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Trying to set up 3 Nokia N95 8GBs for a producer to take to Glastonbury to capture and upload photos from the event via TwitPic.  What a hassle!  Shozu no longer free, and PixelPipe just a fiddly mess.  N95 just isn’t designed for this.  Spent hours trying (particular hassle setting up using a WiFi connection that needs a log-in/pass).

Gave up in the end and decided to loan out a couple of Android devices instead.  HTC Desire took all of 5 mins to set up.  Downloaded TweetDeck, logged in both accounts they were hoping to upload to and added a upload widget to the homescreen of the device.  No probs.  Now it’s just a couple of clicks to add photos to the Twitter account.  If only the Motodefy I’m trying to set up was as easy.  This device seems more compicated than it needs to be thanks to the ‘motoblur’ launcher. 

Mobile data has exploded in the last couple of years, it’s no longer just for geeks like me, but is becoming a mass market phenomenon. 

At first ‘smartphones’ such as the Sony Ericsson P900 or the Nokia 6630 were sold on their variety of functions, not good looks.  Most mobile users stuck with simple feature phones, often having some brand loyalty, but mainly attributable to having “got used to” a specific interface, and having simple needs. The choice of such handsets has been huge, so good looks (however subjective) were a key element of handset choice. Apple entered the market managing both good-looks and loads of functions, with the addition of a sleek and responsive touchscreen and quite suddenly, web-capable touchscreen smartphones are everywhere.

They may be all around us, and I expect quite a few people reading this have one, but just how popular is the iPhone?  StatCounter’s analysis of web use reports that in the UK last month, approx 37% of internet use from mobile devices comes from iPhone and iPod Touch. Still way behind the 43% from Blackberry devices, but way ahead of the 2^nd and 3^rd place Android and Nokia Symbian devices, making up just 15% between them.

Does this mean that everybody has a blackberry or iPhone now? Well no – this is about internet use. It’s a very limited view of the market as a whole.

In the first quarter of 2010 alone, Apple reportedly sold 8.4 million units globally. Quite a big number. But when you compare that to the global market leader, Nokia, it seems pretty insignificant. Nokia sold 110.1 million units in the same time frame. In fact, Apple sold less units than 5 other manufacturers, Samsung, LG, RIM, Sony Ericsson and Motorola. In total, Apple only has 1.5% of the global market for mobile devices. This data may come from the beginning of the year, but it paints a picture that’s worth keeping in mind when thinking about mobile.

Focusing on the UK, the picture is similar. There are a relatively small number of devices driving a huge percentage of the web traffic and content or app downloads. Growth in use of those devices is significant and represents an opportunity for brands to reach new audiences, but potential reach for mobile services, if built from the ground up with support for all mobile devices, is many times higher.

Google CEO, Eric Schmidt stated in a conference this year, that Google’s strategy was “mobile first”. Sounds like mobile’s pretty important for them, but doesn’t really tell you what that means. I prefer the mantra Kraft Foods have twittered about. Their approach to digital is “no mobile left behind”, which is much easier to understand.

When I look at all this information it seems clear to me, that the way to prioritise and get the best reach on mobile is to start simple, then add new ‘shiny’ features for new handsets later – priority should not be apps for devices which might become old news at any moment, but getting good SMS based services live, and a good basic browser service, that works for all (including iPhones and Android devices). Once everyone’s on line, then is the time to build high-end views for the latest web-hungry smartphones, or maybe even a tablet or two. Apps – well only once the rest is done.  Once you’ve got all your content in mobile friendly formats, then it’s pretty easy to package it all up in an app, and add some extra bells & whistles.

Why has Apple sold so many more apps via it’s app store than Nokia has in the Ovi store?  There are several answers to this question, but the one which seems to get overlooked is this:

The iPhone is a severely limited device out the box - and needs a few app downloads to do interesting things.  Nokia devices tend to have most of the apps you need installed before you buy them.  It’s simple and obvious, but when looking at stats for number of apps sold, makes Nokia look like they are falling behind.  Stats can be really useful, but only when combined with a bit of common sense and at least a basic understanding of how folks use devices.