Mele’s Musings

Survey finds iPhone owners go online more often via their phones

Are WAP pages dead? Is the iPhone the real model for the future of mobile surfing? I think I would say yes.

photo by Sagolla

Article excerpt: Are iPhones more web-friendly than other web-enabled cell phones, or are iPhone users simply more web-savvy? Either way, surveys by rating and review site Viewpoints.com found big differences in the way iPhone owners use their phones compared with other cell phone owners. 48% of iPhone users said they frequently look up information online, compared with 5% of users of other cell phones. An online survey of users of Apple’s web-enabled phone who’d written reviews on Viewpoints.com also determined that 45% frequently browse online using their phones. That was far higher than the 6% of users of other brands of cell phones who said they browsed the web via their handsets in a separate survey. 39% of iPhone owners said they frequently listen to music on the devices, compared with only 5% of the owners of other mobile brands. 30% of iPhone owners frequently send and receive e-mail messages on the phones, compared with only 7% of owners of other cell phone brands. The survey also found that 97% of the iPhone users surveyed said the device had met their expectations, including 88% who said it exceeded expectations. “Viewpoints.com members who own iPhones more than just like their iPhones. They love them,” says Matt Moog, founder and CEO of Viewpoints.com. In comparison, surveyed Viewpoints members who’d written reviews of other cell phones were significantly less happy with their cell phones, with only 33% calling themselves highly satisfied.
internetretailer.com

Musing: Anyone would agree that the process of surfing the web via the cellphone/blackberry is not good. The iPhone and iPod touch offer real web surfing, and it completely changes the way the user experience. I guess I have to believe that this is the wave of the future. If so, this changes the way we think about mobile advertising. Not sure, but it may completely change the idea of WAP pages, and instead just further the distribution of current web surfing into the mobile space. That just means more and more media time and web surfing than their currently is. Whadda you think?