iPhones Cause People To Talk Less

Silicon Alley Insider ^ | Friday, August 21, 2009 | Rory Maher

[Star Traveler]

iPhone users talk on the phone less than regular cell phone users [ ... ] they spend a whopping 50% more time using their phones than average cell phone users ...

[ ... ]

iPhone users spend 60 minutes per day on their phones versus 40 minutes for cell phone users. iPhone users talk on their phones about 45% of the time they use it versus 70% for cell phone users. [ ... ] What makes up the difference? It's not texting - each type of user spends about 15% of their phone usage texting.

[ ... ]

iPhone users spend 12% of their usage time sending emails, 10% playing music, 8% playing games, and 9% surfing the Internet.

Regular cell phone users spend 4% of their usage time sending emails, 2% playing music, 3% playing games, and 3% surfing the Internet.

[ ... ]

[Star Traveler]

You said — Those things can light up rather brightly, and ruin the movie experience.

—

LOL... I’ve done it before....

But, one of the things I do is cut the ringer off, when I’m in the show. And then, I don’t answer the phone, either, when there. But, if I see a call coming in, I’ll look to see who it is, and if I think I should take it, I’ll step out of the theater and then come back in again, after the call is done.

HOWEVER, the easier thing to do, is to text a message back to the person, without leaving the theater, and tell them that I’ll call back later, and am watching a movie. And when I do those things on the iPhone, I’ll keep it down in my lap and not hold it up to my face, because I’m aware of the brightness for someone behind me... :-)

So, it’s possible to keep the iPhone unobtrusive and still useful and not interfere with anyone else, if you are conscious of it...

[Alex Murphy]

iPhone users spend 60 minutes per day on their phones versus 40 minutes for cell phone users. iPhone users talk on their phones about 45% of the time they use it versus 70% for cell phone users. [ ... ] What makes up the difference? It's not texting - each type of user spends about 15% of their phone usage texting.

iPhone users spend 12% of their usage time sending emails, 10% playing music, 8% playing games, and 9% surfing the Internet. Regular cell phone users spend 4% of their usage time sending emails, 2% playing music, 3% playing games, and 3% surfing the Internet.

Notice that the only significant usage change with the IPhone is centered around the functions that are easier to use on the IPhone via the touch screen, and the ability to customize all functions via 3rd party apps.

IPHONE: 60 minutes per day
45% talk - 27 minutes talking
15% text - 09 minutes texting
40% else - 24 minutes using all other apps (see below)
-- breakdown of "40% else"
12% mail - 7.2 minutes using email
10% music- 06 minutes playing MP3s
09% inet - 5.4 minutes surfing the internet
08% game - 4.8 minutes playing cell-based games
01% unkn - 0.6 minutes doing unknown things

CELLPHONE: 40 minutes per day
70% talk - 28 minutes talking
15% text - 06 minutes texting
15% else - 6 minutes using all other apps
-- breakdown of "15% else"
04% mail - 1.6 minutes using email
02% music- 0.8 minutes playing MP3s
03% inet - 1.2 minutes surfing the internet
03% game - 1.2 minutes playing cell-based games
03% unkn - 1.2 minutes doing unknown things

[End Times Sentinel]

Couldln’t agree with you more!

I’ve got a Samsung Blackjack II, which I like well enough, but I think I’ll move up to the iPhone in a few months.

I’m with AT&T and I’ve got that rollover plan. 300 mins a month. What I didn’t realize, was that there was a cap on them, you can only carry over 3,600 minutes (12 months). I found that out in 13 months. I just never talk on the phone.

Internet, text, e mail. I’d just much rather communicate that way.

[Star Traveler]

And that’’s the beauty of the iPhone to the average person — it’s so easy to use and people *do use it* a lot, because of that fact. So, it’s not so much that other phones have some of the same functionality — it’s that these other companies don’t know how to make it so people can *use the functionality* — and Apple does know how to do that — with the iPhone...

You are 100% correct...

[DryFly]

The reason for this is AT&T’s crappy service. Half of my calls get dropped. Put iPhone’s on Verizon’s service and I’d talk on the phone twice as much.

[Star Traveler]

There’s no doubt about it — Apple delivers, with the iPhone, a very *rich experience* for the user and they are able to use all of the functionality, without becoming a “geek” to do it... :-)

[Star Traveler]

Well..., I’ve never heard of this being a problem “overall” — but as anyone knows... there is no cell service that covers *all areas* — so in any service, *someone* is going to be on the fringe of the service....

Thus, you can always find someone on the fringe... but the real question here is if this is happening “overall”... and from what I’ve seen and heard and read about — no it isn’t...

[DryFly]

I’m in a large metro area. My own experience is that the iPhone is great for everything but the actual phone.

[Star Traveler]

Being in a large metro area myself, I had a few times where I was getting service and then didn’t (in an area I frequented a lot). It wasn’t necessarily on the fringe area, but I still encountered problems.

So, I reported it a few times and got back the answer that a particular cell tower was giving them problems. And I identified that cell tower, too, and also decided to verify it by driving to another cell tower. I wanted to find out, since I was in that area a lot. Sometimes it went *dead*, too... and then the iPhone would acquire from another cell tower.

Well, this went on for a while, intermittently, and I would report it regularly, too. There were times it was out for a while (like a few hours) but someone would get on it and get it back online again.

In short, I suspected that they had some bad equipment there on that particular cell tower and had problems getting it functional again. But, finally, after a while, they did get it running again (i.e., without future interruptions).

And then, again — I’ve been in other cities (like Portland, for example), where I had another service (it was Qwest, at the time). And I could identify particular “spots” in the city where service would drop out, and then come back again, when driving another couple of blocks or so. And so, I see that other services, for some reason, have some dead spots and drop-outs for various reasons.

Now, what I’ve found out from my reading is *not* that there are not fringe areas or possible drop-outs — but rather — that the vast majority of users will have absolutely no problems in that regard.

Thus, the question about “anecdotal reports” (like this one) is whether they indicate the “overall state” of the cell system, or whether they represent isolated events. And from what I’ve seen, they represent isolated events... :-)

[DryFly]

Make no mistake, they’ll take my iPhone from my cold dead hands.

[Star Traveler]

Glad to hear that... and I do hope the problems are solved for you in reception. Do *report* them and keep the cell company’s “feet to the fire” on that reception. That’s what I would do... :-)

[papasmurf]

My question is, how do they know these details? They must be spying on iPhone users.

[Star Traveler]

Start out by asking how they knew that about all the other phone users... LOL...