No QWERTY, yet UK iPhone users love on-screen keyboard!
By Will Park on Thursday, March 26th, 2009 at 2:53 PM PST In Announcements, Apple, Hottest Hardware, Research, iPhone, iPhone OS
No, there’s no study that measures how much UK iPhone users actually “love” their iPhone’s on-screen keyboard. That would be silly, measuring love. What we can do is look at mobile email adoption rates among UK iPhone users to indirectly measure how iPhone owners in the UK feel about their virtual keyboard. New data from ComScore indicates that iPhone-wielding Brits are more than twice as likely to use mobile email than other smartphone owners in the UK. With over 75% of UK iPhone owners using mobile email (compared to 35% of overall smartphone users), it’s clear that the iPhone’s virtual keyboard isn’t quite the hassle that some smartphone makers would have you think.
In the UK, the data suggests that iPhone users are more than twice as likely to access mobile email, news and information through the mobile browser and use downloaded applications than is the general smartphone-using public. iPhone users are almost twice as likely to access a social networking site and web search than the smartphone masses.
The iPhone’s on-screen keyboard is apparently not as big a detractor for text-heavy application as many in the mobile space would have you believe. The Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N95 dominates the UK smartphone market, but its lack of any QWERTY keyboard, on-screen or physical, has relegated it to serving as music-listening and picture-messaging device. The iPhone, on the other hand, has seen everyday users readily adopting mobile email on a relatively massive scale.
For what it’s worth, a little practice is all it takes to start typing faster on an iPhone than any mobile QWERTY keyboard.
[Via: MocoNews]
I don’t think the data supports the conclusion that iPhone users love the on-screen keyboard. The data says that iPhone users “access” E-mail more than other smart phone users, but “accessing” isn’t the same as “sending”. Accessing doesn’t really require any typing.
I download my E-mail to my Windows Mobile Motorola Q9m every 30 minute to read it, but I rarely write or reply to E-mail from it. This is partially because it’s more painful to write E-mail on my Q9m (even though it’s a QWERTYbar device) and partially because I’d have to send a copy to my main account if I wanted to keep a record of what I sent from my phone.
A more plausible conclusion, especially given the rest of the data, is that iPhone users are just more likely to engage in online activities than other people.
Steve
I totally agree with Steve,“accessing” isn’t the same as “sending”. Accessing doesn’t really require any typing.
“Addressing the consumers is my passion”.Having been involved with so many focus group, the UK population still loves qwerty keyboard.
The comment about N95 being used as a music device made me laugh. It is definitely not true!