I'll be the first to admit that I've had iPhone envy ever since word about Apple's mobile device first leaked out. If you don't have one, it's hard not to want one, which no doubt has been reflected in every column I've written about the iPhone and its significance for mobile marketing (and there have been several dating back to January 2007).
Not being an early adopter, I tend not to rush out and buy a new gadget the moment it's released. These days, my patience is usually rewarded since device and software manufacturers inevitably have kinks to iron out of the first editions they rush to market. And so for two envy-filled years, I have stood by a succession of trusty and functional but decidedly unglamorous devices while watching my peers and colleagues flaunt their sleeker iPhones.
Writing about the importance of the iPhone is possible even in the absence of an iPhone of one's own. A slew of data, on everything from sales figures to mobile internet usage to application downloads to advertising impressions, attest to what makes the iPhone different from other devices. Still, analyzing information about other people's usage patterns is not the same as using one yourself.
The agonizing wait finally ended a month ago when a company-issued iPhone appeared on my desk. Although I had been reading and writing about it for what seemed like ages, I opened the box with the excitement of a child who has just gotten a new toy. Not surprisingly, I headed straight for the App Store. After months of being inundated by Apple commercials and listening to other people brag about what they could do with their iPhones, I, too, wanted to explore that world of possibilities and promise.
The honeymoon, I have to say, was nearly pure bliss. So enraptured was I with my new toy that I almost managed to ignore the network latency and lack of coverage at work, home, and nearly everywhere in-between. I didn't even care -- at first -- that the battery would not last even a full day.
After a week, however, the tyranny of the functional began to creep back in, clouding the elegance of the design, interface, and the applications. Or put another way, the flashes of brilliance I experienced made the everyday reality that much drearier, rendering the iPhone largely ineffective unless tethered to a Wi-Fi network. I'd like to think that iPhone 3.0, due imminently, will resolve all the issues that I and countless others before me have raised, but the fact is that wireless devices and networks share an uneasy dependency.
When networks perform at peak speeds, they make devices seem heroic in their capabilities, unleashing in the process the full potential of mobile as a marketing medium. But when they slow down or grind to a halt, as they continue to do with distressing frequency, our experience "breaks" too. Think of the outrage we feel when stuck in traffic or on the rare occasion when the projector at a movie theater breaks in the middle of watching a film. That outrage translates in smaller doses to our smaller devices, and serves as a reminder to marketers using mobile as a channel that consumers' short attention spans are in some way a necessary function of the medium itself.
Wireless networks certainly have their peaks and valleys; in fact, they are to some degree subject to them. But until networks can perform with speed and consistency everywhere, our ability to use mobile devices as true extensions of our desktops will remain stunted. As with network performance, battery life will always be an issue for mobile devices, but the degree to which it remains a hindrance to their effectiveness is the key variable.
These are shockingly basic and age-old complaints, but as consumers, we should expect and demand that our networks and devices handle the basics, especially as they add increasingly advanced features and capabilities that tempt us to do more with our phones. As marketers, much of our future ability to deliver messages effectively depends on it.
I'm still in love with the iPhone for what it still has the potential to become; I'm just not leaving my current carrier and smartphone for good until it really gets there.
Noah Elkin is a senior analyst at eMarketer, where he covers trends in mobile marketing, content, and commerce.
