I just got an iPhone and it’s awesome. Before this, I had a Droid 2. Before that, I had an HTC something or other and before that, I had a 1st generation Blackberry Storm. All this over the past 5 years.
In a matter of a couple of days, since I’ve had the iPhone, my mobile usage behavior has undergone what I would call a profound change. I’ve always been able to access more with each of my phones, and with each evolution, a little bit more and a little bit easier. It’s been a fairly steady progression since I’ve operated on all-things-other-than-iPhone. But a very rapid progression in the last couple of days. And it’s not necessarily that I’ve done SO much more than I used to; rather, if my behavior thus far (which is different, for sure) is an indication of how I will now operate in the real and virtual world, I know it’s going to be drastically different.
I can sense that the most profound change will be how I connect. With people. With products. With things. I’m not talking about connecting through features like texting (although as a caveat, my mom, a normal Baby Boomer mom – her behavior completely changed when she got her iPhone. She texts now more than ever and even that change, is a profound one when you’re talking about communications.), I’m talking about connecting through features like seamless integration into social networks and all the apps you could ever want and rich content like photo and video. Everything is just so easy.
And here’s the thing about easy – easy is an encourager. Easy makes you want to engage and explore and do things differently. It’s all about ease of use when you’re talking about adopting any sort of emerging technology.
Like any forms of interactive out-of-home.
If those who are creating ads or materials or experiences for out-of-home recognize the profound power of mobile devices – particularly the best mobile devices of today (because they will be the standard for everyone in the not-so-distant-future) – and how easy they make things, and what that could do for deeper engagement, what out-of-home is today will look drastically different in that not-so-distant-future.