills by an average of 24%, or $228 extra per year. (Page 17.)
* The iPhone leads people to change carriers. Almost half of iPhone users changed carriers when they got the iPhone. (Page 18.)
* AT&T’s gamble pays off. The iPhone has probably increased AT&T’s gross service revenue by about $2 billion per year. (Page 4.)
Bear in mind that this is a report drawn from US customers so EU results may be very different. However, in a recent Newsgang show, a couple of developers said the iPhone interface has set the bar for all other mobile phones and that at this moment in time, it is difficult to see how other vendors will be able to beat Apple out. To add a little spice there are predictions that iPhone sales could hit 45 million a year by 2009.
On the other hand, the iPhone is an expensive and captive option. I don’t see much corporate use of the iPhone but that’s not to say it won’t happen in the future. Today, Blackberry seems to be the popular corporate choice with sales running at around 12 million and far deeper integration to services business wants to use.
Instead, I see an alternative scenario where iPhone co-exists with other handsets such as Blackberry and Nokia, where users choose the device that best meets their needs for a particular task.
Comments
5 Responses to “Is the iPhone the way of the future?”
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I’m definitely getting one in the summer (pending any rumours about a 2.0 release… I want a slightly better camera in it!). You might find even better results in the UK. O2’s tariffs are pretty good (the base one would easily cover my current call usage, and then some), plus unlimited data and impressive Wi-Fi hotspot coverage? With free connection to The Cloud and my own BT Openzone credits, I’ll rarely be out of touch. It looks pretty compelling…
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I picked up my iphone on Tuesday. Need to wait a little longer to get my mobile number transferred from vodaphone. (The PAC code is on it’s way).
It’s a FABULOUS piece of kit with many neat features and such a great improvement on my palm (which I loved) and my old nokia n73 phone (which I hated). And it’s given me back the shuffle facility I had on my old ipod shuffle before I moved across to a nano. I’d missed that.
One key downside I’ve noted already:
Although it synchs with my outlook contacts and calendars (and is a great improvement on my old palm in many related respects) - it doesn’t synch my TASKS or Memos. I’ll need to find a work around on that as I have hundreds of memos on my palm and in outlook. And I’ve been relying on the TASKS list as a ‘to do list’ for years.
Another issue that will take some getting used to is scrolling through websites like bloglines. On my palm the default view matched the text to the width of the screen. When it does that on the iphone it’s too small for me to read so I have to zoom in. And that means I then I have to scroll back and forth to read the full width of the text.
My 20 year old son got himself an itouch (same as iphone but without the phone!) as he ‘touch texts’ on his mobile and wouldn’t be able to do that on an iphone.
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oops - should have added:
And my monthly O2 contract will save me between £10 and £30 a month compared with the previous vodaphone contract
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WOW - so on the basis of this miniscule sample, the iPhone IS doing the business. I have an iTouch so I’m with Mark and I’ve ‘jail broken’ it so I can do pretty much what I want. Running it off my home wifi for Twitter, GMail and internet usage is pretty darned cool stuff.
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Well I’ve been using my iPhone for close to eight months now and I couldn’t be happier with it: Two caveats, the battery life is horrible when connected to wifi and I can’t yet add my corporate email to the device — which is why I still carry a BBerry. Hopefully the later will go away soner rather than later. Other than that it serves all of my needs better than any other mobile device I’ve owned/used to date.
Oh and btw, I was an iPhoe owner first and then switched over to a MBP for my work computer. I still use a PC at home.
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