Busy times at Chameleon Net – so apologies for the lack of blog activity! The next instalment of our Google Grants blog series is in production – if I weren’t working on so many Google Grant accounts I could sit down and write it!

One piece of news has provoked me to take a break and blog this week though: Apple’s latest smartphone has officially been unveiled (you probably saw it about 6 weeks ago courtesy of gizmodo).

iPhone 4 is being released towards the end of the month, provoking the usual round of adoring plaudits in the tech press. That said, even if you strip away all the “this changes everything” hype, iPhone 4 remains an exciting prospect.

The design raised a bit of debate here; on one hand the current design is a modern classic, and changing it may dilute the iPhone brand, but on the other hand, the new handset looks nothing short of stunning. Many Chameleons are also pleased to note that it’s made out of even tougher materials: Ed might finally be able to own a phone without a cracked screen!

Whilst Apple announced a new ‘reader’ mode for browsing on the iPhone (AKA adblocking mode) it has also been shouting loudly about iAd – it’s new mobile advertising platform for advertisers and developers wanting to display adverts within apps on any Apple product. You can bet the ‘reader’ mode won’t block iAds.

This is one feature of the new iPhone 4 operating system that interests me. Will iAds be annoying? Potentially, but this new feature will bring mobile-specific advertising into sharp focus for brands. If you don’t engage in mobile specific advertising / communications, this could be the time to experiment, whilst user fatigue is low. If you’re developing an app, signs are that you can generate a lot of extra revenue through in-app advertising, and if you want to advertise on apple products, you’ll be in good company; $60m of ads have already been booked through iAds by the likes of Citi, Nissan, Walt Disney and Unilever.

I recently went to a keynote by Hugo Barra of Google’s mobile web team. His presentation made it clear that Google is focussing hard on delivering relevant ads to mobile web users, as well as making it as easy as possible for advertisers to manage this mobile advertising through their account dashboards. If Google are investing heavily in a revenue generating area, it’s usually a sign that this channel is going to become much more important in the near future.

One thing’s for certain; the iPad and iPhone 4 is not everyone’s cup of tea, and other providers have great rival products on the market. Many of us have reservations about the closed environment Apple forces developers and users to operate in, and the reporting of apple product launches is infantile at best. However, the fact is Apple products account for the vast majority of all mobile browsing on websites we monitor, and therefore these developments are significant to your brand. Apple products have driven /are driving the uptake of mobile browsing in the UK. Mobile browsing isn’t a user behaviour that’s going to disappear. If you don’t have a mobile strategy in place yet... start thinking!

To help you get into mobile Chameleon Net is offering some free assistance:

• Dan Martin (our head of digital strategy) is speaking on building a business case for mobile and where the mobile web is going in the next few months / years at our seminar in Hoxton on July 14th.
• I’ve put together some resources on how you can learn more about your current mobile users using Google Analytics.

One mobile site we’ve already put together is for Sitters, the UKs largest babysitting agency. Visit sitters.co.uk on your iPhone to have a look.