Our modern world is characterized by continuous advancements that are accompanied, in periods of dramatic change, by disruptive innovations. The Internet enforced an enormous transformation that proved in part disruptive, from the time it first appeared as a medium of mass communication in the mid 90s. Since then, it has incessantly evolved, conquering new horizons and changing our lifestyle, promoting existing business and social processes, and creating new ones.

iPhone (representative of the latest smartphone generation) can also be seen as a disruptive innovation. It changed the rules; the concepts and the accepted uses of cellular handsets were forever altered. iPhone is revolutionary in the fact that it has fulfilled the manufacturers’ visions (and analyst predictions) to be generate a mobile evolution.

Technological changes that bring on dramatic behavioral changes are often characterized by a short-term anomaly, and have a variety of influences. For example: directing unregulated investments or disproportional attention, development of a business/technology without a clear business model, and also colloquial activity (the “dot.com” bubble that burst in the year 2000 serves as a good example for this).

Periods of such change pose the challenge of understanding the potential, analyzing the directions and readjusting activities and investments accordingly. This does not necessarily imply immediate vast investments, on the contrary. The pace of the technological revolution is faster than the public’s behavioral changes and adoption process – even in cases where these occur very swiftly. There are several reasons for this, and one of them is a massive redirection of investment to the new field, often referred to as the “gold rush”.

In order to succeed in such a business environment (which tends to be chaotic in its preliminary stages) there is a need for long-term thinking. There is great importance to restraint, which is expressed in calculated and continuous investments, which are adjusted to the pace of the adoption by both the general public and target audience. Disproportional investment made during preliminary stages, substantially narrow down the chance to reach significant business goals and often leads to despair and to the abandonment of the entire process altogether. At times, this can even occur in the most crucial moment, with the market’s ripening point just around the corner.

The iPhone and other smart phones represent a revolution and a new medium. One that if disregarded, can at best, lead to loss of business opportunities; or at worse to strengthen competitors (new and existing), who were clever enough to invest in the new medium in a better way.

As players in the mobile market, with extensive experience in mobile Internet, we find it crucial to state, especially at this particular point in time, that because the potential and opportunities are so big (and as such, so is the risk), wise preparation is imperative. In order to have a better chance in pin-pointing opportunities and make progress well before the threat strikes, adequate preparation should take place. This preparation should include strategy definition and the development of a plan of action for the short, medium and long terms. Such planning must wisely consider an investment pace, which is relative to the device’s road-map, the various technologies involved, the development of network services, competitors’ activities and general trends. In parallel, investments must also comply with the predicted pace of penetration of the new capabilities, and the target audience’s adoption rate.

• So how do we prepare for the development of iPhone (or other smartphone) applications?

Cellular (or mobile) Internet is basically the broadening of the Internet medium of communication as we know it from our PCs (in this aspect, it is a more of an evolution than a revolution). With this said, as iPhones have demonstrated, it bears a new and bigger message, since it proves for the first time that users can seamlessly and efficiently surf the net via their mobile handsets. Thus, it can be viewed as the next step of the medium’s development and transformation into a truly personal one, where surfing is private and personalized as is the device on which the person surfs: the device is always at hand, anywhere, and its supplementary functionalities (such as GPS, camera, mic, etc) serve as an additional complementary layer. This layer offers more capabilities which are implemented in the world of applications, one that offers rich user experience and functionality.

iPhone (and others that are currently joining in) is more than just another step in the evolution line of the Internet and its tight relationship with cellular capabilities. The advanced capabilities of these new devices, combined with a mature Internet, creates the perfect environment for the development of valuable and creative applications that drive real business processes, promote mobility, availability and business on a level we have yet to experience. This is also the reason why at this point in time the business test begins. Hype is here, and is expected to grow substantially more within this year. It will have different affects, one of which is the redirection of funds and short-run investments (gold rush), which in turn feed the development of many applications. Some of these applications will not survive independently (as have the majority of over 100,000 applications in Apple’s App Store received only marginal percentage of user downloads). This will also be the time in which badly-written applications will also surface. Applications that present weaker GUI, performance, security, and system architecture. Many of these applications will prove unrelated to the vision and goals of the company that funded their development, and to the means of their promotion.

Now, this may sound like a damning prophecy (and we all know who the prophecy was granted to in the destruction of the Temple), but it is not. It is a mere calculated forecast based on experience, observation and continuous work dating back to those early days of the Internet as a medium of mass communication (1994), replaced by the gay ol’ days of the dot.com era,  swapped for the tearful burst of the dot.com bubble, giving way to the ripening and maturing of Internet technologies and it’s embrace as the leading medium of mass communication (pushing television to second place), also based on experience, observation and continuous real commerce work, on Internet and mobile phones.

How do we prepare, then? In resemblance to the Internet revolution of the late 90’s, currently mobility also requires deep, comprehensive thought, and investment in building a strategy and plan of action that are directed to achievement yielding goals. Also, it is important to stress: maturity or lack of maturity of a development tool and technological platform serve as the hindering limitations which can be overcome through experience, technological know-how and creativity. Combined with business understanding and market insightfulness, one can only imagine the endless uses mobile phones can offer in our lives. For example, health care organizations can supply test results, direct patient-doctor communication, and more. Banks, for example, can allow cheque scanning, teller-customer communication, and closer personal financial management. Think of those sales people out there in the filed and the limitless possibilities accessible by directly tapping onto organizational ordering and inventory systems, while taking advantage of their on-site photographic capabilities. All of these are only fringe examples of what can be gained through the extensive use of mobile Internet technology. Remember, because it is a revolution we are talking of here, in order to truly profit from the newly created opportunities and possibilities, you must do it right! Don’t let it be the others who change the rules of the game…