Earlier today, Hanson Dodge Creative launched the first iPhone-optimized site that we’ve created for one of our clients, Trek Bicycles. If you have an iPhone or iPod touch, I invite you to pop over to the site and take a ride. We’re really excited about the new site and are fortunate to work with forward-looking clients who engage us on projects like this. These are the types of projects that make being a designer or developer worth it.

Yesterday, the New York Times published an interesting article that spoke about a spike in Google’s traffic on Christmas, ostensibly from users who had just received iPhones for the holidays. The traffic from iPhone users eclipsed that of established, entrenched mobile OS providers. Here’s the really interesting part of the article:

“The data is striking because the iPhone, an Apple product, accounts for just 2 percent of smartphones worldwide, according to IDC, a market research firm. Phones powered by Symbian make up 63 percent of the worldwide smartphone market, while those powered by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile have 11 percent and those running the BlackBerry system have 10 percent.”

So, with just 2 percent of the market, the iPhone already registered higher web traffic volumes than platforms that when combined, hold 84 percent of the current market. From my design-centric point of view, I can only deduce that people with existing smart phones do not use the web functionality of their phones and that the interface design of the iPhone makes mobile web browsing a viable, if not liberating option.

We’ve seen the same trend. In fact, it’s even more pronounced than Google’s numbers. In our own traffic logs, and in some of our clients’, we’ve noticed a meteoric rise in of the number of iPhone and iPod touch users. Overall, we’ve seen iPhone and iPod touch users, with .2 percent of traffic, register an order of magnitude higher than the next closest OS - Symbian, coming in at .02 percent. This is an unscientific look at the numbers, but it does seem to indicate that the iPhone is in a league of its own when it comes to mobile browsing.

For those of you who love lists, here’s how we see the OS traffic levels shaking out currently. Again, the jump to the iPhone and iPod touch was an order of magnitude from the closest competitor, Symbian. Any platforms not listed were below .01 percent of traffic.

1. Windows
2. Macintosh
3. Linux
4. iPhone/iPod
5. SymbianOS
6. Danger Hiptop
7. Playstation 3
8. Palm OS
9. Nintendo Wii
10. Sun OS
11. Playstation Portable

For me, this project was the first one that really made me believe in the future of the mobile web. I’ve been designing for the web for a decade now, and although I’ve done my fair share of mobile projects, none of them ever felt like a viable substitution for a full browser-based experience. The iPhone is changing this, and will hopefully pressure other mobile platforms to improve the browsing experience for its users.

In our industry, looking back at the year can sometimes be a lackluster trip down memory lane. Not only with our clients but the entire marketplace where we “fight the good fight” everyday. We try our hardest to break through the clutter, build equity or establish lasting value for clients by creating points of difference that effectively position a product against the competition…. Blah-blah-blah – insert tagline here for another forgettable foray. 2007, however, introduced us to a very memorable product worthy of review: the iPhone.

The cellular phone industry had absolutely no point of difference, no true demand beyond utility, only the lesser of existing evils with me-too product and even lesser-loved service providers, Apple once again proves the critics wrong with the introduction of [another] phenomenon, the iPhone. Let me pull the curtain back– our job as marketers is not rocket science, although science is involved. It is proven that you feel before you think. While you rationalize, persuasion comes after an emotional connection and is limited to address needs, which is much less powerful than creating the emotion of want. After all, the “I want that” reaction is a much more desirable position for brands to be in when it comes to the price-value equation and the optimum position for the battle of consumer loyalty and company profitability. Nobody needed an iPhone; they just wanted one and were willing to pay for it. Great marketing didn’t create this demand or influence this decision, it aided in clearly telling the story of a great product, which in turn makes for great marketing.

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