Apple Again Tops J.D. Power Rankings of Smartphone Consumer Satisfaction

[rman726]

Wonder how they define performance & features. Both HTC & Samsung have more/better spec.'ed devices.

iPhone has generally been known to make more out of it's hardware than the other manufacturers because iOS has been specifically designed for the hardware.

That said, the Samsungs/HTC's of the world with 1.4/1.5GHz processors probably perform equivalently, if not better, because at some point the processing power will make up for the not as well designed software.

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But it can't make phone calls, and don't forget, it doesn't have the full web!

I don't remember the last time I went to a website that wasn't optimized for the iPhone, or at very least, had an existing app that allowed me to view the site as well, if not better, than a mobile website would have done.

And I've had one dropped call, ever, on my iPhone. And that was standing inside of Grand Central Terminal, one of the most, if not the most, crowded and populated train stations in the world, with thousands of people using the same cellular towers at the exact same time.

 

[*LTD*]

iPhone has generally been known to make more out of it's hardware than the other manufacturers because iOS has been specifically designed for the hardware.

That said, the Samsungs/HTC's of the world with 1.4/1.5GHz processors probably perform equivalently, if not better, because at some point the processing power will make up for the not as well designed software.

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I don't remember the last time I went to a website that wasn't optimized for the iPhone, or at very least, had an existing app that allowed me to view the site as well, if not better, than a mobile website would have done.

And I've had one dropped call, ever, on my iPhone. And that was standing inside of Grand Central Terminal, one of the most, if not the most, crowded and populated train stations in the world, with thousands of people using the same cellular towers at the exact same time.

Agreed, but I think his post was meant to be a little sarcastic.

 

[Hastings101]

Woo, good job Apple. They deserve this, iPhone is way better than most of the competing phones.

Though it doesn't really seem like a fair contest if ALL phones produced are being ranked because Apple gets scored on the only two phones they have (lastgen iPhone and current), which are very nice and upper end, while some companies like Samsung and HTC have many different models, some just as nice as an iPhone and some absolute junk.

 

[mijail]

Wonder how they define performance & features. Both HTC & Samsung have more/better spec.'ed devices.

Heh, even my 3-year old Sony-Ericsson phone has more features than an iPhone 4.
However it was such a pain in the ass to use that I barely took advantage of them. A simple example: it could play MP3 and use Google Maps at the same time. However, if you did that, it became SO unresponsive that I had to remember to disable one thing before using the other (if by accident you started two things at the same time, sometimes it was QUICKER to reboot the phone than trying to stop one of them!)

So: after only about 2 years, that very phone convinced me that the iPhone maybe was worth its price. Now I have one, and still think so.

Features? If they are painful to use, what good are they for?
And I am the techy type! No wonder the iPhone has been a godsend for "normal" people.

I am of course only addressing the "feature checklists"; I do not know how painful or not to use are those HTC/Samsungs.

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Though it doesn't really seem like a fair contest if ALL phones produced are being ranked though because Apple gets scored on the only two phones they have (lastgen iPhone and current), which are very nice and upper end, while some companies like Samsung and HTC have many different models, some just as nice as an iPhone and some absolute junk.

Well, it does say something. At least, you can take it as "you can't go (too) wrong with Apple", and "beware what you buy from Samsung".

Don't you get more confident about a company which is consistently good and less confident about a company which is sometimes junky and sometimes nice? I know I do.

 

[gorgeousninja]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Wonder how they define performance & features. Both HTC & Samsung have more/better spec.'ed devices.

How many surveys on customer satusfaction does it take to prove that mere specs mean nothing.. It is all down to the synergy of hardware and software. The finest wines do not come in the biggest bottles.

 

[MacinDoc]

but...
but...

"antennagate"???

 

[appleguy123]

A perfect score, eh? I expected nothing less from Apple
Keep up the good work

It's not a perfect score. They received 2 out of 5 on battery function, the worst of any of the manufacturers. But MacRumors didn't think that it was important enough to keep in the image it seems.

 

[neko girl]

It's not a perfect score. They received 2 out of 5 on battery function, the worst of any of the manufacturers. But MacRumors didn't think that it was important enough to keep in the image it seems.

Out of all the things that may be wrong with the iPhone (i.e.: antenna design), I really don't think the battery is one of them. This must be a perception issue, as people tend to use their iPhones quite a bit.

iPhone dominates in battery life generally from reviews I've seen. Please link me if I'm wrong here..

 

[appleguy123]

Out of all the things that may be wrong with the iPhone (i.e.: antenna design), I really don't think the battery is one of them. This must be a perception issue, as people tend to use their iPhones quite a bit.

iPhone dominates in battery life generally from reviews I've seen. Please link me if I'm wrong here..

Here is the real image, uncropped.

 

[neko girl]

I get it. I didn't mean like the JD Power data. It's meaningless to compare "Samsung" and "Nokia" because they make plenty of dumb phones, the battery lives of which aren't apples-to-apples comparable to smartphones.

Have you seen an article where iPhone 4 battery life is shoddy compared to similar smartphones?

 

[appleguy123]

I get it. I didn't mean like the JD Power data. It's meaningless to compare "Samsung" and "Nokia" because they make plenty of dumb phones, the battery lives of which aren't apples-to-apples comparable to smartphones.

Have you seen an article where iPhone 4 battery life is shoddy compared to similar smartphones?

I hate my iPhone's battery as of late, but I think there is actually something wrong with it (drains 10%/hour in standby).

I just think that it was dishonest for MacRumors to omit the battery score from the image, just to make it look like the iPhone had a spotless score.

 

[*LTD*]

but...
but...

"antennagate"???

. . . was ephemeral, meaningless, and wholly sensationalized. Like some of us knew it was from the get-go.

 

[darster]

. . . was ephemeral, meaningless, and wholly sensationalized. Like some of us knew it was from the get-go.

No it wasn't. The problem does exist. Some just choose not to bury their head in the sand.

 

[*LTD*]

No it wasn't. The problem does exist.

It isn't substantial enough for anyone to care. It has no significant effect on regular operation, so you'll rarely encounter it to any serious degree.

Given the year the iPhone 4 had, the problem is clearly a paper tiger. No teeth.

 

[steve knight]

the ranking are pretty much worthless. I mean you are comparing one good smartphone to every variety of phone each company makes. so the whole thing really is pointless.

 

[MacinDoc]

It's not a perfect score. They received 2 out of 5 on battery function, the worst of any of the manufacturers. But MacRumors didn't think that it was important enough to keep in the image it seems.

Besmirching MR with false claims, are we? Please supply a link to support your claim.

Here is the real image, uncropped.
Image

Unless you have an original link, that image appears to be fabricated. Here is the original unaltered chart direct from JD Power. Battery life was not a separate criterion, but was part of "Performance".

the ranking are pretty much worthless. I mean you are comparing one good smartphone to every variety of phone each company makes. so the whole thing really is pointless.

Actually, they conducted two surveys, one comparing traditional wireless phones with one another and the other comparing smartphones with one another.

 

[MattInOz]

. . . was ephemeral, meaningless, and wholly sensationalized. Like some of us knew it was from the get-go.

I guess I'd get the same response to...

But..
But...
The others have more features like a SD card slot.

 

[swedefish]

Stuff like this makes me resent my ancient Blackberry even more than I normally do.

 

[Ayman250]

I hate to be the poster of the only negative comment in a pool of positive ones, but based on that table it seems most people don't know what they are talking about. Granted the iPhone is a great device and manufacturers like Samsung and HTC have low end phones that might bring down their results a bit. The high end phones for both those manufacturers are just as good if not better than the current iPhone4. That goes without saying they have a year over apple and the iPhone 5 looks great based on speculation. To give HTC and Samsung 3/5 on performance is senseless. (Excuse any grammatical errors as i was in a rush.)

*Edit*

I would also like to say that it makes no sense to Judge the manufacturers because a WP7 and Android HTC Phones Operates very differently. And once again low end phones should not be taken into consideration.

 

[MacinDoc]

I hate to be the poster of the only negative comment in a pool of positive ones, but based on that table it seems most people don't know what they are talking about. Granted the iPhone is a great device and manufacturers like Samsung and HTC have low end phones that might bring down their results a bit. The high end phones for both those manufacturers are just as good if not better than the current iPhone4. That goes without saying they have a year over apple and the iPhone 5 looks great based on speculation. To give HTC and Samsung 3/5 on performance is senseless. (Excuse any grammatical errors as i was in a rush.)/

What exactly would you consider a "low-end" smartphone? An iPhone 3GS, perhaps, the #2 selling smartphone in the U.S., available for $50 on contract? The stats for Apple's phones are equally susceptible to having lower ratings for their lower spec'ed models as are the stats for any other manufacturer's phones.

 

[Ayman250]

I hate to be the poster of the only negative comment in a pool of positive ones, but based on that table it seems most people don't know what they are talking about. Granted the iPhone is a great device and manufacturers like Samsung and HTC have low end phones that might bring down their results a bit. The high end phones for both those manufacturers are just as good if not better than the current iPhone4. That goes without saying they have a year over apple and the iPhone 5 looks great based on speculation. To give HTC and Samsung 3/5 on performance is senseless. (Excuse any grammatical errors as i was in a rush.)/QUOTE]
What exactly would you consider a "low-end" smartphone? An iPhone 3GS, perhaps, the #2 selling smartphone in the U.S., available for $50 on contract? The stats for Apple's phones are equally susceptible to having lower ratings for their lower spec'ed models as are the stats for any other manufacturer's phones.

Please don't reply if you know nothing of the android platform... There are plenty of phones with much lower specs than the iPhone 3gs. And plenty of phones with much higher specs than the iPhone 4 and potentially the iPhone 5.

 

[MacinDoc]

Please don't reply if you know nothing of the android platform... There are plenty of phones with much lower specs than the iPhone 3gs. And plenty of phones with much higher specs than the iPhone 4 and potentially the iPhone 5.

So then the higher and lower specs should offset one another, right? Also, keep in mind that nobody else's overall score was higher than 3/5, compared with Apple's 5/5, so there must be more to it than just models with low specs.

 

[Ayman250]

So then the higher and lower specs should offset one another, right? Also, keep in mind that nobody else's overall score was higher than 3/5, compared with Apple's 5/5, so there must be more to it than just models with low specs.

There is also more to it than the iPhone being a good phone. Its just consumer ignorance / bias.

 

[MacinDoc]

There is also more to it than the iPhone being a good phone. Its just consumer ignorance / bias.

Of course consumers don't know what they like, and can't decide whether they got their money's worth out of their smartphone. That's why they need you to tell them what they like.

Seriously, though, customer satisfaction generally results from a customer's belief that their purchase satisfies their needs and their belief that they got their money's worth from the product. In the end, this is much more important than specs. Apple gets this, and this is why Apple is the huge success that it is. It's all about the user experience.

BTW, since Apple products are generally more expensive than the competition for similar products, and because Apple has this reputation for providing a great user experience, I believe that it is actually less likely that a consumer will give an Apple product a high satisfaction rating, because more is expected of Apple products. I certainly expect more of the iPhones I have purchased than I do of the "free" Android phones I got for my kids because my carrier would only allow 2 iPhones on my account.

 

[MattInOz]

There is also more to it than the iPhone being a good phone. Its just consumer ignorance / bias.

So your suggestion Apple are better at attracting optimists?

The results would seem to suggest this, I mean the difference shouldn't be as great as it is. Although have to say it's a long time since I've known a Happy Nokia owner but most of them that I know tend to be neutral to tech. I've never know a happy HTC owner and those guys tend to put themselves forward as Tech lovers but also tend to be really standoffish and bitter that the world doesn't bend to their view.

So maybe there is a fair bit of result shift based on User Personality Profiles.