aamir virani

What are the main usage contexts on the iPhone?

Fraser Speirs describes the three mobile contexts he noticed after developing for the Apple iPhone. He cites a stat from Rubicon Consulting.

A quarter of iPhone users say it’s displacing a notebook computer. 28% of iPhone users surveyed said strongly that they often carry their iPhone instead of a notebook computer.

One critical question is what laptop uses are now replaced on the iPhone? Are we talking about IM? Email? Or is a small group actually doing real web research and work on the phone?

Speirs goes on to describe the three main contexts for usage he sees:

Name	Context	Description
Type 1	physically moving while using – 0-1 hands	small feature set, simple, easy, quick, focused
Type 2	“interstitial” – standing, waiting – 0-1 hands	more features, still relatively simple, adding peripheral data
Type 3	away from home – sitting, replacing laptop – 2 hands	complex, requiring user to think and respond

Do type 3 apps really need to exist on the iPhone? If they do, will a screen keyboard be the preferred method of input? The market for Windows Mobile apps has existed for a while (ditto Symbian), yet neither took off. Is that because it was too niche, or because type 3 apps just don’t translate to such small devices?

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