Being back in the analyst trade occasionally inspires me to revisit earlier predictions to see how they turned out. One that has captured my interest of late is the premise, which I explored back at the beginning of 2007, that the iPhone's most important contribution, beyond its impact on device design, would be to spur the transformation of the mobile internet into the internet on a mobile device, rather than something totally distinct. I pointed out that Apple alone could not be responsible for this shift. I said that other handset manufacturers, as well as their wireless carrier partners, would have to do their part to make mobile browsing a better, richer experience for the end-user. I also argued that the competition should heed the lesson that "devices designed around the consumer experience of using the web stand a better a chance of spurring adoption of advanced mobile web services."
The initial frenzy over the iPhone has settled into what my elementary school English teacher liked to refer to as a "dull roar" -- not loud but certainly persistent. It is true that the iPhone continues to be "over-hyped," as Matt Kapko sagely pointed out last week, but to focus on the hype is to overlook the fact that two-plus years down the road from Steve Jobs' introduction of the iPhone, its impact on device design, the user experience, and overall mobile usage continues to resonate across the entire mobile ecosystem.
Nearly every handset manufacturer, including producers of smartphones with what Jobs then derided as "old-fashioned" QWERTY keypads, has introduced touchscreen devices that pay closer attention to the centrality of browsing to the whole mobile experience. And if most have fallen short of the aesthetic and experiential standards set by the iPhone, their introduction is an affirmation of the path blazed by Apple and the predictions I and other industry-watchers made at its launch. It is, of course, gratifying to see one's predictions borne out, but what I didn't foresee was how the iPhone would also transform the very nature of the browsing experience. It has trained users to access and experience content and media through installed applications in addition to the native browser, much in the same way iPod users before them were trained to seek music and later video at the iTunes store.
Apple did not invent either the model of aftermarket applications or the notion of building a store to house them, but it did succeed in radically improving an existing idea, one that is now being widely copied by competing smartphone platforms. In this as in many other respects, Apple's initiatives resonate far beyond the sliver of the total mobile device market the iPhone commands. Ironically, the rise in popularity of installed applications housed in stores open only to owners of a particular device comes at a time when improved browsers have helped to drive mobile users away from the carriers' closed gardens and onto the open web for content. App stores like Apple's App Store, BlackBerry's App World, and Google's Android Market put users behind new, albeit different walls.
Installed applications may in some ways facilitate the consumption of content and media (see Nicole Amodeo's detailed analysis of the shortcomings apps present), but they have undoubtedly complicated things for marketers, who now find themselves faced with a series of questions: Do I create an app? How do I market it? Do I charge for it? The answer to the question of whether to build a branded app, much like the decision to establish a Facebook page or a presence on Twitter, is "if it makes sense." Mobile apps and the app stores that house them aren't a substitute for a viable mobile web presence, but rather, an additional consideration. (Sadly for marketers, every technological step forward seems to herald only the prospect of incremental spend.) And as always, understanding how an application fits into a broader strategic plan will help determine whether creating one does indeed make sense for your brand.
This time around, I won't close with a prediction, other than to say that two years from now, it's a safe bet that the next round of hardware and software innovations will reconfigure the mobile ecosystem again. As far as how those changes will take place, that is something I plan to explore in subsequent columns here and in analyst reports for eMarketer.
Noah Elkin is a senior analyst at eMarketer, where he covers trends in mobile marketing, content, and commerce.
