Travlos writes, “Apple’s iPhone applications deliver services that users want. Users ‘opt-in’ by downloading applications on their iPhones that they want, and services are delivered by tapping an icon on their iPhone screen. This is a dramatic contrast, particularly on a mobile device, to searching for information or services. Think about it: Using an iPhone app, one can touch an application like OpenTable and make a dinner reservation. The alternative in a mobile environment is to go to your Internet browser on your phone, ‘Google’ restaurants in your area, scroll down (if you can even read the microscopic text) and then call to make a reservation. Search is cumbersome on a mobile device. Delivery of desired information will change user behavior and expectations.”
“Therefore, search is becoming a mature business because its future is tied to the desktop or laptop markets. Search is too inconvenient on a mobile device, if users have an alternative to just tap an application. And, today, the desktop and laptop markets are tied to the business cycle and some low-priced growth in emerging markets. It is no longer the secular growth opportunity of the 1980s and 1990s,” Travlos writes. “But mobility is.”
Travlos writes, “While Apple is not all about the iPhone, currently the iPhone is ramping up revenues and driving profitability, with the significant added benefit of the “halo effect”–bringing the Apple footprint beyond the installed Mac user base, and driving greater adoption of the Mac computers. The iPhone is driving a secular growth trend toward adoption of mobile devices and delivery of services, and changing how users receive information. At the end of the day, at least this day, Apple and Google appear to have based their futures on different strategies, and Apple is pulling ahead.”
Read more in the full article – highly recommended – here.