The terms mobile internet and applications are pretty much abstractions unless you are right in the middle of it.
If you’re not one of the 10 million people or so who’ve moved to the iPhone, let me give you a brief tour of Let me show you what it means.
The four images to the right are snapshots of the screens on my iPhone.
The way the iPhone is designed is that the icons on the bottom grey bar appear on each of your screens. The information at the very top band gives you basic information about your phone — the connections, the time and your battery life.
The four icons at the bottom access the basic functions of the device: the phone, your e-mail, your web browser and your media library.
You are able to download and install, through Apples App Store, different applications that enhance the utility of your device. There’s no real limit to the number of applications that you can install.
The first page of my iPhone apps have the ones that I use most frequently. My calendar, the camera, the photos database, and a bunch of different content applications. My key social media apps are on the front page — Facebook, Twitter and CubeTree, a social media platform we are testing within the company. I also have the Kindle app, because I have ended up using my iPhone as my primary eReader, and a couple of branded news sources: Bloomberg and ESPN. Foursquare and Yelp are on the front page because I’ve been testing both apps recently.
To get to the second page, you simply drag your finger across the screen from right to left and the new page comes up.
On the second page, you begin to see some of the flexibility of this device.
I have a couple of games installed on this screen, which are primarily used by my 4-year old. I’ve got three applications associated with my social media activity: Ego, which accesses my Google analytics, Twitter and Feedburner data on a real-time basis; Statistics, which shows the stats of my WordPress blogs, and a WordPress app that allows me to create blog posts and edit comments on the moves. There’s my Amazon cart, for shopping; my ApartmentFinder app, and some other basic components of the iPhone system.
Move to the third screen and you see some less frequently used tools. A flight tracking applications. A mind-mapping applications. An applications that tells me the schedule of MetroNorth trains. A movie finding applications. Some game.
The fourth screen has the same variety. A TV Guide app. The local news channel app, which allows me to get quick access to school closings and weather. A ski report app, which I recommend to any one who skis — you get the real scoop on snow conditions from the updates people leave. And, finally, an application that turns my iPhone into a remote for our Apple TV in the library.
There you have: a peek into the world of applications. Some of these applications cost money — the most expensive is probably Madden. I’ve downloaded and then deleted dozens more.
My web experience through the filter of applications is dramatically different than my web experience on my laptop. I am probably more brand-loyal in my app usage. I am definitely exposed to less advertising. And, my usage of Google is down, because I know exactly where I’m going for a bunch of different things. When I need to search, I’ll use the Google box in my Safari browser on the iPhone. But, I’m seeing a lot less of Googles advertising.
It’s a different ecosystem than what we’ve traditionally thought about for the experience of web content.
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