November 25, 2009, 12:45 PM — You know what: maybe we shouldn't be too hard on AT&T. Sure, its network has been plagued with problems ever since the iPhone came along. And its advertising is pretty terrible. But think about what that network has had to deal with! iPhone owners use a lot of data. A lot.
If you want it broken down into numbers, check out the latest numbers of mobile data usage from AdMob, a company that serves ads to smartphone users and thus has reasons to know the things. The unsettling numbers are broken down for you by BNet: In the third quarter of this year, iPhone sales represented about 17 percent of all smartphone sales and 2.3 of all phone sales; as the iPhone sales numbers have gone from strength to strength, I'm going to assume that these numbers are among the highest in the gadget's history, which means that its installed base is no doubt lower than 17 percent of all smartphones. And yet iPhone OS accounted for 50 percent of mobile data usage.
Now, the way the Apple fan base has typically looked at these numbers goes something like "Ha ha, look how out of proportion the iPhone's data usage is, this proves it's the greatest mobile Internet platform around." And this is true! iPhone users surf the Web and otherwise use data (via Internet-enabled apps) a lot, because the phone makes it so enjoyable to do so. But this state of affairs, in which only the iPhone offers a decent Internet experience, can't last. Other carriers will catch up. Within three years, say, just about every carrier will offer smartphones that can do as well on the Internet as today's iPhone. The number of people using mobile data at iPhone rates will increase dramatically. And then where will the carriers be? Are they preparing for the datapocalypse? AT&T was notoriously unready for the wave of data usage that came with the iPhone launch. Its competitors will hopefully learn from its mistakes.
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