The blogosphere’s been abuzz with the NYT story about how much mobile traffic Google got from the iPhone on Christmas and a few days after. Apple +iPhone + Google + tech blogs = lots of mindless gushing.

Do the stats really tell us anything? Not really, other than that iPhones were probably somewhat popular Christmas gifts, at least in the US. But Ricky over at SMS Text News has another good take on the numbers and what they mean:

One thing that is basically a fact - the iPhone truly introduced the masses to the notion of using the internet on their mobile phones. I believe that a large part of this is due to the fact that, at least in the U.S. until recently, users were forced to sign up for an unlimited data package from AT&T when they got their iPhone all activated. If you force someone to sign up for something, and tell them it’s unlimited, the odds that they’re going to try it out are VERY good. That’s not to make an excuse. If anything, I wish that ALL mobile plans simply had unlimited internet built into the price. I bet we’d see alot more innovation in terms of the mobile web and in terms of mobile handset web browsers.

This is a strong point, and one that’s probably not given enough credence alongside the attributes of the iPhone itself in driving internet usage. Make the experience better, then force people to pay for it, and they’ll probably use it. That’s not intended to be a knock on the iPhone — just saying the rest of the industry should worry less about coming up with “rivals” for the device, and instead learn from how it’s marketed and sold, and apply the lessons to their products.

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