Internet is becoming more and more accessible on our mobile phones, and it is quickly growing in popularity. Apple, the trendsetter that it is, is using the iPhone series to help our society become more mobile. Apple has become a catalyst in the popularity of mobile internet.

According to RCR News, there are currently 577 million people using the internet on their cell phones; this number is predicted to increase to 1.7 billion by 2013. I believe a large part of this is due to what I call the iPhone Revolution.

Web Made Ridiculously Simple and Accessible

While it may be difficult to know exact numbers at this point in the game, the skyrocketing sales of the iPhone worldwide will provide internet and email access to millions of users in the coming years.

One million iPhone 3G units were sold in the first weekend alone to 22 countries, roughly one-third of the countries that will actually release the device in 2008. Launching it in an additional 48 countries between now and December 31 will only make that number grow exponentially. Each iPhone accesses the internet and email on a consistent basis.

This isn't to say that nobody was surfing the internet or retrieving their email before the age of the iPhone. Far from it -- any smartphone on the market could do all of that. Heck, even non-PDA phones could access web and email. So why am I arguing that iPhones are the catalyst for the increase in mobile internet usage?

They are the catalyst because Apple has made the mobile web mainstream. Before, most mobile web and email users were only using it for business; the iPhone has made it readily available to regular consumers.

Hence, Apple has turned mobile internet into part of a lifestyle. They've made it ridiculously simple to access internet, and added the App Store and MobileMe to make it more useful to the average phone user. Now the mindset of the consumer is changing from "it would be nice, but for $30/month I don't need it" to "I can't live without having it, it will be worth the money to have it."

The Revolution

Not just that, though -- a couple weeks ago I wrote about how the iPhone drives competition to come up with a new unique idea that will completely trump Apple's flagship device. Other manufacturers have come out with iPhone-like devices that also access the internet as well. That's why I referred to this as the "iPhone Revolution", it's because everyone is trying the same thing, thus causing millions more to latch on to the mobile internet concept.

It's easy to browse the internet on your phone now. Beyond the iPhone specifically, new browsers are popping up to give you the same experience on your phone as you would get on your computer.

Society is becoming more and more mobile. Phones are becoming like computers, computers are getting smaller to accomodate travel, and the capacity for these devices continue to grow. What the iPhone did was make a statement; Apple handed the world a clever handheld device that makes us capable of being 100% mobile.

Conclusion

Having the world at our fingertips can certainly make us more productive. It sure beats lugging a phone, mp3 player and large 200-page planner around all the time. Granted, it's not for everyone. Some people have a system in place that works well for them, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But the popularity of the iPhone shows what people really want. Competition will now come out with ways to outdo Apple; T-Mobile is rumored to be planning an App Store of its own that mimics Apple's. With 3G coming to T-Mobile soon, this will likely be a huge hit.

Everyone is buying into mobile internet and discovering how useful it can be on a mobile phone. All the iPhone did was convince everyone that mobile web is a product worth buying into.

Post your thoughts here in my comments section!

UPDATE: This morning the Wall Street Journal released an interview it had with Steve Jobs. In just one month the App Store tallied more than $30 million in sales! Jobs is predicting the future of phones will rely on software to differentiate themselves (much like the PC a decade ago). And frankly, a lot of this software may become more reliant on the mobile internet.

Related Posts

The Good About iPhone Exclusivity
How did Apple Underestimate iPhone Demand?
Why is Phone Innovation so Difficult?

Just a couple weeks ago I wrote a piece about Apple's demand (and lack of correctly estimating it). The article somehow got noticed by MacSurfer (a very popular Mac news site) and was featured on their front page.

Because of the success of that article I have begun to work with MacSurfer more and establish a good relationship with them. I would be very ungrateful to not take the opportunity to voice how appreciative I am of their interest and the links they have provided to my site.

For all of you who are here for the first time from MacSurfer, welcome! Thanks for checking my site out, feel free to stick around for a while, and add my feed to your RSS reader. I hope to see you again soon.

For every career or goal we choose to pursue in life, certain steps need to be taken before we become successful. We typically need to attend school or get special training to become certified or to know what to do to achieve success.

Olympic athletes get where they are because they train for hours each day, 365 days a year. They give complete focus and sacrifice many of the common pleasures the rest of us take for granted, all to become the best in the world.

My Dream

In the year and a half of my blogging experience, I have worked to build this website mainly relying on the wisdom of such blogging gurus as Darren Rowse, John Chow and Lorelle on Wordpress, to name a few.

It has become my dream to make PhoneWisdom a success, and I refuse to give up on it. However, to take my blog to the next level I need some extra training that I cannot receive through daily perusal of problogger sites.

The training and focus I want to have every single day is much akin to that of an Olympic athlete. I want to be the best at what I do.

My Opportunity

To be successful one must set and achieve short-term and long-term goals. One of my short-term goals is to make it to the BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas September 19-21 of this year. This is known in the blogging world to be the largest blog convention in the world, and many major players give training to hopefuls such as myself.

Fortunately John Chow has given some of his readers that golden opportunity they desire -- free tickets to the BlogWorld Expo, a $400 value. He has asked us to post why we want to go, what we plan to get out of it, and why we deserve to go.

The ability to sit in company of some of the world's best and converse with legends is an incredible once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me. What better way is there to learn and grow? I intend to use it to my advantage and work toward my goal of being the best!

I deserve to go because I know what I'm capable of and am willing to prove I have what it takes. While I have far to go before being compared to an Olympic athlete, I have my sights set on the gold.

Sometimes paying your cell phone bill can hurt. And the worst part is, most of the time you may not even realize why it's higher than you were originally quoted.

My goal is to help bring your bill down as much as possible. Here are some factors that may come into play:

1. Overage

This is the achilles heel of the cell phone bill. If your bill is double the normal amount, it most likely means you went over on something; typically it's minutes, text messages, or internet use. When you go over your monthly allotment, these charges will add up very quickly. Most rate plans will charge between 30 and 45 cents per minute.

Most bills will show upfront what your overage charges are -- just make sure you dig deeper into the fine details of the bill to find out what you went over on.

Way to lower your bill: choose a higher minute plan or unlimited text/internet. You think adding to your plan will bring your bill up, but keep in mind that your per-minute overage is probably a lot higher than what it costs to get higher allotments of minutes.

If you don't want to pay for a higher rate plan, simply monitor your minute or data usage throughout the month; if you are trending higher than what you get every month, then stop using your phone. It's that simple.

2. Third Party Subscriptions

These guys are like the unwelcome uncle who never leaves your house. They just don't go away, no matter how many class action lawsuits are thrown at them.

Third party subscriptions can range from a "free ringtone of the month" club to "horoscope of the day". Generally you subscribe through sending a text to them first or typing in your phone number into their website. But I've seen way too many mysteriously appear without either.

Most cost around $9.99/month, and in most cases are not required to inform the customer that they have subscribed (whether purposefully or on accident). So the only way to tell for sure is to look at the "direct bill" portion of your bill.

AT&T recently settled a class action suit about this very same situation. They agreed to notify the customer via SMS every time a subscription was being added to the account. If the customer does not reply to the notification, no subscription would be charged. We hope the other mobile providers adopt this practice as well!

3. One-time fees

Lastly, there are the fees you will see only one time on the bill. These may include activation fees, upgrade fees, or non-payment fees. Most companies charge a hefty restoral fee in order to get service turned back on, once the account has been suspended due to a past due bill that never got paid.

Only in rare circumstances will these fees be waived or credited. If you are employed by a specific company, ask the rep if employees receive a discount or waived fees. Otherwise, you can always attempt persuading customer service to credit your account. They may be more flexible with you on it if you're a longtime customer in good standing and have always paid your bills on time.

Strategy

If you do a lot of talking during the early evening, one strategy to add minutes without paying a lot extra is to pay a few dollars for early night and weekend minutes. T-Mobile offers a Hotspot @ Home service which allows you to make calls via your home's WiFi connection, thus saving a lot of your minutes.

Also, ALWAYS ask if your company gets a discount; if you are a student, ask if that university gets a discount. If you are retired, ask if the company you retired from gets one. Heck, if you're self-employed, put the account under your business's name to qualify for a business discount!

And if the bill is so high that you can't pay it all at once, make sure you call customer service to make payment arrangements with them. If you're a customer in good standing, they typically offer a one-time courtesy arrangement so you don't have your service turned off because you can't afford it.

Just a few thoughts. I invite you to post a comment and add your thoughts on how to save money on your monthly bill.

In light of recent news that Apple and AT&T have extended their exclusive partnership until 2010, I want to throw in my two cents on the issue.

In the U.S. exclusive contracts between phone makers and carriers are nothing new. These agreements have been around for years. In late 2004, for example, the RAZR was an AT&T Wireless exclusive. It is a standard of competition between carriers.

Almost every article or opinion on the subject of exclusivity puts it in a very negative light. Most people feel it is a way to snub the consumer and force them to switch carriers.

Well, that's the point.

Sorry folks -- that's just the hard truth of business. Each company is attempting to steal customers away from each other, and what better way to do it than offering a handset that cannot be purchased on any other mobile provider?

Competitive Advantage

It's never really been a huge topic of conversation until the iPhone came out and became such a giant. Now the T-Mobile and Verizon customers who like their cell phone service have to make a choice: do we stick with what we know and like, or do we want the iPhone bad enough we're willing to change our mobile provider?

The market in the US is completely saturated -- in other words, every customer who wants a cell phone has one. In order to gain the edge, every carrier offers exclusive deals on certain phones in hopes that the unique offering will bring interested people. Outside the iPhone, we will witness such deals this year with the Blackberry Bold (AT&T) and the touchscreen Blackberry Thunder (Verizon). The Palm Centro had exclusive rights on Sprint for a few months.

In most cases these carriers will receive a few thousand new customers here and there that they may not have received without those deals, thus making it worth the agreement. The iPhone is the unique phone that has the potential to attract millions of new customers to AT&T.

Talk about a huge competitive advantage! That's why AT&T was willing to do whatever Apple said in order to get the deal.

Exclusive is Like a Beta Test

Anyone who wants the iPhone but does not want to use AT&T is stuck right now. Resourceful T-Mobile customers could unlock the device and make it compatible with their EDGE network (not 3G...yet). But perhaps it's not so bad.

Consider the exclusive time a great beta test for phones. Those that get the phones right away are the ones that find all the bugs, experience frustration, and discover how to fix it and make it work. Generally the phones come out of the exclusive period rolling and ready to go, without as many headaches from that point on.

Thus, when the time comes for the iPhone to be released on other carriers, everything will have been greatly tested and tried, all the bugs worked out and secrets figured out, and the new versions will be even better with greater capacity than the very first model.

Exclusivity forces innovation

My bold statement in this article is that exclusive deals force additional innovation. Innovation has been my theme the last couple weeks because I feel strongly that we need more of it in this industry!

In what way does it force additional innovation? Obviously if Sprint cannot sell the iPhone it will turn to other phone makers and demand something similar, yet different enough to entice customers.

This is what happened with the Samsung Instinct -- instead of getting all down and sad from news of the first iPhone's success, Sprint fought back. The extra competition forces each carrier to find a new way to get customers interested. The iPhone's awesome, sure, but what other awesome phones are out there waiting to be discovered or invented? TONS.

Without competition, innovation takes a back seat. What's the point of thinking of cool new stuff if people are satisfied with the status quo? Our market can stand a greater variety to choose from, and exclusive deals force the competition to get creative.

Is it healthy?

Some may argue that exclusive deals such as the iPhone deal only brings unhealthy competition. AT&T has too much leverage it can use to gain customers.

The biggest losers, critics claim, are the rural carriers. Having few customers compared to the big four, these companies rarely get exclusive contracts. This means that when phones such as the iPhone hit it big, the rural telecoms dwindle even more in size as their customers leave to go with AT&T.Thus the big companies get even bigger and more monopolistic.

I understand this argument. Competition is good, and absolutely essential. Exclusive contracts help generate extra competition, but at the same time it shouldn't be completely unfair. It's just that rural carriers don't have enough customers or revenue to interest phone makers.

Conclusion

In order to attract customers, a critical balance of offerings must exist. Exclusive deals are great, but they aren't the only thing that will help a mobile provider achieve success.

In addition to unique phones a telecom company needs to attract customers by offering a solid network, good customer service, and unique features that no other telecom offers.

While I feel exclusive deals on phones such as the iPhone are essential to achieve optimal competitive advantage in the wireless industry, I do believe 3 years is too long. That amount of time makes AT&T feel more like a monopoly. My concern is that similar monopolistic tendencies are what contributed to AT&T's breakup in the 80's.

Six months is the maximum amount of time any phone carrier should have exclusive rights on any particular handset. This still gives the carrier plenty of competitive advantage, still forces innovation and variety in the market, yet gives other telecoms a fighting chance on game-changing devices such as the iPhone.

The only time I could see 3 years as acceptable is if Apple comes out with a different kind of iPhone for different carriers. Say -- iPhone 3G for AT&T, maybe iPhone Nano for T-Mobile for example?

Just an idea.

Now, sound off. You can agree or disagree with me however you want. Fire off your comments to me!

After being in stores for a week, let's now look into the Motorola V750 for Verizon, aka the "Adventure" and see how well it stands. In my post on how the market desires durable phones, this is one of the handsets I mentioned as the most durable.

The Adventure meets military specs for dust, shock and moisture (not water) resistance, which means it can handle a lot of bad stuff. Not invincible by any means -- no phone is -- but it will definitely perform better than most normal phones.

This phone features a 2 MP camera, PTT capability, music, high-speed internet, and email.

Now, the reviews.

CNet Editor Review - 7.6 out of 10

- Call and music quality were excellent
- Photo/Video quality were average
- PTT could be improved
- Speakerphone, meh
- Lacks Motorola's CrystalTalk feature
- Could only read email via web browser


PhoneScoop User Reviews - 4.05 out of 5

- Meets military specs, but not water resistant by any stretch of the imagination
- New VZW menu is easy
- PTT didn't experience any drag or delay
- Plastic flush battery cover is nice
- Capable of 8 gb MicroSDHC


So overall, seems like a great phone with some nice features thrown in besides the military specs. As always, I encourage any comments you may have on this device - whether you have tried it or want to try it, let me know what you think.

Folks, there is now a world of iPhone accessories beyond the land of car chargers and carry cases.

For most of the original iPhone's existence, clever accessories didn't seem to be important nor essential to the phone's success. Fortunately that has all changed with the launch of the 3G version -- obviously, manufacturers have realized there is definitely a cash cow at stake now.

So, here are some accessories that we've all wanted for a very long time but did not have as options.

FM Transmitter



This will be essential for every iPhone owner that uses it as an iPod and has been frustrated because they could not listen to it in their cars. Finally, Belkin announced a iPhone FM transmitter certified by Apple.

This transmitter, when attached to the phone, turns into its own limited-range FM station that you can tune your car radio to and listen to your music. Just make sure you choose a frequency that is not currently occupied by any other stations to avoid interference.

These transmitters will also double as car chargers. They can be found as low as $50.

Stereo Bluetooth Headphones




Yes! You heard me correctly. This does not mean the iPhone 3G magically got an update with A2DP (stereo bluetooth) support, just that an adapter has been made specifically for the iPhone to enable stereo bluetooth headphones to work with it.

This in essence requires 2 accessories: the adapter and the headphones. If you are lucky you may find them together in a nice package. Grabbing the adapter by itself will cost $50.

External Battery Booster



These battery-life extenders will be crucial if you are using the internet, Wi-Fi, multimedia or any other battery drainer on a constant basis. You may not need them all the time, but it's better to be safe, just in case.

At the moment they are only available for iPhone 2G, but the company has announced plans to release a 3G version. The current models sell for $99.

Video Projector




This is a brand new concept for cell phones that is slowly gaining support. This video projector will enable you to play movies from your iPhone directly onto any wall. This is wonderful for any movies you may own or rent from the Apple Store.

More details at Honlai's website.

These are just a few great ideas for iPhone accessories, whether it be as gifts or if you just can't wait until the next gift-giving holiday. All I have to say is, it's about darn time some clever stuff came out.

Related Articles:

How did Apple underestimate iPhone demand?
Does the market desire durable phones?