Will the iPhone cause a data boom?

iPhone3G.jpgPeople clearly want their iPhones. I was in a suburban Vodafone store yesterday and a woman pushed a pram into the store (no mean feat) and asked: “Do you have a price for the iPhone yet?” When the sales assistant said “no”, she replied: “Oh well, I’m just going to keep coming in here every day until you do.” Maybe she wants one to show off at mothers’ group.
But how badly would she want the Internet access features? It’s widely assumed that the iPhone will lead to a boom in Australians actually accessing data online, an area where we’ve been relative laggards. Figures out from Telsyte yesterday suggest that while there are currently just 1.5 million users of 3G mobile broadband , this number will jump to more than 3 million by 2012. It seems safe to assume that quite a few of those will be iPhones. Just how much we use them will depend on how much they cost, of course, an area where we’re still sadly all in the dark, despite endless rumours.
Is data the big selling point for the iPhone for you, or is it more the overall aura of Jobs-type cool? Let us know in the comments.


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