Brits left cold by mobile internet
Apart from iPhone owners
Less than a quarter of Britons use their phones to access the internet, a study has found. Almost 40 per cent of smartphone owners - the very folk you'd expect would want to surf the web on the move - have never done so, or gave it a go once, but won't do so again.
So much or all the hype surrounding internet-enabled smartphones such as the iPhone and Google’s Nexus One, says Essential Research, the company that talked to 2000 mobile phone owners about their internet usage habits.
The study was carried out during the first six months of 2009. The Nexus One wasn't available then, of course, but plenty of similar devices were.
Even so, of the 60 per cent of UK mobile phone owners who claimed they don't own a handset capable of connecting to the net, less than a third said they were interesting in getting a device that does.
And 31 per cent of smartphone owners never used their phone to connect to the internet - eight per cent had tried but said they won't in future. Almost a quarter - 24 per cent - go online from their handsets less than once a week.
Cost and ease of use are key barriers. Plenty of respondents had tried and failed to use the internet on a phone, either because it was too difficult or because the experience was worse than browsing on a computer.
The 24 per cent of phone users who do access the internet from their devices - among them the 37 per cent of smartphone owners who do so regularly - typically use the connection for social networking and instant messaging.
And most regulars are using iPhones, according to the mobile advertising specialist AdMob. During December 2009, it measured requests from mobile-oriented web ites and apps to serve ads to each of the key platforms.
Apple accounted for 71.5 per cent of requests from UK-based devices, followed by HTC (5.9 per cent), Nokia (5.7 per cent), Sony Ericsson (4.6 per cent), Samsung (2.9 per cent) and RIM (2.2 per cent). Apple's share was boosted by the iPod Touch, which isn't a phone. But even dropping that from the tally leaves the iPhone well ahead of other devices.
[We note that the numbers are skewed in Apple's favour since AdMob serves adds to applications as well as web sites, and, of course, the application market is best established on the iPhone.]
While there are rather more iPhones in use than, say, HTC Android handsets - which together made up almost all of HTC's share of AdMob serves - there are way more devices out there from the other major handset makers. That imbalance lends weight to Essential Research's claim that so few of them are used for internet access. ®
COMMENTS
Nasty Surprise from Orange
Little wonder people don't use their phones for data after the nasty surprises people get from networks like Orange.
I'd just started using my Orange contract SIM in a (jailbroken) 3G iPhone.
Mobile email, mobile web, buy lottery tickets while on the train, check tv guide, read the news, EXCELLENT I thought, I really got into using this device. Im not an Apple fanboi by any means but I could now access https (ie my bank) for the first time in my life on my own phone
My normal bills on a Nokia were about £20-£50 but my last bill from Orange is a few pence over £640, yes thats SIX HUNDRED AND FORTY GREAT BRITISH POUNDS.
Thinking this was a billing mistake, "Oh No sir, I suggest you cut down you usage. You've used 150-something Megabytes" (@ 4 UKP a Meg)
No wonder people are TOO SCARED to use Mobile Data.
Now im junking Orange and going with ASDA Prepay (provided by Vodafones 3G) its 8p min for voice (per sec billing) and 20pence /Meg.
Sorry Orange, you just lost a lifelong customer. I hope they are so proud of themselves. I fear I am not the only one who this has happened to.
So what?
I still remember the stir my old Motorola Star-Tac caused in the pub, so I can only assume that the latest generation of techno-sheep is no different from my own.
Today the mobile market is more mature - how many people's patents had mobiles in the 80s?
I would guess that most people don't give a s*** about what other people think of their mobile, probably wouldn't read this article, and unless they spend a lot of time on public transport, would consider surfing the internet on a mobile pretty unimportant.
That said, I quite like the look of the latest phones, but they really wouldn't add anything to my life. So I'll continue to change my phone when the old one is knackered (just like my dishwasher or DVD player).
iPhone makes the process seamless
As a recent iPhone user (and previous owner of an iPod Touch and many other phones from other vendors), it is clear that the fact most iPhone apps seamlessly access the Internet without requiring anything more than a one off login drives these statistics. As per the microwave oven and DVD player, if you make something easy (insert dish/disc, press start/play), it will succeed. People have short attention spans today and if they are made to go through hoops to achieve a task, whether for business or pleasure, they will abandon it and move on.
I have not used an Android phone so cannot comment, but the Nokia E71 made email configuration a snap - and the iPhone is the same. Previous devices required complex technical information to be entered first. The same goes for other apps.
Making the most of what youv'e got?
not you aparantly...
do you think that multifunction devices are the work of satan?
is the most evil device on the planet is the swiss army knife?
unlike most people who have a phone that is also a media player and camera I rekon you have a utility belt, with your bigg button phone, sony walkman (cassette version) and polaroid camera.. how advanced you must be, actually a music player is probably too advanced, is it still knee cymbols drum on your back and mouth organ?
why take two bottles into the shower.. when you can use three.
I suppose its good for burglars to know that when they break into your house, that the cricket bat will not be used on them.... oh no thats just not proper usage.
