Come browse with me

Last week StatCounter reported that the iPhone and iPod touch accounted for 0.23% of all U.S. Web browsing, leading all other platforms. Depending on how you look at it, that is staggeringly small or staggeringly large.

It's small because it shows just how tiny the appeal of mobile Internet is today. Despite the focus on data, the $23 billion in data revenues the wireless industry is bringing in annually and the growing sophistication of devices, browsing is something few people do with their phones. The fact that the Safari browser could lead all other mobile browsers with a quarter of a percentage shows just how far the industry has to go if it aims to make the wireless network our primary connection.

But in another light, 0.23% is a huge number if you consider that traffic is due to one device that was launched only last June and is in the hands of relatively few U.S. users. The iPhone has created a use-case for hand-held Internet browsing. Admittedly that use-case is still tiny, but it's light-years ahead of what other smartphones or feature phones have done after half a decade in the market.

So what's Apple's magic? I believe a lot of it is due to hype. When Apple says you can surf the Internet on your phone, millions of loyal iPod and Mac users believe it. (It helped that Apple extensively promoted the feature through advertising.) But credit must be given to Apple for developing an interface that makes mobile browsing intuitive. It's ironic that all the features we assumed would drive mobile browsing — wireless application protocol, buildout of faster 3G networks, qwerty keypads — have been for naught. The iPhone is a 2G device that renders full HTML and has no buttons. It turns out we didn't need fast networks, PC-like interfaces and new protocols. We just needed to build a better phone.