mCOMMERCEApple’s Announcements &

Voice ControlThe most landmark of the iPhone 4S announcements, Siri voice assistance holds the promise of a new way to interact with

smartphones. Although this new feature is currently limited, it could soon offer companies a new style of interaction between their customers and their mobile properties.

iPhone 4S’s Siri artificial intelligence feature will only interact with Apple’s built in apps. In the future, however, all apps could see voice interactivity.

This type of interaction is already happening today with Kinect. This summer, Microsoft introduced voice commands to their popular motion tracking game system, and companies like Netflix are already taking advantage of it.

Although Kinect’s voice command system isn’t as sophisticated as Apple’s it will start to let brands cut their teeth on the technique.

A5 Chip & Dual Core

A dual core doesn’t just render game graphics faster (although this will probably be the first sector to take advantage of it), it makes the entire device faster. This means those rich

product photos, demo videos, and augmented reality samples are about to look amazing.

7 x FasterGraphics

2 x As FastAs iPhone 4

Since the release of the iPad 2, many retailers, including Gilt Groupe, have seen significant sales through iPad. Although this can be attributed to several reasons, iPad 2’s dual core gives it it speed and rich images that set it apart.

Although 4S’s rendering power will have lots of benefits, one pronounced area will be augmented reality.

Trying to make realistic AR with iPhone’s limited processing power is like pushing an elephant through a straw. With the A5 chip, hyper realistic AR images like the ones become possible.

Multiple Carriers & Cheap Devices

Lots of companies have entered the smartphone markets with a variety of high and low-end products on a range of carriers, challenging iPhone’s limited variety. The introduction of more choices means a new

flood of elderly, low-income, baby boomers and teens are about to become iPhone users. And they’re bringing their wallets with them

Not only does a low cost iPhone mean more people will be on the iOS platform, it means that more people will be doing mobile shopping.

Studies have shown iPhone users are three times more likely to shop via mobile than smartphone owners overall. Apple, iTunes and the app store have created a culture of purchasing that is about to gain thousands of new members.

Lack of NFCIt’s not just about what iPhone 4S has, it’s about what it DOESN’T have, and NFC is one

glaring omission. NFC would allow users to make a purchase or get more information on a product at the tap of a phone. Google launched NFC in Android earlier this year, but Apple’s failure to follow spells difficulty for the technology.

Even though it presented a good alternative to QR codes, SMS, and RFID, NFC still faced a significant challenge for adoption. Without iPhone’s early and

enthusiastic adopters behind it, NFC faces a hard road ahead.

Apple still holds patents on NFC and may be waiting to firm up infrastructure before integrating it but retailers shouldn’t hold their breath waiting.

4G(ish) SpeedsThe speed of mobile web just hasn’t caught up with everything we want to do with it, but the introduction of 4G-like speed in the iPhone 4S will get things moving. For retailers, this means that the pain users have experienced with

mobile websites is about to be gone and mobile shopping is about to get more popular than ever. If you don’t have a mobile site, now is the time to get one.

Mobile commerce has nowhere to go but up. Unfortunately it’s been caged in a little box called 3G. Slow loading times simply won’t fly for consumers used to screaming fast Wi-Fi connections in their homes.

But mobile retailers shouldn’t interpret this as a sign that you can slack off on your mobile site and rely on 4G to deliver your desktop site faster. The mobile experience is still different, and 4G still isn’t as fast as Wi-Fi.

Start developing for iPhone 4S today

Download StumbleUpon’s case study to find out how the company created an iPad app before the device’s release

bit.ly/iphone4Smcommerce