iPhone - used 50 x more than any other handset for internet

Yesterday Google said that it sees 50 times as many searches from Apple's iPhone as from any other handset. Yes, iPhone is so much better at accessing the internet that people actually do it, on their phone.

Heck, I use my iPhone sometimes when I'm in the same room with my laptop, and I've seen other people do it, too, without thinking about it. It's automatic. They want to know something, out comes the phone. I've even seen this happen once or twice when people are sitting in front of their computer. Their Windows computer. Sigh.

Even though Google is talking about it this week, (See: Google homes in on revenues from phones) please remember, you read it hear, first, several months ago: The Case of the Missing Browsers (Why the iPhone Can't Fail, Even if it Flops).

iPhone was already ahead in share of the phone based browser market by November, only five months after it went on sale. (See: iPhone Tops All Windows Mobile Devices, Combined, by November 2007)

There are roughly 4 million iPhone in the world, as of early January, 2008. By that time, iPhone web traffic from those 4 million iPhone was a little more than double the amount of web traffic from all Windows Mobile phones that have ever been sold.

Granted, iPhone are now selling in slightly larger numbers than all Windows Mobile phones combined. (See: Windows Mobile Falls Behind iPhone in Latest Mobile-Market Numbers) However, that's only been the case for a few months, and iPhone has only been on the market since June 29, a bit over two quarters.

Wanna guess how many other "smart phones" there are in the world, apart from those 4 million iPhone? According to Gartner, (quoted in this recent story at the New York Times: Sony Ericsson to Make Windows Mobile Phones) there are 123 million.

That's right, there are 30 times as many other smart phones, as there are iPhone in the world. Windows Mobile, Symbian, PalmOS and Linux all had a huge, hundred million phone and multi-year head start. iPhone is kicking our butts.

Of course, this is good for those of us here at Microsoft. The other vendors are so freaked out by iPhone that they are lining up behind Windows Mobile as their Last Best Hope. The last hold out is Nokia, and I expect Ballmer will be getting a call from them any day now.