Fri

Feb 8
2008

Sara Winge

Sara Winge

The iPhone wins friends and influences people

At O'Reilly conferences like this week's Money:Tech, where businesspeople outnumber developers, the tool of choice to enable continuous partial attention is a mobile device, not a laptop. To my surprise, roughly 80% of my Money:Tech rowmates had iPhones in hand. I expected New Yorkers to be a Blackberry crowd, but it looks like Tim was on to something when he predicted that the iPhone will beat the Blackberry.

A few more recent random data points about Apple's momentum:

Radarite Nat Torkington reports that developer Layton Duncan of Polar Bear Farm, a trailblazing developer of cool native iPhone applications, was high on his list of "most interesting people I met at Kiwi Foo."

After a few weeks with his new iPhone, Grant McCracken was surprised to realize that he'd probably switch to the Mac when he got his next computer. He wants the iPhone's elegant, user-friendly design on his laptop, too.

Longtime ace coder and Foo Duncan Davidson (who moonlights as the photographer at our conferences) said he'd been getting a noticeable increase in requests to develop for OS X. His corporate clients are investing in the Mac platform.

On their own, none of these anecdotes is wildly surprising. Taken together, especially when they all pop up in the course of 36 hours, they point to continued growth in Mac market share.

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Comments: 9

  Tim [02.08.08 05:04 PM]

I never thought that this iPhone could make a LOT of PC users switch to Mac's. It is probably one of the best stocks to buy right now.

  Crawford [02.08.08 08:49 PM]

It's like gooseflesh. It's not a huge thing in the grand scheme, but once you've experienced it, you just gotta get some more.

  Oliver Timmermann [02.08.08 10:28 PM]

I think, apple is doing a very well planned marketing thing. There are lot of people who want to own an iphone. A bigger market share for OS X is not wrong, probably MS will have to work harder. And design some products which can compete with Linux or Leopard..

  Alex [02.09.08 01:02 AM]

I like the iphone. But for europe is it not perfect. We have hier umts and the iphone can this feature not.

  Dan [02.09.08 05:44 AM]

(at the risk of getting sucked into an 'Apple war')...maybe I was at a different money:tech conference than you.

Based on all the west coast bias media I read about the iPhone, I, in fact expected to see more iPhones at the conference...I saw 3 (and was LOOKING for them)...blackberrys still seem to be the dominant mobile business tool, and this was true at money:tech.

And for what it is worth, I noticed that the folks that had an iPhone were looking at photos, and reading news websites and were typically engaged for about 1 minute. This is in contrast to the derth of blackberry users at the conference that seemed to be usually operating in the mail app.

No doubt, the iPhone has brought design and functionality to the mobile market that will shape the future of devices. But as it stands today, it is a toy. And certainly on Wall Street, that bubbly looking stock app is not going to cut it.

On the other hand, I WAS surprised how many attendees and presenters are using Macs/OSX (I have one, but don't use it for business...yet)

  Gerald Buckley [02.09.08 06:12 AM]

I was just at the NAPE conference in Houston (N. American Property Expo) for energy exploration land rights deals, etc.

The iPhone is a fairly big hit in that crowd. Lots of independent producers. They were using their phones for browsing and mail mostly (at least the couple dozen I talked with). Nearly everyone hates the keyboard: They've experience tactile keyboards on other devices and find them easier to use even after having adjusted to the iPhone and vice versa).

One thing's evident, at least if you watched the last quarter's numbers for Apple... they're selling the devil out of their Mac line. It's growing nicely due in some part to the popularity and reliability of the iPhone and iPod lines.

  Sara Winge [02.09.08 09:56 AM]

@Dan--You must at least have been in a different row! I truly was surprised by how many iPhones I saw.

  Mike Forbus [02.10.08 12:22 PM]

Dan - To say the iPhone is a "toy" as an absolutely ridiculous statement. It does all that a blackberry does and much more, is much easier to use, and tightly integrates to your desktop/laptop. It is a multipurpose computer that also just happens to have phone capabilities.

  David [02.11.08 07:02 AM]

That is somewhat surprising. Blackberries are for suits, something I discovered when I bought one. Worst phone I ever had. If there is no "Blackberry enterprise server" involved, it is a doorstop. Threw it away after 2 weeks and bought my iPhone, which is much more user friendly.

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