By Ed Kay

The Apple iPhone, love it or loathe it, it has changed the face of the mobile application industry forever.

A controlled environment coupled with an exciting user experience and incredibly desirable hardware has finally thrust the notion of installing new features or applications to your phone into the consciousness of the general public.

Unfortunately, it has also created a whole false economy, especially for the plethora of companies that want to deliver a mobile presence.

IPhone is mobile, mobile is iPhone?
For many newcomers to this space, a mobile presence equals an iPhone application ? regardless of the intended audience demographics or even what they are trying to accomplish.

There are many reasons for this ? Apple?s magnificent hype machine, mobile industry complexity, lack of industry insight. But the result is the same: a failure to recognize the untapped opportunities bound up in the 95 percent of the mobile market that does not use the iPhone.

Despite the undeniable attractiveness of the Apple model, application publishers are certainly missing a trick by not addressing the huge majority of consumers that use Android, BlackBerry and Java-based phones.

Although global variations apply, the non-Apple community still accounts for more than 95 percent of all phone sales. It is in this space that true opportunities exist.

Cross-platform development has come a long way in the past few years and there are a few platforms that allow for the development of applications across all platforms, including iPhone, to produce applications that are universally available.

Admittedly, there are challenges and decisions, not least of which is the question around distribution.

Although there are millions of mobile phone users, only a small percentage are relatively comfortable downloading applications ? if they even know where and how to find them.

One simple solution is to distribute using direct links that can be easily deployed as part of a campaign using SMS or even print.

The ability to auto-detect the correct handset also removes any additional confusion from the consumer, who may be unaware of the particular phone model she has.

Developing an application intended for cross-platform deployment from day one also allows the design to make best use of the resources of particular phones.

This can allow for the delivery of a compelling experience on a relatively low-end phone, and a truly stellar version on the higher-end Android and iPhone models. 

Blind to possibilities
So, if it is relatively easy to produce applications across multiple handsets, reach millions of untapped consumers and gain visibility in mobile channels with a currently low level of competition, why do companies still succumb to iPhone blindness?

Partially peer-pressure, partially the abundance of iPhones in senior decision makers? pockets, partially a perception that surely targeting multiple platforms would be hideously expensive, but mostly a lack of education on the part of both the publisher and the consumer.

It is also worth noting that despite representing a small percentage of phone users, iPhones account for a huge percentage of mobile application usage, far in excess of their handset market share.

Having delivered on its potential, the competing platforms from the likes of Google, BlackBerry and Nokia are just beginning to claw some of the share back from Apple.

Only recently we heard the news that AdMob was seeing smartphone ad requests from Android overtaking iPhone, although this is probably in some part due to the fact that more Android applications are free and thus use in-application ads to generate revenue.

So, does this mean that you should stop all that iPhone development and concentrate on the as-yet-great unwashed audience of phone users?

Actually, no. 

The real winners are those that understand their audiences and use their development and marketing budgets wisely in order to deliver a compelling mobile experience to their core customers, a group that is likely to use a multitude of different handsets.

The benefit is that this medium does not suffer from the over-abundance of applications, which makes it easy to lose great applications in a sea of mediocrity.

My advice is, do not ditch the iPhone just yet, but take another look at the rest of the phone market and do your best to maximize your mobile potential.

Ed Kay is head of signing and distribution at Grapple Mobile, London. Reach him at .