Mobile observations

Long commutes are boring. My daily commute to and from work is just over an hour each (plus the occasional delay). Sure, as a self-respecting nerd I have my own gadgets to pass the time. This doesn't stop me from being nosey and looking around which gadgets fellow commuters are using. My observations:

The reports of the impending death of RIM are greatly exaggerated.

Frankfurt is the 'banking metropolis' of Germany, seat of the ECB and of the biggest stock exchange of the country. Thus you see a lot of business types on the train. Most of them are happily typing emails on their Blackberries. You can't help but think they'd start protesting if asked to trade in their phone for, say, an iPhone. 'Why don't you amputate my right hand while you're at it?'

It's this customer base which will in the end secure the niche market RIM is dominating. Unless Blackberry 10 turns out to be the worst mobile operating system in existence, that is.

Windows Phone 7.x is a non-starter.

As much as it pains me to admit this - my own mobile phone is a Nokia Lumia 800 running Windows Phone 7.5 - but Microsoft's current mobile offering is pretty much non-existent in these parts. I can count the number of WP7 devices I've seen over the past weeks on one hand. Which is a shame; Windows Phone is not a bad OS by any means and deserves more attention. Perhaps the soon to be released Windows Phone 8 will improve Microsoft's fortunes in the mobile market.

Feature phones aren't dead yet.

Nerds like you and I want, if not need smartphones these days. Yet there is still a large number of old Nokia or Samsung feature phones out there. And why not? They work, they do what their users want them to do, they're cheap.

Android is dominating the smartphone segment.

Not just the low-/mid-end sector either. I see a lot of Galaxy S-series phones on a daily basis. They're used all across the spectrum - by students as well as by soccer moms or bankers. All of the Android-based devices together easily make up for > 50% of the smartphone segment. With good reason, too - Android just like Windows Phone gives you a bigger bang for the buck than certain fruity devices. Which brings me to the next section:

The iPhone is common, but not that common.

Of course Apple's offerings have a solid share of the smartphone market as well. However they aren't the dominating brand. One minor observation Cupertino won't like is how many older iPhones (3GS, 4) are still in use. Almost a month after its release the iPhone 5 is still a rare sight. One might wonder if the strategy of careful evolution of the iPhone instead of trying to be innovative is backfiring for Apple. Time will tell.

As far as larger devices go, tablets have replaced laptops.

From what I see during commutes anyway. There's a fair number of iPads, quite a few Android tablets like the Galaxy tab; but unlike in earlier years you hardly ever see people use their laptops on trains any more. If the unknown guy watching 'Roadrunner and Coyote' on his ageing Sony Vaio while laughing like a maniac reads this - a shout-out goes to you as an example of a dying breed.

It remains to be seen if tablets running Windows 8 will make an impact in the coming months, and which kind of devices they are going to replace.

So there you have it - a totally subjective look at the mobile device landscape on commuter trains in the greater Frankfurt area. How do my observations compare to what you see on a day to day basis? Leave your thoughts in the comments.