On July 11^th 2008, Telstra, Optus and Vodafone - three of Australia’s largest carriers, will officially release Apple Corp’s iPhone 3G into the Australian market.

Of course, the release of a new telephone is not normally such a big deal. But the iPhone is very different for two reasons.

1. It has that hot, sexy “must have” vibe that resonates particularly well with Generation Y. In the USA alone, half a million iPhones were sold in the first weekend and have sold in excess of six million to date, with shipments expected to more than double to 13 million units before the year’s end.

2. The iPhone is changing how people surf the web. Now, many young people are not even bothering to purchase a PC. In the same way they use mobiles instead of fixed phones, they do all of their web browsing, instant messaging and more through their 3G enabled phone. While many handsets have had this capability for a while, the iPhone is making this practice far more prevalent.

So why is this important to you? Let’s look further into some of these trends. As a general rule, Google gets to see web trends occur far earlier than the rest of the internet. This is mainly due to the sheer volume of traffic to and ubiquity of this site. They are also known for their tracking and measurement of virtually everything that can be tracked and measured on the internet, and Google also maintains massive databases or usage characteristics which they trawl through regularly.

In February 2008, Google found what they thought was a significant error in their analysis. The use of hand-held devices to access the search engine had increased by more than 50 fold over the previous couple of months. However, further analysis showed that they weren’t wrong; these numbers were almost entirely due to iPhone users.

Analysts are now expecting that by the end of 2008, up to 7% of internet users will be browsing the web via iPhones and other similar devices.

Well, “so what?” you might be asking. This hand-held internet access is a problem for you and your customers if your website is not easily accessed and used on these small screen devices. Have you ever tried browsing your website and entering a donation or order using a hand-held device? If not, can I suggest you give it a go?

The bottom line is, if your organisation is receiving any number of donations, lottery ticket purchases or other transactions, or if you provide services, information or even just PR via your website, you need to start thinking about the design and technical implications that mobile devices raise.

The internet is full of hype and amazing promises, the majority of which end up being nothing more than a lot of hot air.  I suspect that this one has some real substance to it.

At DMS we have been playing with hand-held device interfaces for websites for several months. They certainly pose some interesting issues, particularly if you want to do it well.

While I don’t recommend you drop everything and charge off to redesign your website for the iPhone, it is something you need to start thinking about in your planning over the next six to twelve months. That is of course, unless you aren’t interested in the Gen-Y market.