An overlooked perk of the iPhone

AFDoc said:

OP does it really bother you that much? Enough to keep you from buying a device? Wow, I wish that insignificant little thing was what I had to worry about.

Click to expand...

I'm with you on this one and my husband would be too. He's be appalled that someone would worry about something this.

Back plate is replaceable. (Or buy a case)

Purchase a couple of these. Carrier branding gone.

harcosparky said:

So there is no branding on the back of your iPhone?

What do you call the back there?

That's BRANDING !

Click to expand...

For me, I find the samsung logo on the front deeply annoying and distracting.

SilentLoner said:

It's not the manufacturer I find distracting though.

Click to expand...

I know. Apple has always been fame for it's minimalist branding. Literally, there is only one Apple logo on the exterior and one "iPhone" brand. That's it. It appears that they are looking to minimise distractions.

I remember when some owners complained that when they upgraded from the 4 to 4s it did not have anything on it to show it as the 4s.

Street cred and snobbery gone mad.

I'm personally glad of the lack of branding on my iPhone 5.

Well here in the United States people love branding. In some cases people actually pay money to get extra brands on the things they own. Like paying for a giant Honda decal on your Hondas back window. You would think Honda would have to pay for the free billboard, but no we love to waste money on junk. Just think, every time you turn on your Android phone a whole screen pops up to tell you who your carrier is. I think I might get a AT&T tattoo soon.

I hate branding. One of my favorite things about my lifeproof case on my 4S is that it covers the Apple logo.

Although it wouldn't be my deciding factor I do like how Apple and Nexus device don't have carrier branding. I like how the nexus doesn't have carrier branding on the screen more then the iPhone.

I see there is a non root way to change the carrier branding on an iPhone but it looks like you need a Mac (which I don't have).

SilentLoner said:

I have taken it for granted after 3 years with the iphone uninterupted was the lack of branding....

I was tempted to look at the note as an additional line until i saw this

Click to expand...

The branding on the back doesn't bother me, but what does is that awful use of branding on the home button. It looks horrible! That would put me off buying that phone.

cynics said:

I hate branding. One of my favorite things about my lifeproof case on my 4S is that it covers the Apple logo.

Click to expand...

http://reviews.cnet.com/carrying-cases/lifeproof-fre-for-iphone/4505-6510_7-35534991.html

"We got feedback from folks and many wanted to be able to show they had an Apple product," says Jonathan Wegner, Lifeproof's director of communications. "This is particularly true in the Chinese market. They don't want the logo hidden."

Click to expand...

Sad. It makes me want to cover mine in protest.

Abercrombie & Fitch branding doesn't seem to bother anyone wearing the clothes.

Lame Verizon. I have att and I only have a logo on the back of my S3 which has a case over it.

AFDoc said:

What was sarcastic? I have kids, a wife, thousands of Airmen and dependants, vehicles, animals to worry about, and that's just the start. I wish some branding on a phone was what kept me up at night and made me worry. You must think it's a big deal if you felt the need to make a thread about it.

Click to expand...

I'm very sorry your life apparently took such a wrong turn, that you have so many things to worry about. But the fact of the matter is, this isn't iamamarriedmillitaryenlisteewhoworriestoomuchforums.com.

This IS macrumors.com, where consumer electronics are discussed, and for some of us, the commercial branding on a device will sway our purchasing decisions. Will such decision impact the way of life and personal freedoms of 300 million+ people? No, of course not. We don't take ourselves that seriously.


Don't get me wrong, I support and respect what you do. But like it or not, one of many consequences of your work is that we have the freedom to discuss such insignificant things, and so, many of us do. Constantly. If that's not something you can handle, you may need to consider another line of work. Or at least a different forum.

Anyway, back to the topic:

harcosparky said:

What do you call the back there?

That's BRANDING !

Click to expand...

The on the back of an iPhone is credit taken by a company for making a great product. Especially on the iPhone 5, it's subtle, too. Nothing flashy or overly contrasty. It barely takes up an eighth of the overall surface of the rear. And there's zero useless branding on the front. To me, that's just the right amount of branding.

Likewise, Samsung's logo on the back of the Note is taking credit where credit is due. If I were a Samsung guy, I wouldn't mind JUST the Samsung branding.

But then there's Verizon, putting ITS logo on the back (bigger than the Samsung logo, by the way), and on the home button, in addition to the carrier banner that shows up on the screen. PLUS a huge, gawdy "4G LTE" logo to boot, which would happen to be an outright false brand if I have a Samsung Note in one of the 18,000+ cities in the US where Verizon still only has dated, barely-qualifying 3G.

What did Verizon do to deserve all that branding? Lock you in a contract? Carrier lock your phone? Compel Samsung to add bloatware to the ROM and restrict features? That's not something I would be proud of.

There's branding, and then there's too much branding.

In any case, there's other reasons why I wouldn't buy one. The one obvious one being: it's way too big.

ItsNeil4Real said:

The branding is whatever. A lot of times you get a case. The thing I think most people overlook is bloat ware!! Just got my girlfriends dad an LG Intuition for a steal and in the applications thing it had almost 3 pages of crap that you can't remove. Of course the apps aren't actually installed but you can't remove the damn icons and it just adds so much clutter!

Click to expand...

It's not 3 pages, but I wish I could remove garbage like newstand, the itunes store, their clock, notes, stock apps, etc. I have them all shoved in a folder on my last page (except newstand of course since apple was feeling especially evil that month). I either use better alternatives (like stocks) or don't use them at all, so why do I need them cluttering up my iphone? For that matter, why is my 16 gig iPad 4 closer to 11 gig fresh out of the box?

Generally speaking many people root their device so they have the ability to remove the crapware that is installed. Another benefit with the iPhone is that we don't see any carrier crapware installed.

bigjim83 said:

Lame Verizon. I have att and I only have a logo on the back of my S3 which has a case over it.

Click to expand...

Same here. Just an AT&T globe on the back which is covered with a case. I believe Sprint didn't even place any carrier logos on the Note II at all.

corvus32 said:

That depends on where you live, and how much value people there place on social status.

In China and the slums of America, flaunting that Apple logo is a HUGE deal because of how much gap there is between rich and poor. In other places, it's pretty ho-hum.

Click to expand...

Have you actually been to China? I've seen shoeshiners with iPhones over there. They're as commonplace there as they are in the US.

thelookingglass said:

Have you actually been to China? I've seen shoeshiners with iPhones over there. They're as commonplace there as they are in the US.

Click to expand...

Apple has a 35% market share for smartphones in the US. It has about a 7% market share in China and is in 5th place among manufacturers there.

The reason? http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/17/us-apple-china-idUSTRE81G08220120217

"If you want to sell handsets to the mass market, a simple rule of thumb in China is that the handset price has to be close to 70 percent of the monthly salary," said Jayesh Easwaramony, an analyst with Frost & Sullivan in Singapore.

"Today, an iPhone is more than two months salary."

This, said Easwaramony, gives the likes of Huawei and ZTE the opportunity to cater to a mass market that is captivated by the iPhone, but doesn't have the purchasing power for it.


You must have run into an outlier group of shoeshiners.

Bob Coxner said:

Apple has a 35% market share for smartphones in the US. It has about a 7% market share in China and is in 5th place among manufacturers there.

The reason? http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/17/us-apple-china-idUSTRE81G08220120217

"If you want to sell handsets to the mass market, a simple rule of thumb in China is that the handset price has to be close to 70 percent of the monthly salary," said Jayesh Easwaramony, an analyst with Frost & Sullivan in Singapore.

"Today, an iPhone is more than two months salary."

This, said Easwaramony, gives the likes of Huawei and ZTE the opportunity to cater to a mass market that is captivated by the iPhone, but doesn't have the purchasing power for it.


You must have run into an outlier group of shoeshiners.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the stats. But, again, have you actually been to China? Yes, it's clear that for many people, buying an iPhone represents one or two months of salary, but it is far from the status symbol that the previous poster seems to claim. Let's not forget that in a country of 1.7 billion, 7% is more than a third of the entire population of the US. Take a ride on the subway in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, Tianjin, etc, and I think you'll find that you won't be near the only one using an iPhone, nor will anyone be coveting your iPhone.

Status symbols imply exclusivity. There is nothing exclusive about Apple products in China beyond the price tag. Thus the thousands of Apple "resellers" in every major city catering to iPhone users.

And I disagree with that analyst's view that price
Is primarily what's holding the iPhone back. That view is entirely too simplistic (as is your drawing a conclusion from that view). Get the iphone on China Mobile, China's largest telecom provider by far, and then see what happens to the marketshare number. And also take away the thousands of extremely cheap, off-contract knockoff Android phones, and then see what happens.

I usually dont care about branding (bloatware is another story), but they branded the home button?? That's ridiculous, and extremely tacky!

Four oF NINE said:

Abercrombie & Fitch branding doesn't seem to bother anyone wearing the clothes.

Click to expand...

Well, perhaps their clothes attract a particular type of people, the type that like branding.

I hate network-branded phones. And what does the Verizon button do? Take you to their website?

If Verizon wants tp place advertising on your Smart-phone let them pay you!Verizon branding your Smartphone is abusive. While it would be less objectionable if the Logo was less obvious and done in good taste it is annoying.

thelookingglass said:

Status symbols imply exclusivity. There is nothing exclusive about Apple products in China beyond the price tag. Thus the thousands of Apple "resellers" in every major city catering to iPhone users.

Click to expand...

Status symbols are about perception not exclusivity because, at the end of the day, owning one doesn't omit you from who you really are.