Apple introduced the Macintosh in 1984 and in 2007 Apple introduced the iPhone. The case has been made that with the Macintosh, Apple squandered its technological lead by maximizing profits when it should have been maximizing market share. The $99 iPhone is why 2007 won’t be like 1984.
According to TUAW, Boingo Wireless reported that for January through May of 2009 “89.2% of all mobile devices accessing Boingo’s airport hotspots” were iPhones.
TUAW: iPhone dominates Boingo airport access study
John Gruber writes about “the heart of the revolution at hand”, that mobile devices like the iPhone will supplant portable devices like notebooks.
Daring Fireball: Meg Hourihan on the iPhone as a Computer
If I speculate that ‘mobile computing’ will become more ubiquitous (not a stretch) and that the iPhone platform is already dominating in that space (open to interpretation) and if I’m developing a web site that needs to reach the mobile computing based audience, then I need to support Mobile Safari. If mobile devices become the ‘hottest’ part of the market for computing hardware and the iPhone platform becomes unequivocally dominant then Safari will be the new Internet Explorer. (Lazy or incompetent developers There will be developers who through laziness or incompetence of their own or of others will write only to Safari — but I think, given that it’s a hardware company, Apple can be a better steward of the public interest in a robust and interoperable web.)
Mad speculation? Maybe. But Flash doesn’t make the short list of technologies I plan to continue investing time and resources in learning.
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