What was interesting was one participant’s response to my “Remember it’s a phone” slide. He said, “My iPhone is a toy, not a phone.” I double checked; yes, he did have two phones. So he didn’t care about a game totally burning up the battery; he is using a different device to do his job, keep in touch with the family and actually communicate.
This is inline with Compete’s research that iPhone owners focus on personal use. It is also consistent with Rubicon Consulting’s findings that Blackberry users are focused on email (this last is a particularly great article, by the way).
If you want to see my presentation yourself you can sign up to view it via webinar on the 27th.
By the way, this is one of those buildings that is far prettier up close. From a distance, it looks pretty uninspiring. Driving up to it from the wrong angle, it’s almost scary, with barricades and unhappy-looking guards (this is why they moved it from the middle of downtown, where people routinely walked right by). Approaching on foot, it starts looking very nice. And the view from the conference center is downright spectacular. So if you’re in Kansas City, go ahead and visit. You can park once, visit the building and the Money Museum inside. Then walk across the green to the excellent, and almost totally unique National World War I Museum and Liberty Memorial.
I’d be tempted to ask him: “Why not an ipod touch?”, since it’s just the phone part that makes the iphone the iphone. I think the touch even has a GPS… No, it doesn’t, but the iPhone doesn’t really have GPS either.
Barbara, do you think if you gave this talk to a group of people in advertising that you might have a different experience? Walk into an ad agency and regardless of role you will find a culture of iPhone AND it is used for business as much as pleasure. It is truly considered a converged device. Now there are exceptions on both aisles. I.e. HSBC rolled out iPhones as their device of choice over BB in the last 6 months and I know LBi uses Blackberries, but that is more of legacy than culture.
My main point is that this distinction you are making is cultural. I.e. in the medical world BBs are loosing ground b/c of the amazing application environment on the iPhone.
I don’t see BBs loosing much ground in finance and gov’t, but I do see areas where the iPhone will probably be gaining ground in significant areas of play: academia, advertising, media (broadcast & print), technology, etc.
It will be interesting where the Palm Pre fits in this scenario.
– dave
Absolutely! Go take a look at the Rubicon link; use patterns for different smart phones. Palm users, for example, most valued calendar.
I’m looking forward to the Pre, non-G1 Android devices, and Nokia experimentation. And HTC work as well.
A Twitter re-tweet, from today, relevant to the conversation.
RT @hametner Top 5 U.S. smartphones sold in Q1 2009: 1. BlackBerry Curve, 2. Apple iPhone 3G, 3. BlackBerry Storm, 4. BlackBerry Pearl, 5. T-Mobile G1
I think though that “utility” plays only a piece in the cultural aspects of device choice. I.e. blackberry is “serious” in X community. In Y community it is “ugly, old, &/or utilitarian”.
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I think though that “utility” plays only a piece in the cultural aspects of device choice. I.e. blackberry is “serious” in X community. In Y community it is “ugly, old, &/or utilitarian”.