Despite some reluctance to get too excited about seeing the iPhone being held by the person next to me on the train anytime soon, I would like to publicly thank Apple for immeasurably helping the mobile media industry.

This nifty device with exceptional user experience will mean that the penny drops in the minds of many people who have not seen the future of mobile content and portable computing.

Although most of the features of the iPhone (gee, should we actually be calling it that given Cisco is now suing over trademark infringement) are available on most high end smart phones, Apple has just done it so much better. The incorporation of tools that exist on the desktop in addition to wi-fi connectivity will finally demonstrate that the device formerly known as the phone is really a miniature computer.

For media producers, who are floundering around trying to understand the dynamics of the phone, consumer behaviour and how to distribute effectively when the carriers are acting like gate-keepers instead of toll-ways, this will hopefully bring them to the sensibility that the phone is part of a cross-platform mix that they need to understand in order to make content that will find audiences in a fragmented media marketplace.

The price of the iPhone may be too high, the complexity of integrating with carriers around the world too difficult and the fact that battery life is way too low may all mean that the iPhone will struggle to dominate the phone marketplace as the ipod has in the music player category.

The good news is we are all watching closely, including the great masses of consumers who suddenly just got a whole lot more interested in what else their phone can do.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 12th, 2007 at 9:12 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.