Initially, this post mentioned just the research and rankings by Tomi Ahonen; a later publication granted similar context with similar and different conclusions which combined with Ahonen’s insights grants considerable understanding towards current and future contexts of mobile on country levels. Therefore both of these are presented in a single post for relevance and compaative analysis.
Tomi Ahonen’s Ranking of Most Advanced Mobile Markets (by Country)
Tomi Ahonen (by virtue of his consultancy) tends to have all kinds of information which offer some measure of contextual relevance towards understanding mobile perspectices and trends. One of those that tends to cause all kinds of neat conversation has to do with his ranking of countries towards how advanced they are. He’s done this tanking for a few years (within his publications) and now offers this ranking again. Its not the most perfect (see the methodology quoted after the numbers, but should offer clear enough reasoning why approaching mobile from a “let’s evangelize the whole world at once approach” isn’t the best strategy.
Here’s his ranking (reformatted in a cleaner table layout):
| Rank (2010) | Country | Index (%) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (1) | Japan | 91 |
| 2 (2) | South Korea | 89 |
| 3 (6T) | Singapore | 84 |
| 4 (3) | Italy | 83 |
| 5 (6T) | Finland | 82 |
| 6T (9) | Sweden | 81 |
| 6T (4T) | Taiwan | 81 |
| 8 (4T) | Austria | 80 |
| 9 (14) | Hong Kong | 79 |
| 10 (10T) | Australia | 78 |
| 11 (8) | Israel | 77 |
| 12 (10T) | UK | 76 |
| 13T (16T) | Denmark | 75 |
| 13T (15) | Norway | 75 |
| 13T (12) | Spain | 75 |
| 16 (22) | UAE | 73 |
| 17 (19) | USA | 72 |
| 18 (13) | Ireland | 71 |
| 19 (18) | Netherlands | 70 |
| 20 (16T) | Germany | 69 |
…This index is as far as I know, the only international comparative table that uses all the major metrics for the industry as inputs – ie I use the mobile phone penetration rate per capita, the migration rate to 3G networks, the adoption ie usage of mobile data (which typically is the adoption rate of SMS text messaging in most markets) and the measure of how advanced the handsets are in that country (which in most cases is the adoption rate of smartphones)…
*Emphasis ours
Read the rest of Tomi’s 2011 Mobile Phone Index Ranking posting.
Flurry’s Analysis of the Installed Base of Users for iOS and Android Devices
One of the most popular (and heard) metrics for ascertaining the relevance of mobile is to take a look at sales and activations numbers. And certainly these do have some redeeming value when looking at the “right now” action that is happening with mobile. However, concentrating on sales and activations misses the most signifiant statistic – how many devices are being used right now? And if there is only a percentage of those total sales or activations being used, what others kinds of information does this installed base give us that might better allow us to see the actual use of mobile, and the opportunities which might lie for mobile/mobile ministry endeavors?
The largest take on installed base research that I’ve seen to date seems to be this work compiled and recently published by Flurry.
Flurry validates their research by using several data points, most of which are available publically, and then cross-linking that against their metrics gained from the 140,000 applications which utilize their analytics software/services. Here’s a snippet of their report:
…Because this chart measures future potential, TAMs are much larger relative to active user bases. The result, visually, is a lot more “light blue.” Many of the world’s largest countries have largely un-penetrated markets, primarily due to standards of living (emerging markets) or increased competition for consumers’ disposable income (developed markets). In either case, the TAM is there, but the adoption hasn’t yet occurred. So, many of these markets are future bets with the time of maturity somewhat variable and unknown. In this chart, the U.S. has both the largest current installed base and market upside. Again, this is because of its unique, well-penetrated and large, affluent population. Next China, given its very large population (1.3 billion), along with a growing middle class who has already begun adopting smart devices, has the world’s second largest market potential. In comparison, even though India has the world’s second largest population (1.2 billion), its TAM is much smaller than China’s because of India’s very low standard of living. The result is that, even though its total population is not far behind China’s, its total addressable market is. Further, the adoption of smartphones and tablets among its TAM has been small. Finally, Japan, the world’s fourth largest market, has a lot of upside given light penetration of iOS and Anroid devices against its large, addressable market..
Read the entire iOS/Android Installed Base report from Flurry
Takeaways/Conclusions
We titled this post Two Looks at the Context/Term ‘Advanced Mobile’ because the phrase finds itself often within conversations about mobile/mobile ministry. Being advanced is indeed one part functionality (Ahonen) and another part current/analyized use (Flurry). Aiming devices, services, and experiences to a mobile goal means that you have to keep in mind not just the trends (Ahonen) but also what’s happening that’s addressable. Aiming for smartphone users in the US makes sense because of the shape and prospects of the market. Using the same approach in Angola might not be a good bet. The context of what’s advanced mobility there or elsewhere has to seen in light of what’s actually happening.
Given the information above, shaping your mobile strategy for 2012 and beyond should be a good bit clearer.
Over at the NY Times, I took in a reading about the 
Personally, I love it when companies as large as Nokia speak into moments of tech and faith. And when the conversation goes beyond applications, then it is somehting that really piques interest. Here’s a snippet of their latest article on the topic App-aggedon – Should mobiles do God?:
At the time of composing this, I was only a few hours from hearing that Judy Breck (
There’s some sense of disbelief across mobilists, developers, theologists, and just about anyone else when I describe to them 
When I speak with people about MMM, some people ask about Bible and religious-based applications. What’s always neat is when after offering their opinion about what it is they are/aren’t using, I ask them what would be their ideal application. Interestingly enough, the answer to this always sounds like some aspect of faith digitally applied rather than faith-knkowledge retreived from somewhere (the paradigm of Bible apps).
Continuing on Resolution #4: Raising the Bar on Mobile UX Standards
Sunday, January 22nd, 2012With that starting point, we want to highlight a bit more about Mobile (UX) Standards and in referencing that All Books Project, and some of the items to keep in mind whiile moving forward in your mobile initiatives this year and beyond.
Mobile UX Standards
It is assumed that the idea of what makes for a great mobile user experience is pretty easy – just grab yourself an Apple iPhone and use it for a week or two, then switch to another platform for the same amount of time and note how often you frown, toss the device, or find yourself limited in some fashion. And while we can agree that Apple’s iOS platform does make for some suitable claims towards what makes a good mobile experience (consistency, quality, variety of applications, etc.), its not the only mobile experience, nor does it answer every question anyone developing, selling, or using mobility will ask towards.
Over at UX Mag, an excellent article talking about mobile standards beyond the styleguides, frameworks, and guidelines that would usually reference as we develop apps makes an excellent point:
*List formattting added
Beyond simply saying “we want to go mobile” or “let’s use this or that to go mobile,” you really have to ask core questions about the interaction and steer adamantly towards those goals. What happens when you don’t steer specifically towards the goal, understanding these kinds of questions throughout, is that you end up with a glut of features, conflicting brand messages, dis-engaged users, and missed opportunities to deliever the depth of the Gospel that you/your group intends that application or service to portray.
Start With A Picture, Ask Until the Ink Dries
With the All Books Project, I started with an idea in my head (more efficient Bible reading on my personal mobile device that wasn’t limited to closed-licensed texts), and started scraping together what was needed and what wasn’t in order to make that happen. I boiled things down to two features: reading and searching. And then I took to one of my favorite apps on my iPad (Tactilis) to sketch some reasonable ideas towards how I would get there.
This UX flow document is my gage of whether I’m meeting my goals. If I am, then the lines here continue to make sense. If not, then I go back to this document towards what I (originally or later modified) thought and ask whether my thinking should continue down the path I’m or, or get back on course to what was drawn.
One of the pieces of interaction that I’m aiming for with All Books is a sliding popup for when I click on those verses with footnotes. The feature is harder to implement than its drawn. But, because I’m clear towards what I want to do when the popup is envoked, how its interacted with, and how it is dismissed, I can keep my programming focused and timelines (generally) well kept.
A Good Mobile UX Is Also Your Feedback Loop’s Process
In designing an effective mobile user experience (UX), you also need to take into account the development/design of your support infrastructure. As we talked about once before when developing mobile web apps, you need to have in place the resources not just to build the app, but to support, maintain, and maybe even update it.
Build, Get It Out There
After I was able to figure out my issue relating to displaying content within All Books, I needed to start using it. It didn’t matter that there was (noted) performance issues or the inability to see the footnotes as I’d like. Getting it into my normal use allows me to catch things that I’d not considered in my initial development and design, and then adjust on the fly without effecting other pieces of the project. For example, I realized that for all the work I did with makng this a spatially-orienting design, I still felt lost when navigating. The insertion of colored indicators on the section that I was within helped this considerably, and it was a few lines of code to add to do this (1 CSS class and 1 JS statement).
With that: do you have your mobile UX resolution refined now. Its the middle of January, don’t let too much longer go by.
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