The Mobile Migration - A New Dawn

My first mobile

It doesn't seem like yesterday that I was heading into town on the day I was leaving home for a 4 year university course in Scotland to pickup my very first mobile phone a BT Cellnet phone (Left) from Phillips. This was back in the day when marketing of these devices boasted how many characters you could fit on the screen!

Texting was the main thing I used the phone for as it was cheap to contact the same type of phone on the network, so obviously my mum bought one too. Back in these early days of mobile for me a mobile was primarily used for calls and texting back and forth from home. Only with the arrival of the new Nokia devices and seeing games like snake on these devices did I see how quickly technology was advancing. But this was 1999 and mobile was still in its infancy.

Moving with the times

Since my graduation in 2003 and throughout the rest of the 2000's mobile technology has snowballed with each new device bringing something new to the table for consumers. When I upgraded to the Nokia 6300 (right) it came with a 2 megapixel camera, bluetooth which enabled transfer of pictures and other content wirelessly to another blue tooth enabled device; and micro SD memory slot to store my new camera photos, wallpapers and screensavers which I could transfer across from my PC. This was a much improved user experience, which was a far cry from my previous Nokia device which had Internet but no camera. To get a picture on your phone you have to first get it onto a web page on the internet then navigate to that URL with your phone to retrieve the image. It wasn't very user friendly and probably explains the popularity of text based companies which would send you wallpapers and ringtones at the time.

The Present

Last week I finally renewed my contract with O2 and was able to upgrade my Nokia 6700, much to my dad's delight (he gets all my hand me downs). I felt like I'd finally caught up with the smart phone 'revolution' when I got my hands on the new Galaxy Nexus (left).

Now looking back at that old BT Cellnet phone really puts things into perspective as to how far mobile technology has come, and how its changed the way each and everyone of us interacts with one another and consumes media.

Since getting the phone the iPad's not had a look in as everything the tablet can do the new smart phones can do too. Its clear that there is a gradual trend a 'migration' if you will, towards mobile devices. The way we as consumers are choosing to access information is changing, we want to access the full desktop version of the sites not mobile only versions which were 'lite' versions of the main sites for older model phones. Yes there are apps available which cater for the various android devices, iPad, iPhone and Nokia but they all have a different feel and level of functionality and most fall short of delivering a experience similar to that of a main site. There is also another problem with having all these stand alone applications in that each requires their own set of resources to keep them supported, updated and developed for; all which have a cost associated with that.

We can see that visitors favour using the main website as we see two thirds more traffic to our main site than is seen on standalone applications.

We can see this 'migration' to mobile reflected in our site stats where as recently as 2010 our mobile traffic was only just over 1 million page views a month. This year (Jan 2011) its close to 45 million page views a month which is a phenomenal growth.

A New Dawn

Much like the demise of print against online we are seeing similar tends in what devices visitors are using to access the web . Desktop PCs made way for laptops which in turn have made way for tablet devices and smartphones. We still want to access the same information but don't have to walk upstairs and sit for 5 mins for the PC to boot up before you get to a desktop screen. Tablet devices and smart phones have freed us from those constraint's and we can now access pretty much anything, anywhere.

The BBC had a story today detailing that 'Android's share of the tablet market has risen sharply'

"Android accounted for 39% of the market in the final three months of last year, up from 29% a year earlier, Strategy Analytics said. Apple's share fell to 58% from 68%"

Its definitely interesting times ahead with cheaper android tablets hitting the market all the time and the launch of Apple's Ipad 3 & IPhone 5 expected later this year. Having that affordability pricing point for people with the android will definitely boost their sales. The customizability of android devices and freedom it gives you is definitely an attractive option. On the other side though you have Apple who's devices have a feel of quality about them but are more restrictive. But they do have a loyal following with a good brand identity. Just like clothes if a brand is popular, it doesn't matter even if it was my old BTcellnet phone with an apple sticker on it, someone would still buy it....?

The arrival of ice cream sandwich OS for the android which caters for both mobiles and tablets alike is a big step towards seeing a consistent user experience on both you mobile android device and android tablet. Similar on apples side the iOS5 upgrade too is a step in the right direction though has been fraught with its own issues, namely the battery issue with the iPhone 4s.

Looking forward to the future hopefully HTML5 will play a large role in delivering a consistent and engaging experience for users across all platforms and devices.