Apple iPhone Users Do All but Talk
SAN FRANCISCO - Users of Apple's iPhone are using the device to do everything but talk on the phone, according to a new study, transforming the product into a mobile entertainment platform rather than just a cellular phone.
Context & Ripple Effects
Less than a year after launch, the iPhone is already behaving less like a phone and more like a pocket entertainment device — a shift Apple's early critics saw coming. Coverage of Apple being told to stop thinking like a phone company and Hollywood's scramble to fit its content into the iPhone framed the device as a media platform from day one. This new usage study is the first hard evidence that consumers agree: voice is becoming the least-used feature.
First-order effects
- Apple's positioning changes immediately: the iPhone competes not just against handsets but against portable media players and mobile browsers, forcing carriers to rethink how they market and price a device whose core value is data consumption rather than minutes.
- Content owners and app developers get a validated audience — heavy non-voice usage makes the iPhone a priority distribution target for video, music, and web services.
Second-order effects
- Carriers and handset rivals must respond to a device that drives data traffic without driving call revenue, accelerating flat-rate data plans and pushing competitors to build their own touchscreen, internet-first phones.
- Media companies' iPhone experiments — like the Hollywood adaptation efforts — gain urgency as usage data confirms audiences will consume entertainment on a 3.5-inch screen.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the phone becomes an apps-and-media platform where voice is a commodity feature — the structural foundation for the App Store economy, in which iPhone apps would eventually outdraw major TV shows and sports broadcasts.
- The shift redefines carrier economics around data rather than voice, a trajectory visible years later when iPhone 5s owners were found consuming unprecedented levels of data.
The trend: The smartphone's evolution from a voice device into the primary screen for media, apps, and data consumption — a rebalancing that began within months of the iPhone's launch.