My O2 leads the way

There’s nothing more distracting than a new baby for taking your eye off the ball, hence no posts for over a month.

However, things move on apace in the world of mobile apps. Perhaps the biggest mover has been O2, whose myO2 app has finally been released to the App Store, meaning the getting on for 2 million UK iPhone users can now manage their accounts efficiently. While I have to declare an interest as we at MIG did the design and build, I have to admire its nice design and simple interface. Now that O2 have a really firm foothold in the App Store, it will be interesting to see how they go on to develop this: with such a raft of content and sponsorship opportunities just crying out for an iPhone execution, and the brand looking as good as ever, I would hope to see some updates to the app very soon.

While O2 have taken the end of their exclusivity period with good grace (and none-too-subtle references to the new smartphones they have coming out for Christmas) the news that Orange and Voda are stocking iPhone imminently is great news for all of us working in mobile. The relatively small number of iPhones in circulation in the UK has not stopped a number of brands jumping in to the App space, but with Orange’s move, and the merger with Tmobile underway, almost all of the UK will be able to take up the device without moving operators, and hopefully the increased competition will do something about the price as well.

All of this is timely as the race for smartphone supremacy hots up in the race for Christmas – with over 60% of all phones being sold in December. O2 will market their new Samsung Android phone aggressively, as well as the new Palm Pre which seems to have been an age in crossing the Atlantic. Maybe I just can’t shake off an old prejudice about Palms being nasty and rather pointless black and white devices from the 90s, but I can’t see Palm being able to take a significant market share with their device against the fast-growing Android.

But either way, this Christmas will provide an interesting yardstick for how the device market will map out, and for brands wanting to get decent coverage for their content across the mobile world, what they will have to do and how much it will cost them!

By Tim Dunn – this article was first published in Revolution, Sep 29 2009.