An eye for the iPhone

By Marty Carroll

Stephen Fry put it best: “What [the iPhone] does, it does supremely well, [so] that what it does not do seems laughably irrelevant.”

There’s no doubt the iPhone, which launched in the UK last Friday, is competing on its own terms. For years, other handset manufacturers have been making small improvements to the mobile phone, adding in new features and upgrading old ones. Now a computer company has entered the market with a phone that seems, in some ways, to be technically obsolete: the camera is only 2 megapixels, and there’s no 3G compatibility (yet). What’s more, it’s relatively big in the palm of your hand and it’s shackled to an 18 month contract with O2.

But Apple has changed the game because it has focused on the user experience. The iPhone is a joy to use, its interface is beautiful and it’s easier to take photos with than it is with rival camera phones. Apple’s significant investment in user testing has clearly paid off: Apple has created a superior user experience without regard for conventional wisdom on what features users prize most highly.

There isn’t a week goes by that I don’t hear someone moan that mobile internet isn’t taking off. There’s a reason for that: all the usability tests we have conducted for mobile manufacturers and content providers indicate that the user experience to date has been poor, to say the least.

The iPhone might well create a market for mobile content and services, in the same way the iPod created the market for downloadable music when it reached critical mass. Even those who buy the iPhone purely for bragging rights will be exposed to its interface and will start to demand content behind it.

Apple took the record labels and retailers by surprise when it became the most powerful force in the music industry with the iPod. Nobody’s underestimating them this time: if the market can stomach the high price of the iPhone (which sales of the iPod suggest is likely), then Apple could make mobile internet truly usable for many for the first time. A whole new industry could be created from this one product launch.