If you have a flip phone, please go away

I’m not joking. I’ve about had it when I’m out with other people and their mobile device is just a phone. Seriously, you might as well just have a rock in your hand according to today’s technology standard. (Makes a mental note to apologize to my mom before she reads this.)

Obviously, today’s “phones” are a lot more than phones. They are our cameras, GPS, network, e-mail, office, gaming system, and everything else, including, and especially, the gateway to the internet. This last piece is by far the most important.

Why? Because in June of this year, mobile application usage exceeded surfing the internet through PCs’ or mobile phones’ browsers. According to Flurry Inc., users spent a daily 81 minutes using mobile device applications, but only 74 minutes on PC and phone browsers. This is even more amazing if you consider that it only took about three years for mobile applications to achieve this level of usage, driven mainly by the Android OS and iOS.

What does it mean? It means users are creating new patterns of how they are interacting with the Internet. When users are at their PCs, they have a tendency to start at a search engine and move on from there. With applications on mobile devices, users use specific applications such as Facebook. The application lets them start at a certain site with a specific agenda in mind. This is a giant shift in user behavior. Just think of it this way: Facebook has increasingly taken its share of the time, making up 14 of the 74 minutes spent per day by consumers, according to Flurry. (Recently Google released Google+)

So what’s the breakdown of application usage? Consumers spend 79% of their using games and social-networking applications. Why? Because games and social-networking application deliver the most engaging experience on mobile devices today. But this will explode into other areas now that the user behavior is there.

Also in 2011, mobile devices such as smartphone and tablets shipments exceeded those of desktop and notebook shipments. This means many productivity tools will manifest into application. We already see the trends with more of the productivity software go to the cloud, such as Google Docs and Microsoft Office. We should see greater usage in those areas also in this new applications world.

I would tell you to e-mail me, but you may find it way too much trouble to boot up that rusty dinosaur under your desk. Do yourself a favor: Use your mobile device and check out the mobile version of Electronic Products Magazine.

Bryan DeLuca

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