At GigaOm’s Mobile Conference “Mobilize ‘08″, which continues through the rest of the day today. Apple’s iPhone has been the one constant mobile device and development platform that all companies, panels and discussions have mentioned, at least once.
Mobilize ‘08 is a conference put on by Om Malik’s GigaOm. The entire event showcases some truly remarkable speakers including some industry leaders from Google, Microsoft, Facebook, MySpace, Sprint, AT&T and some heavy hitting Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists.
MacBlogz has been following the coverage all day and one thing that we feel needs to be mentioned is the iPhone’s influence on discussions that are occurring at the event. The day is broken into panel discussions with titles like “Platform Face-Off: The Economics of Development,” and “Thinking Experientially: What creates good mobile user experience?” So as you can see, there is no lack of knowledge on the mobile market, or lack of probing into the market’s future. In fact, the density of intelligence here, both about mobile and non-mobile development and business models is highly impressive.
Throughout the entire day, countless representatives from all companies, and within nearly every single panel discussion, have allowed Apple’s iPhone to take the illustrious spotlight if only for a brief moment. Most recently, in a panel discussion titled “Money and Friends: The Promise of Social Networks on Mobiles,” Join Faith from MySpace Mobile, Evan Tana from Loopt and Chamath Palihapitiya from Facebook, all took a moment to discuss how (in the face of poor mobile convergence and experiences), Apple and the iPhone as a development platform, have changed the mobile world forever, opening up countless doors for rich user experiences and applications.
This message has so far echoed throughout the entire event, making Apple’s iPhone by far the biggest “Elephant in the room.” When Apple released an SDK, in response to a loud outcry from the developer community, most of the industry was able to come to terms with the fact that Apple was changing the face of the mobile market, forever. Aside from skeptics here and there, and the occasional “competitive attempts”, Apple’s iPhone, as a device and user experience has far been in a league of its own. The global success of the device has not been showcased at Mobilize ‘08, more than it has been thanked for “bringing the attention that was needed to the mobile world.”
Although the conversation has not yet shifted to the debate about Apple’s App Store Approval Process, we have heard Steve Jobs being referred to as “The Devil.”
Check out the events and general information about Mobilize here.
