

Google iPhone usage shocks search giant - terpua
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/02/14/google_iphone_usage_shocks_search_giant.html

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wallflower
The Apple iPhone is a mobile experience.

Those of us who are fortunate to forgo its "lack" of features, understand that
it can add value to part of the routine and boredom of day-to-day life.

It's actually fun to do something productive and/or kill time with it while
out-and-about.

From presentation by Jared Spool UX expert:

1st generation - It's about the Technology (Big mainframe computers - had to
go to specialized training at HQ to be able to use it, let alone program it.
Early dotcom sites where you could theoretically buy something if you could
figure it out)

2nd generation - Features (Mobile phones with streaming TV, MP3 - all thrown
in, loosely coupled, none integrated, some Internet portals)

3rd generation - Experience (Craigslist, MySpace (it does what their target
market wants them to - peer communication), Google is getting there...
Facebook is getting there, flying sheep aside).

In Jared's opinion, the Apple iPhone leapfrogged directly to the 3rd
generation - it's not a phone, it's not a portable computer - it is a great
way to kill time (everywhere I go I see people trying to kill time on their
mobile phones, rarely is it an iPhone).

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rms
That is shockingly believable data and speaks of how terrible it is to use the
internet on any phone other than an iPhone.

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eusman
i am just reading this from a n95 quite pleasantly and replying with one hand
which i an not sure you can do with iphone. Can anyone predict how much years
is several as mentioned in an earlier post that it will outnumber? Of course
its a natural direction and i dont understand why so much credit for the
iphone

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vlad
It's not about which phone had features X, Y, and Z first.

The iPhone is: known to focus on usability; made by Apple; has iTunes, a big
screen, a great screen, a wide screen; has a PDA brother -- the iTouch; runs a
version of a real operating system; and is made by the manufacturer of the
most popular portable digital music players of each of the last 7 years or so.
Finally, Apple is not a phone manufacturer but a designer of usable things --
people want to buy something that is made by Apple, and not a phone company.
The resulting popularity, promise of an SDK, a commitment to the product line,
and an exciting bridge of software and hardware gets developers on board. This
gets the iPhone to the point where all of a sudden, it doesn't matter who
created it--Microsoft, McDonalds, or Staples--or exactly what it's capable of:
everyone else is using it, which means it's now a "standard", and a good
enough reason to make that your next phone.

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eusman
Actually n95 is in the hands of more than 2 million people compared to iphone
that its in half of these people.

And by saying n95 I was reffering mostly to S60 Version 3 platform, which is
used on more phones than N95, which means they have the same browser.

iPhone may be appealing, but overall doesnt mean that is the only way to surf
the mobile web. The browsing capabilities in many phones are really
worthwhile.

It's obvious this is an iPhone praising story.

"popular" it's a vogue word, doesn't mean anything if you don't say location.
In Europe, phones come free or at loyaltee-fee with connection packets, which
make it more accesible for people to change their phones easier. So, you stuck
with a "popular" iPhone easier.

"real operating system" ?

sorry, but it rings to my ears the 3-in-1 iPhone pre-launch Steve Jobs speech

What real means anyway? Multitasking with IPv6, multimedia capabilities and
UTF-16 support that is possible to write applications for? Symbian answers to
these.

"standard and good enough..."

Well, you should check your numbers with Symbian penetration.

Nokia is already working on feel-touch UI which will make touching surface
feel like a keyboard when necessary.

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gojomo
_"Actually n95 is in the hands of more than 2 million people compared to
iphone that its in half of these people."_

Actually, iPhone sales totalled 4 million as of last month. So it is the
n95/s60v3 that, if your 2 million number is correct, is in half the number of
hands.

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eusman
There were nearly 85 million devices based on S60 in 2006. Today there are 20
different phones based on S60 3rd edition.

"18.8 million converged devices (S60) shipped in Q4 compared to 11.1 this time
last year * Over 11 million Nseries devices and over 2 million Eseries devices
were sold in Q4 * Market share in North America dropped to 5.1% while every
other region except China experienced double digit"

<http://www.nokia.com/results/results2007Q4e.pdf>

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systems
I am not shocked at all, I have to say I predicted this all along! All we were
waiting for is a decent UI and a real browser and a qwerty keyboard for mobile
devices.

I also predict that future mobile phones will also try to increase the screen
sizes.

I also predict that Apple will repeat their same mistake by tieing their OS to
their Hardware, and that googles Android OS will be the next windows of all
other Mobile devices.

I also predict that it will take Apple long to realise that they could have
eliminated or a least make it harder for Google's android by licensing their
mobile software to other phone companies such as Nokia! And that by not doing
so they lost a lot of money!

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pchristensen
N95/iPhone is the first devices to make mobile browsing acceptable. A great
lesson on supply and demand.

Demand for sucky mobile browsing: vanishingly small Demand for ok mobile
browsing: really high

But GOOG, etc were surprised because although those two statements seem
obvious, there's no way to measure beforehand.

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nirmal
A Large Scale Study of Wireless Search Behavior: Google Mobile Search
<http://www.esprockets.com/papers/kamvar-baluja.chi06.pdf>

This study was presented by some Google employees at CHI'06 and some very
interesting things to say about the use of mobile search. Best finding, ~20%
of mobile searches are done for "Adult" content.

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tocomment
What bothers me about Google search on the iPhone is that the native search in
Safari goes to Google's desktop version. Why can't it go to their mobile
version?

Seems kind of dumb, right?

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wallflower
How many people browse News.yc on an iPhone...at the coffee shop... Or in the
office bathroom stall .. Or is it just me? Since they got rid of the open wi-
fi and replaced it with authentication-required, I find myself using EDGE more

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anupamkapoor
what really is scary is all the controls that telcos have built around
accessing net with such devices.

