Qantas to offer online check-in and boarding passes on your iPhone's screen.
While many businesses rely on Blackberry technology for their internal mobile messaging needs few have launched Blackberry optimised websites. However, in the month since the local release of iPhone 3G, many businesses are releasing, or planning to release iPhone optimised websites.
The newest kid on the block is Qantas, which this morning announced it had launched a mobile version of Qantas.com, available at qantas.com/mobile especially for iPhone 3G users. According to Jamila Gordon, Qantas CIO, 'Qantas is the only airline to incorporate an accessibility function that works like the phone itself – using its touch interface, rather than offering services through a website link.'
Currently, the site allows users to access timetable information, lounge locations and airport services, but the feature set will grow in the future to include booking flights, selecting seating and online check-in.
Other big businesses to have recently launched iPhone specific sites include ANZ, Commsec and NineMSN.
While many of these sites only offer a small subset of features, they all promise to add more functionality soon.
Releasing iPhone optimised websites is somewhat of a gamble for businesses but if iPhone usage in the US is replicated here, iPhone users are veracious consumers of mobile data, and prefer iPhone optimised sites, despite being able to easily browse regular websites.
Stats released by Google in February, before the global release of the iPhone 3G, point out that Google has seen '50 times more search requests' come from iPhone users than other mobile handsets.