We haven’t actually seen the details of it since a first look was given exclusively to the New York Times, but there’s a new Compete report coming out supposedly later today that claims only 27% of iPhone owners use their device primarily for work-related needs compared to 59% of owners with other types of smartphones (HTC, Blackberry, Nokia, etc.).
The NY Times reporter didn’t detail where these stats are coming from and how Compete reached their conclusions exactly apart from saying ’smartphone users were surveyed’, but I consider the article’s headline (”Apple iPhone Owners Don’t Use It For Work”) to be quite misleading either way you spin it. (Update: the headline has since changed to something more accurate). If you have a Web-capable phone, you are going to use it for both work and play. Or does every person with a job who owns an iPhone also keep a Blackberry handy to whip out for work-related tasks (besides Erick)?
Having an iPhone myself, I can imagine that a lot of people are indeed using their Apple phones for personal reasons like entertainment (games, videos, etc.) a lot more than they do with other smartphones, but that is because the user experience on the latter devices generally sucks compared to the iPhone anyway. There’s a whole lot of well-known reasons for that besides the technical or design shortcomings: either third-party developers don’t find competing platforms compelling enough to create applications for them, or they do but the quality bar is set too low, and even then there’s no decent, central marketplace to download or buy apps from. But let’s not digress from the main talking point.
The Compete survey reportedly found that 73% of iPhone owners used their mobile devices primarily for personal reasons, but what isn’t detailed is how much time in total they are using their phones – which I imagine is a whole lot more than on other smartphones – and how much more efficient it makes them when they actually do use it for work.
For reference, a recent AdMobs Mobile Metrics report pointed out that nearly 50% of all smartphone web traffic in the U.S. comes from iPhone devices. I’d also like to point to a recent study by JD Power and Associates which ranked iPhone highest in customer satisfaction, not for everyday consumers (those the device was initially targeted at, I might add), but for “business wireless smartphone users.”
I’d also argue that the time I spend using my iPhone for professional reasons may be much less than I used to spend battling the Windows Mobile OS on my previous smartphone (an HTC), but that it increased my productivity when I’m on the go five-fold easily, and isn’t that what really matters?
This tidbit from the article bothered me as well:
The firm found that getting local forecasts, turn-by-turn directions and nearby restaurant recommendations were the most popular location-aware iPhone applications.
Undoubtedly true, but which mobile worker hasn’t at one point used his smartphone for directions or restaurant recommendations directly related to his or her job? How can Compete possibly claim these services are being used for personal use only?
Let’s call it like it is: while not perfect, the iPhone is a joy to use from an individual standpoint, whether it’s for business or personal reasons, and all the other device manufacterers are (or should be) playing catch-up when it comes to physical design, UI and general ease-of-use of navigation.
I use my phone a whole lot more than I used to in the past, and even I would answer a survey question asking for my behavior that I use it primarily for personal reasons, but does that in any way imply that I don’t use it for work?
The answer is a big fat no, quite the contrary, thank you.
iPhone was never build to be used for business purposes, deal with it.
PS: Here is Michael’s repeat
http://www.tech...usiness-device/
The iPhone time committed to business is a lower percentage simply because people use the iPhone more and it is easier and more fun. People do not browse Youtube or play games on the BlackBerry, it has less use outside of work than the iPhone.
iPhone has big screen – biggest of them all. Landscape keyboard change the game anyways?? Multitasking is also lacking…
Um…no. NOT the biggest of them all..idiot. Look outside your fantard box
Even it wasn’t geared towards business users at launch, the phone has come a long way since then.
http://www.appl...one/enterprise/
Robin I agree with you that there are apps that can be used for example as BlackBerry (Some) but iPhone was never attended to be “a business phone” as blackberrys are.
I also disagree with NTY post that G1 is more business related , I own one and to be honest I can’t do majority of stuff what I can do with my BB from work.
So I had iPhone switched for G1 while using BB for my work.
I just dislike exchange server functions (hacks) on iPhone and G1.
Don’t get all offended mister
I know u r apple freak hahah. As I am ni* freak.
I have a BB and an iPhone. I recently setup Exchange on my iPhone and it is synching my mail and calendar perfectly. BETTER than my BB. I am giving my BB back to my employer and asking them to pay for my iPhone.
why is it a bad thing that it’s not geared only towards business? i think it’s a great thing – people turning from their PCs to their phones because most of the essentials are available on the iphone. why are you trying to refute the facts? few non-business owners would buy a blackberry but even hockey moms would buy an iphone.
That was actually my point, that iPhone owners use their device more for both personal and business reasons.
i ‘m not arguing you did. it’s just that many iphone users don’t use it for business at all, because their business does not depend on technology at all (or they have no business).
Robin,
The NYT article isn’t about whether or not you use your iPhone for work, it’s about whether or not people in general use it for work. Get over yourself and stop giving out handjobs to Apple – even though we all know they pay TC for positive press.
“but what isn’t detailed is how much time in total they are using their phones – which I imagine is a whole lot more than on other smartphones – and how much more efficient it makes them when they actually do use it for work”
WHERE DO YOU GET THIS GARBAGE? DO YOU KNOW WHAT JOURNALISM IS? AT ONT POINT YOU EVEN MANAGE TO THROW IN A DIG AT WINDOWS … WTF MAN?
Look, one of the main factors you fail to take into account is demographics. The vast majority of business users do not own iPhones. Sorry, but this is a fact. So, who does own iPhones? The answer is non-business users, who user their phone for personal reasons and entertainment. Get it through your thick skull. As a journalist you are supposed to write from an OBJECTIVE viewpoint.
I know you’re just out to bash me, but I’m questioning the survey results from Compete and I point out the fact that the NYT editor went with a provocative, untrue title only not to give insight on the surveying method or what it means in the article.
Questioning my objectivity and insulting me doesn’t help you in proving me wrong.
I’m not out to bash you per se, but your “article” crosses the line. The facts:
- You are questioning the survey results without seeing the survey. IT HASN’T COME OUT YET!
- You get on the NYT for not revealing where the stats come from, but again, THE SURVEY HASN’T COME OUT YET! Mentioning Compete as the source should be enough at this point.
- The title of the article isn’t provocative, it is actually quite rational given the results of the survey. Yes, just because they don’t “primarily” use it for work doesn’t mean they don’t use it for work at all, but its use as such is obviously secondary.
- All of your counterexamples to the survey results (again, a survey you have not seen) are nothing more than personal opinions based on your behavior. Well Robin, just because you do or think something doesn’t mean everyone else does. The NYT and Compete seem to have covered the story from an objective standpoint, conducting proper research and drawing rational conclusions. On the other hand, you immediately act on emotion, disagreeing with the results and citing your own personal behavior as evidence.
Do you not see what a poor and improper argument you are making? Maybe you should actually see the survey before you bash it. Don’t you think?
Anon knows what he is talking about. This story is a joke. &to be honest, I have an Iphone and a nokia E71. The E71 gives me exactly what I am looking for to satisfy my everyday business needs. The Iphone on the other, does not. I also find the E71 more user friendly. In other words, I could lose my Iphone and not see any suffering in my business work.
Yo anon,
Care to explain:
“Get over yourself and stop giving out handjobs to Apple – even though we all know they pay TC for positive press.”
Do we? Can you show us this information? I hope you aren’t just another pot calling the kettle black…
Dont shout you anon f***er
Robin, most stupid thing that NYT did is to even go with Compete survey, they surveyed 5 people probably their coworkers
Same thing with compete web traffic it’s the worst thing people are using to get the “stats” how well sites are doing.
For example LC for last month is showing 44K unique visitors yet if you look at my server logs/stats its clearly showing 352K unique visitors I think that’s way off…
I don’t know how they generate their stat reports and survey but they are way off from everything.
@LiveCrunch The survey was conducted in Q1 2008, and we surveyed 832 Smartphone owners, with 102 of those being iPhone owners. We also surveyed ~2400 feature phone owners about their behaviors on their device.
Also, if you have questions about how we are getting our clickstream data, may I please refer you to http://www.comp...es/methodology/ which has plenty of these type of questions answered for you. If you still have questions about why you may be seeing discrepancies between our data and your internal data, we would be happy to speak to you about why this is.
Also, here is a release from Compete that went live this morning (http://pitch.pe/9844) that focuses on what we saw with application use and also has more information about this product.
And, what does a business device require? The ever magical keyboard? A tie is also required to conduct business…
Hang out in a Starbuck’s and count the “ties” with iPhones!
Yeah, I like to chill out with friends on my iPhone using my Cisco VPN, Skype, Google Apps calendar synced via OTA/Exchange integration, and WebEx all the time.
Clearly, this iPhone is not business tool.
It wasn’t, but it should have been. The biggest problem with the iPhone is the archaic software development policies. I ported a version of our internal CRM system to the iPhone, but I’ve been waiting over a week to test it on the actual device. Apple takes far too long to approve developer accounts. If I had been approved by now, I would have already purchased everyone in the company a phone. Why cater to individuals when people like me will go out and buy phones 50 at a time?
Someone should really let apple know that after the phone has been purchased, they don’t own it any more. Waiting to install software on a device that I paid for is beyond ridiculous.
Then you shouldn’t have bought the iPhone! At what point in your research of the device were you mislead into thinking you could load your own programs on it?
30 million iPhones have been sold in 2 years, folks. That means a lot of people (including me) are very satisfied with what it can do, regardless of how you want to label those activities.
nobody is bagging the Iphone (well a few are) but back to justins point, regardless of how satisfied you are with your Iphone, Apple is missing the boat by not opening up development. I also think BlackBerry should focus more on business and business aplications, that is what they are good at. We can all agree its fun driving a porsche, but not as a taxi, a water deliveryman, an ambulence, doing shopping or getting from and to work every day. no?
Hey, I’m with you in this. We are at eight weeks on one app, and two on another. 7 days my behind! I am p*ssed. It took Apple a few weeks to get the accounts taken care of, but call, and query! I am going to start calling every day myself!
That said, the tools are good, better than every other vendor…
So what’s stopping you from provisioning your phone as a development device and just loading your app from XCode? You certainly don’t need to get through app store approval to test and debug.
But you do need to have your development account approved to provision your phone as a development device, which is ridiculous, as I have no intention of ever distributing anything through iTunes.
The Blackberry started life at work however, and usage spread over to personal time. I’d say it is true that Blackberry users use their devices for work more than other devices. Many are employer paid. You hear about Blackberry addiction and Crackberry – which is high praise as far as round the clock usage is concerned.
Just today saw this application get wide coverage:
http://www.nyti...ls-the-tal.html
I think a major reason for this is because most companies are tied to the other carriers that don’t offer iphones, so business people are using Brackberry, etc. Also, companies may not pay for the user to use the iphone unless they pay for it themselves.
I second this. One of the major hurdles is getting out of the exclusivity of AT&T and having the ‘tech’ people of major corporations see the benefit of the iPhone over devices such as the blackberry or windows ce devices (ick). Allowing the iPhone to connect to enterprise servers in 2.0 was a big step, but better office type apps such as a Microsoft office suite will also help the device expand its reach.
There is no benefit to the iPhone it is very lacking in the security / management comapared to what Blackberry provides via BES.
It’s reality. iPhone is consumer based and that is what Apple wants. They have no desire to go after the enterprise market further as it would require losing control and the hook into the iTunes Ecosystem.
Frankly until Apple provides the ability to encrypt the iPhone data at rest we have informed users it is not supported other then web access email.
Another similar issue is that my company doesn’t support iPhone on e-mail and essentially that is all the remote business I do.
So I only use the iPhone for personal use, but I would love to drop the old Blackberry my company has and use the iPhone for e-mail as well. Our tech people are in the stone ages.
When you say that your company “doesn’t support” the iPhone, does that mean IT won’t help you set it up or if you have problems? Or do you use some non-standard (ie. Exchange) mail system?
My company doesn’t support the iPhone in the trouble-shooting sense, but with the Exchange support that the phone offers, I have had no problem synching my mail on my phone.
Most of our employees who have company-issued phones have Blackberries, though a number of them have started to shift their mail over to their personal phones instead of carrying two devices.
Now… if you have security restrictions against using phones not issued by the company, that’s a whole different issue.
There are lots of articles out there detailing how to set up the Exchange service if you are interested. Enjoy!
The problem is that many companies see iTunes as a “toy” app for downloading music. It’s a pity that there isn’t a business version of the application without the iTunes connection.
Yesterday my internet was down due to storms in Dallas and i worked on my iPhone for four hours. I was blind and had claw hands at the end but I was able to fulfill my contractual obligation so I call bs on that.
I use my iPhone for business all the time. While the email management might not be as good as it COULD or SHOULD be (I need inbox search desperately if I’m really going to use it), it does the job well enough for what I need. I can open attachments, send replies, and all that basic stuff. Why do these surveys never include what all these ‘business users’ are doing on their Blackberries that is so different? I gotta figure — email is email.
it’s incredible the big potential of this product
Agreed. I have become increasingly convinced I can go for longer and longer periods without my computer because my iPhone keeps me working so efficiently on the road. Now if only they would give me the 10" version
The numbers are a bit skewed… Blackberry, HTC and other smart phones have been purchased mainly for business purposes, while iPhone can do so much more and is owned by many people that simply don’t need to perform business operations on their phones.
Let’s do a survey of how many Blackberry owners would rather do biz on an iPhone, but can’t because their companies are under contract with BB, or have providers that don’t (yet) carry iPhone…
My phone IS my business and when I made the change from Palm based phones (Treo 755p was my last one) to the iPhone last year I did when I knew it could handle my business needs. I rely on my phone to make appointments, get maps to the homes and businesses I visit every day, look up answers to questions or problems I run into (many times my clients don’t have Internet working when I get there), save all my contact information of course, keep track of calls I need to return, make lists of equipment I need to buy/upgrade and much more. One huge advantage of the iPhone for me is that I can now make real time additions and edits to my web site. I will admit that the iPhone offers many other “personal” endeavors than my previous phones, and I do play the occasional game of Five Dice or Flightcontrol and check Facebook 1-2X per day, but overall my phone is my lifeline to my business.
It still needs better email management. A blackberry + BES is unbeatable at this point. I consistently hear from many users that emailing heavy on a Blackberry does not use as much battery power (RIM compresses Blackberry email packets).
It all depends on what you use it for. I had to switch out of an iPhone because I was not productive on it (horrible emailer, no copy&paste). The Blackberry is a horrible multimedia device, but it’s the closest thing to Outlook in your hands.
AGREE!
Except when RIM goes down several times a year causing sporadic email blackouts across North America
I’ll take RIM’s record over MobileMe’s record any day. Besides, I bet that cell towers have more outages than RIM
THIS = WIN
Why is it that in order for a device or application to be taken seriously it has to be hard to use, boring, and unstable…hmmm yeah kind of like Windows.
I guess Windows has set the bar.
Come on guys we need to try…..ummm, less harder?
Let me tell you, if I didn’t have my iPhone I would never be able to keep up with http://www.worstpizza.com daily and the comments and posts. The iPhone is a savior!
iPhone or iTouch is remarkably more efficient than any laptap I have ever used.
Ever needed to use Flash or Word? I’m just saying …
We have 20+ users who’ve replaced their Blackberries with iPhones – including me – and have been very happy with the change.
Most larger companies, including ours, give users an option of an iPhone or Blackberry. Both are supported by our enterprise collaboration & email standards. In some cases, the device cost may drive the decision. As soon as the voice quality improves on the iPhone w/good bluetooth support, I expect the iPhone to pick up in corporate America.
robin…
the article wasn’t really dealing with whether you use your iphone for web based kinds of business, or if there are (or are not) biz apps for the iphone…
from a biz perspective, there are a lot more businesses who’ve integrated their IT networks to work with a BB. try finding marge scale businesses that have opened up their networks to deal with the iphone…
good luck on that one…
as far the individual using his phone for biz functions.. sure.. happens all the time.. but that doesn’t imply that businesses permit it.. nor does it imply that the iphone is as good aas ttthe BB for those situations…
so, please, do some real investigative journalism.. or better yet, get yourself a real tech background..
those who can do.. those who can’t.. teach.. those who can’t teach.. write blogs…!
peace
Iphone is awesome. Much better than BlackBerry.
I used to have a blackberry and stayed away from switching to the iPhone until they got their Exchange integration right. While 2.0 got it right, 3.0 is almost perfect.
I also own a G1 that has been sitting in a drawer. While it is a good phone, it is not as intuitive as the iPhone and does not have Exchange integration yet.
I use my phones for mostly business and have gotten down to the point where I develop specific apps for the tasks that I need to do for which there are no apps. It is easy to do and easy to install on the phone without the AppStore.
I visit with at least a dozen mid to large sized companies every month, and find growing evidence that the iphone is being used at work/ for work. Till last year, a few people would carry it as an additional device. Now I see it replacing BBs. Just last week, I was with a large non-profit and the entire exec team had replaced their BBs with iphones. I know they were accessing corp email, but didn’t ask the other critical question – does your IT dept support the device itself?
I use an iPhone for my business. Email, photos, web posting and more. I would never use a BB. The iPhone is a more complete package, more powerful, and access
to many Apps for my business. It’s intuitive and natural to use for just about anything. There is no way a BB can even touch what an iPhone can do fir business or anything else. I feel sorry for folks that define themselves by their outdated technology. Get over it folks.
from ths techcrunch article:
“If you have a Web-capable phone, you are going to use it for both work and play.”
WRONG. you kind of forgot that 90% of iphone sales are to 15 year old kids who dont have jobs and just play games on it. look at the top app downloads. farts and video games, its a pos toy, not a business phone.
But the browser app comes pre-installed, as does the Calendar application, etc. They won’t show up in the top downloads list but that doesn’t mean anything.
lol..keep trying to defend your article.. its working… wait, i was just kidding. sorry.
The question that was asked in the Compete survey was:
In a typical week, approximately what percentage of the time do you use your phone for personal use (assuming the other time is used for business purposes)?
The respondents could choose 1 of 4 categories: 0-25%, 26-50%, 51-75%, 76-100%.
The data show that 73% of iPhone owners, use their iPhones PRIMARILY for personal use (i.e. they fell in the 51-75% or 76-100% buckets)
The statement that Robin makes in this article is not at all what the data is showing. We are not asking respondents to check a box as to whether they use it for business or personal, but rather what they find themselves doing on the device more often.
As I’ve said before, please feel free to reach out to me personally if you have any questions about Compete research or data in the Smartphone areana.
Thanks Danielle, will update the article to reflect your comment, did you also survey users for total time spent (both business and personal)?
@Robin – No, we did not as that specific question, but a great question for future fielding of the survey
Thanks for clearing that up. If you are unfamiliar with TC, please understand that they have no standards whatsoever, and usually fail to due any type of detailed research before writing a story. At the end of the day, it’s just a blog written by a bunch of talentless hacks who live off of payola.
Have to disagree anon. MG Siegler has some talent, and I dig Mike’s bombastic nature. But yeah, Robin, Sarch, Eric, and some of the others thing research is “what do I think about this?”
I suppose it’s not that bad really, as I mainly come to this site for opinions on the latest tech news. Mike does get some legitimate scoops as well. I think the haters on this site should understand that this isn’t a “news” site per say, but rather an opinion site about tech news where most authors have conflicts of interests.
I use VPN, RDP, SSH, get my work email, and keep a work calendar on my iphone. I also play Zombieville, use ORB and check out foolishness on youtube.
I would say the iphone is quite business capable.
…almost forgot google apps. We use those as well.
Considering a lot more kids have iphones than blackberries I’d say the stats sound accurate.
I don’t know why everyone keeps comparing BlackBerry (BB) & iPhone. First and foremost, iPhone was not targetted for business users, it is more of a consumer phone than a business phone. Also, iPhone is a fairly new smartphone in the field (barely 2 years old).
The first smartphone BB was introduced in 2002 which supported push e-mail and since then it has been a market leader in smartphones especially in business domain. So, BB has a clear advantge of being the early entrant in the field. BB has been enjoying the monopoly in business domain and probably will do so until next few years. It has the advantage that most of the corporates have already adopted to their network and to change the service provider is an expense for any corporation so BB is having a leverage on that count too.
The popularity growth of iPhone has been phenomenal. The number of applications available on iPhone is huge compared any other phone. If iPhone comes up with real-push technology for emails and easy to integrate into businesses, it has the potential to overtake BB in business domain too.
Competition is always good for us consumers.
Disclaimer: I’m not a Apple fan nor a BB fan. I’m just a technology fan.
I totally use mine for business, and will do so MUCH more this summer once copy/paste and push comes to the phone
Wow – what a crap article. Are you jealous that NYT got first dibs at seeing the ACTUAL survey. Can you write ‘I’ more in this – good objectivity.
I am sure the ‘owner’ of this blog is proud that they allowed Perez Hilton to submit this article from his iphone (sorry Robin – we all know who you really are)
Since you now have to wait for the actual survey results like the rest of us, I suggest you download the latest hot game on you iphone and twiddle your thumbs.
Have fun while you twiddle you iphone.
Jesus – from reading this comment you’d think the author took a break from writing the article to personally murder your dog or shit in your cereal.
No wonder David Pogue called Blackberry zealots the worst product cult he’d ever seen: http://tinyurl.com/ckc9mg
This article made me feel uncomfortable to read. I think it’s safe to say that the author likes his iPhone. Haha. I rarely read so much self-motivated conjecture. From someone who relies on TC on a daily basis, I’m a bit worried after reading this article.
I use my iPhone for personal reasons 90% of the time. I use my BB for work email, contacts, calendaring. It’s in part because our work email is lotus, and is incompatible with the iPhone but mostly because it is faster to do the things I need to do.
Wow another apple fanboy article.
I work at a tech startup with a team of dozens of engineers, developers, and designers, most of whom own iphones. You know how many use their iphone for work? None.
They don’t need an iphone at their desk. They’ve got g-5’s out the wazoo. When they leave their desks, they go work at home using longhorn or photoshop on heavy duty laptops.
If they need to call their friends or play pac-man, then they pull out their iphones.
The iPhone isn’t a bad phone but it really isn’t that great for business users:
1. It only does a desktop sync with Outlook Calendar and Contacts. Where is Tasks and Notes?
2. You need iTunes running all the time, which is heavier than ActiveSync.
3. Every time you connect your iPhone, iTunes appears which is annoying. There is no way to turn that off (even disabling auto syncing doesn’t work).
4. It doesn’t come with something that shows you your upcoming appointments and due tasks that day. Yes you can probably buy one, but that’s not the point.
5. Dialing a number not in your contact list is quite long winded. No smart-dialer either or ability to view an easy list of contents automatically calculated based on popularity.
6. No cut and paste.
7. No ability to recognise that +44 (0)7977 in an email should be dialed as +44 7977 with the zero out.
8. No snooze option on calendar reminders.
There are probably more…
You made a good point. iPhone lacks a decent task management app.
We have developed iTaskPro/iTaskLite to address this to make it more appealing to the business users.
The main features of iTaskPro:
1. Voice/Picture notes as attachment to a task.
2. Synchronize the tasks on iPhone to Outlook/iCal, Google Calendar in the coming release. It doesn’t bother with iTunes, it just requires WiFi.
In the coming release, the tasks can be reverse-synchronized from Outlook/iCal back to iPhone.
3. Backup/Restore the tasks from iPhone to desktop computer.
4. iTaskPro will integrate with iPhone default contact app for easy contact look up and selection.
5. iTaskPro has sorting option based upon due date, statue to prioritize the tasks.
6. iTaskPro can add an in-app alert easily as reminder. The alert notification will be available in iPhone 3.0 around June.
Some features plan to add:
1. Integrate with basecamp for to-do, milestone etc.
2. Personalization on iTaskPro setting. Users can set more preference to tailor their need. Such as users can choose “calendar view” or “task view” under Outlook when synchronizing from iTaskPro to Outlook, etc.
Personally, I use iPhone for work. I realize some limitations and missing features as you pointed out. I think iPhone potential could be popular among business users. As an iPhone app developer, we just have to come up with some better apps and ideas.
Out goal is to develop the best task management tool on iPhone. We love to hear any feature suggestion to improve iTaskPro.
Cheers, Peng
Robin,
I’m not sure who Erick is, but add me to the list of weirdos who have an iPhone for personal/fun use and a Blackberry for everything work related, and yes I often carry both of them.
I’m a single professional which means, amongst other things, that I’m rarely at home so I don’t have a land line. On rare occasions when I need to turn off the Blackberry for a few hours to save my sanity, I still need a way for friends/family to get in touch with me, so I got the iPhone.
In day to day use, the Blackberry is so much better at business than the iPhone, I just can’t get away from that. If I were forced to choose just one, it would be the Blackberry… and I’ve stuck with the Bold, the virtual keyboards of both the Storm and the iPhone are not conducive to typing quickly or accurately.
About the only exception to my business/personal dichotomy is a recent trend: Twitter.
The iPhone clients are so much better at Twitter than what the Blackberry offers (even with the virtual keyboard) that I’m using it for Twitter — and the main reason for joining the Twitter community was for business networking.
Cheers, Sean
I’m another dual owner.
Sean, I initially thought the iPhone was better at Twitter, but I have since changed my mind. Tweetie is definitely superior to available Blackberry Twitter apps, but in terms of sending and receiving Twitter messages via SMS, my iPhone doesn’t hold a candle to my Blackberry. In addition to being able to type much faster on a real keyboard, I go insane when SMS updates interrupt my phone calls, drop my Skype calls, and prevent me from being able to use the keypad. Not to mention, if I get an SMS at the exact moment I try to answer a call on my iPhone, it drops the call. Every time.
The iPhone is the superior device for surfing the Internet, but not for making phone calls or exchanging email/text messages.
TechCrunch is really dropping the ball on writing articles lately. I say it is about time we make a twitter account that we can give our true opinions about articles like this. I just changed my twitter username to TechyDrama. Follow me if you want to help…&to point out another thing, TC sits here saying how bad URL Shortening sites are… Look to the right when you post a comment. Seems that they have one. http://tcrn.ch
I use the iPhone for business, to make phone calls, retrieve voice mail, read/write emails, text message, browse the web, google, record meetings, check stokes, read news (work news), take pictures (work pictures), use GPS to get to meetings (work meetings), play games during boring meetings, etc, etc, etc…
One day apple may sell 100 million iphones. The success is limitless. No recession http://iamned.com/blog/ keep buying stocks
Iphones sucks. Only fart app rocks. Iphone is made of fart app only. tasty fart.
Given how the survey was worded, I’d have fallen into the “personal use” category even though I definitely use my iPhone for business email, maps, texting, etc..
Why? Kindle/Stanza and Audible. By the numbers, I spend more time reading ebooks and audiobooks than I do checking email.
If they want to do a survey to support the article’s claims, they should simply ask “Do you ever use your iPhone for business purposes?”
Sounds like NY Times corporate has a contract with RIM or the writer and his pals bought BB”s and are trying to justify their investment.
Initially Iphone targeted consumers and is steadlity moving into RIM’s territory…
Right now I use a Touch. I rarely use it for work right now, but could find it very useful around the office. If only my IT department would allow me to connect to our wireless network with it…
Hi Robin, take heart it is not easy to write a blog, it will attract all sort of characters, some will thank you others will find fault with it especially when it is not to their agenda.
Anyway keep up the good work and learn to laugh at the world, it is still a great place peopled by good friends and idiots alike.
Peace.
http://pitch.pe/9844
Here is the official release that was posted by Compete data, highlighting some of the findings around applications use and giving more information about our more general product, Smartphone Intelligence, of what this is just a small piece of. Feel free to contact me with questions: dnohe@compete.com
I carry the BB, but I know an accountant that carries both the Blackberry and iPhone. He works for a monster firm and there’s no real IT support for the iPhone. Plus he can’t use it to honestly do email. So he keeps both phones. And plays games with the iPhone.
Be real, the Blackberry is work productivity. The iPhone is fun and games. The only way you can consider the iPhone for work use is if your job is fun and games and finding restaurants and surfing the internet.
Yup, it makes no sense for a business to support iPhone when they can pay a hefty ransom to Blackberry for a BES server and license.
I only spend my time planning all my business travel using the tripit app, attend webex meetings while I’m on the road, remote desktop to my servers, pull up all the network stats and monitor it, read my eBooks while I’m in a flight because I don’t enough time to goof around with fart for free app and tap tap revenge..
If our LogMeIn Ignition for iPhone app users are any indication, then business use of iPhone is higher than this study shows. It’ll be interesting to see how Apple’s recent “Office” TV and small business print ads for iPhone apps impact this.
1) As a previous commenter noted, the iPhone was NOT geared towards business-friendly. Live with it.
2) You make repeated assumptions while at the same time admonishing the Compete report for supposedly lacking evidence. I call hypocrisy. The results found in these “surveys” are meant to be taken with a grain of salt and do not necessarily have to MEAN anything. You like your iPhone, and that’s wonderful. But there’s no reason to be so defensive about a phone.
3) You use your iPhone for business-related purposes. That’s fantastic. This survey never says that the iPhone cannot be used for business-related means. It simply stated that, OF the users surveyed, fewer iPhone users reported using their devices for business. That’s what they found, and you can’t change that by crying foul. Again, that’s your own defensive nature coming into play upon reading it. It’s one thing to be satisfied with a device you’ve purchased, but it’s a whole different game when your satisfaction hinders your ability to deal with a bit of negative feedback. You remind me of a Prius-owner who can’t stomach the idea of the battery in his car causing copious amounts of pollution.
4) Evidently, you like to write with a bit of elitist flair. Nothing wrong with that, as I’m guilty the same. But at least make use of proper grammar before publishing a seemingly belittling opinion online. Numerous run-on sentences and the inability to properly distinguish between the plural and singular form do little to establish your credibility.
Good luck. I’m sure that, despite your lack of talent (both in writing and in presenting legitimate “arguments”), you’ll find plenty of sympathy from fellow Apple fanatics who crave their pre-packaged “individualism”.
Cheers.
The author fails to understand several glaring points, because of the proliferation of the iphone, you have a much larger diverse user base. You see kids, teenagers and grandparents with iphones, do they use it primarily for work? No they don’t, it’s used as a replacement for their phone/multimedia devices. And secondly because there are so many more iphones, even those who use it primarily for work (which may be larger than BB’s) becomes a smaller percentage vs the number of iphones on the market. Hence only 27% or a larger base….
No, the iPhone is not a business tool. All one has to do is look at the people buying the iPhone in the largest quantities (people making $25-$50k a year) and realize these aren’t business people.
Now that’s not a knock on the iPhone or the people buying them – it’s simply a statement of fact.
The iPhone is a great phone. But to suggest its business-friendly is the joke. So many limitations that other real business PDAs can accomplish means the iPhone is *not* business friendly.
I have an iPhone for my personal line, and a blackberry bold for my business. The Bold does what I need it to do with easy push email, excel and word document editing, etc. etc. that the iPhone simply cannot do.
No amount of apple fanboys saying something is does not make it so. Enjoy your phone, just stop trying to make it into something it clearly is not.
It is incredibly narrow minded to think that all business relies on the need for push email and cut and paste. Clearly the Blackberry is the device of choice for people whose business life is dominated by email and text documents. But that isn’t the totality of business. For some business people, myself included, the iPhone handles email just fine.
We have recently launched Helios; an iPhone application that is aimed specifically at highly paid professional users and is priced accordingly. This type of application could not run as well on the Blackberry.
The fact that the iPhone is so versatile does not negate it’s suitability for business. If your life is one constant thumb blur on the Crackberry, then you definitely have the right device.
We at elondra.com build mobile business aplications, we developed a pretty good sales ordering tool for blackberry (small plug : http://www.open...for-blackberry/) when we tried development on the Iphone, we found that if your in the middle of an order and someone calls you, the iphone closes completeley your application. I think the Iphone is great btw, but I agree with one of the coments above: its a well designed tool to get people to buy music and play around online…a very well designed phone. but its not a work terminal.
Someone needs too explain to Mr Wauters that maybe the reason people don’t use there Iphone at work is because most people who need a phone for work are generally given one by their employer, usually a Blackberry device. Apple makes a nice phone but it’s expensive on the large scale and will probably never be adopted by the corporate world.
I have an iPhone but don’t use it for work because I have a device work gives me for work. Even if we used iPhones for work purposes, I would keep my iPhone separate. Why? I don’t want to “contaminate” my personal life with work stuff …
So untrue and you don’t even know it. I know atleast a dozen people off the top of my head that use their iPhone for work. We have atleast 10 docs that use them now that we have upgraded our servers at our hospital as well. By the way – that is 10 out of 26 docs. Obviously they have no idea what they are talking about.
Robin, what crawled up your sigmoid colon and died?