Apple iPhone #1 Amongst U.S. Consumers in Q3 2008

[kironin]

So undeserved. I've had horrible experience with Apple's service and I'm an ex-iPhone user now. With each tick up in market-share Apple is becoming more and more like any other corporation out for a buck. Way to value those who helped put you there. Shame on you Apple!

That may have been your experience, but when Consumer Reports does their large annual surveys, Apple consistently comes out on top in customer services.

so whining about your self-importance isn't unlikely to change anything other than make yourself miserable so why whine?

 

[50548]

Only a matter of time really if motos sales were falling, I can't see the iPhone holding the top spot for too long. Everyones geared at taking their pot shot at it now.

People have been saying this about the iPod for years now...and the iPod is still SUPREME in the market. The iPhone is by far the most advanced and user-friendly device on the planet, as the masses have realized.

In fact this report, along with Squaretrade's CONFIRMATION that iPhones are MUCH MORE reliable machines than any other smartphone out there (i.e., much lower failure rates), should be more than enough to shut the mouths of the many uninformed PC-fanboy voices that still lurk in this forum...not to mention the recent survey that showed that 33% of prospective notebook buyers WISH to buy Macs.

DELL IS DEAD. MS IS DEAD. WE JUST NEED TO BURY'EM.

 

[dante@sisna.com]

Still no cut, copy, paste, video recording, or ability to send photos to people through a multimedia text message....... we are all lemmings jumping off a cliff. Its sad... oh so sad...... at this rate Apple can bring back and make cassettes popular again and overcome CD's. Sure it is a step in the wrong direction but apparently its what consumers and apple want.

Fine, keep ranting and assuming to know.

But you are missing out on an incredible piece of technology that really works well and increase productivity.

Yes, it's a bummer there is no picture MMS, I agree. And video would be really nice. Copy paste I could really care less about.

I am no lemming. I am a user of an incredible piece of technology that surpasses my Treo and Blackberry.

 

[MisterK]

Bravo

It's pretty cool to see the iPhone doing so well. I still love mine. I really hope they do put in copy/paste (along with something like TextExpander) soon.

That said, everyone who does these "well, this phone has copy/paste so it's better than the iPhone" should take a step back and think of all the things that an iPhone can do and its competitors can not. And how it does them.

Anyone who's tried HP's touch screen computer can tell you that a touch screen is more than just a bullet point. You get frustrated that it doesn't work like the iPhone. Things don't glide. They've just hooked up a touch mechanism to what the cursor would be doing. The iPhone IS the best phone out there.

 

[gkarris]

The wife and I were in a Care Now (urgent care clinic) yesterday and I glanced around the waiting room and all but 2 people in the waiting room had either an iPhone or iPod Touch in hand. It's amazing how popular these devices have gotten.

Funny, I got to ours early before opening yesterday and was watching videos on mine... wierd...

 

[PDXoPDX]

It would appear the FUD you and your ilk spew is not having the desired effect. I guess you need to try harder or just go away.

I'm just saying that being #1 has had the unfortunate consequence of allowing Apple to make your exact argument. There was a time when Apple stood for fairness, quality, and being beyond reproach in the service area. This is part of the reason for their success.

What I got was a straight quote from Apple's warranty policy and basically a note saying, "don't have to, not gonna! Pony up and buy more of our stuff." It wasn't always this way and it saddens me to see Apple go the way of any other company that has hit it big. I guess I'm just another sucker that believed in a dream.

 

[miamialley]

I have a RAZR now (can't afford an iPhone, especially the extra $70 in monthly charges over what I'm paying now for my wife and I, even if she didn't get an iPhone), and it's got the best features of any phone I've owned previously and works acceptably well. I'm not surprised it sold so well for so long. However, when you compare the usability to an iPhone, it looks like a preschool toy. The iPhone has really earned that top spot in the market.

jW

I have an iPhone and pay $74 per month (including 1500 text messages).

One of my friends told me she didn't get an iPhone because they didn't want to pay $120 per month. I told her what I paid and she thought I was misinformed. I HAD a Razr (worst phone I ever had) and paid just over $50 as I recall.

 

[Small White Car]

RAZR is a big seller in the USA?

What the? It's one of the worst phone on the market. People in the UK hate them. Hard to use, poor features and break very easy.

Yeah. The RAZR was the best-selling cell phone for years.

But I don't understand the word "worst" in your sentence. ALL cell phones were lilke that until about 2006 or so. The RAZR really wasn't much different from the competition in that regard.

 

[137489]

hey the instink is not on the list... i thought they sold out at every sprint store

Yeah, that was supposed to be their biggest iphone competitor

Noticed my Palm Centro is not on the list either - not that Palm really has a large market anymore, but it does have some nice features. And it does copy/cut and paste.

As far as people talking abut cameras in their phone, I have yet to acutally own one I would say does an outstanding job. Most of them the video is the worst.

I would go with an iphone under these conditions:

1. add Copy/Cut and paste
2. give me mobile iwork and a mobile CP notebook.
3. Lose the AT&T exclusivness - I like Sprint for the fact I can call any other sprint phone and it does not cost my minutes.

My centro does have a nice DataViz documents app where I can view and edit all my MS office documents right on my phone. my centro does have some nice features....

 

[twoodcc]

wow. it seems that i see a lot of people with a RAZR, but not too many with an iPhone (besides myself). so maybe i will start seeing more with iPhones

 

[SimonTheSoundMa]

Yeah. The RAZR was the best-selling cell phone for years.

But I don't understand the word "worst" in your sentence. ALL cell phones were lilke that until about 2006 or so. The RAZR really wasn't much different from the competition in that regard.

Ok, not the worst, joint worst with LG phones.

Even circa 2006, the RAZR didn't compete with the like of SE or Nokia.

 

[Small White Car]

Ok, not the worst, joint worst with LG phones.

Even circa 2006, the RAZR didn't compete with the like of SE or Nokia.

All I know is, the iPhone is the first cell phone that I actually LIKE.

And I'm not just talking about phones I've owned. I include every one I've borrowed, touched, or played with over the years.

I always thought a cell phone was something to tolerate. The fact that you could actually enjoy using a cell phone was a revelation to me when the iPhone came out. That was something I'd never experienced before.

So I don't know exactly what Nokia or SE had out there in 2006, but I'm sure they didn't impress me either, whatever they were.

 

[kingtj]

Lemmings?

All I know is, I bought my cellphone primarily to function as a telephone. Then, the first "smartphones" came out, and I realized one of them would prevent me from needing to carry a separate "personal organizer" around. Next, I saw the attractiveness of having one serve double-duty as my portable MP3 music player, so I wasn't carrying around a separate iPod or other such player, too. By that time, most phones were offering a promise of being a good email reader, web browser, portable game machine, and camera too.

Most of them were "Jacks of all trades, masters of none" though, in practice. (My Palm Treos crashed constantly, and never could browse a web site worth a darn. And when I went to a Razr, I got a few good games on it but a terrible contact manager - and only minimal usefulness for mail or web related use. It got great phone reception, though, which was a big plus.)

The iPhone? Another "Jack of all trades", but at least it's a "master of SOME". Having iPod brains/guts rolled into it, I think it masters that task. It soundly beats the competition at web browsing too. Ability to access my work's Exchange mail server (without them buying costly "Enterprise connector" software like Blackberry needs) is a big plus too.

Yeah, it doesn't record video or do any "cut and paste".... but I'm left thinking "So what?!" to all of that. Those are all things they COULD add with another firmware update, for starters. But even if Apple never does, they've put together a phone that beats anything I carried in my pocket before - and for that, I'm a happy customer. I think many others share my opinion.

Still no cut, copy, paste, video recording, or ability to send photos to people through a multimedia text message....... we are all lemmings jumping off a cliff. Its sad... oh so sad...... at this rate Apple can bring back and make cassettes popular again and overcome CD's. Sure it is a step in the wrong direction but apparently its what consumers and apple want.

 

[ALUOp]

The iPhone surpassed Motorola's RAZR phone which had been ranked #1 for the previous 12 quarters.

Doing business in the US is really different than doing so in the rest of the world.
How many people outside US are still using RAZR?
It's as old as Pentium 4 in the computer world.
MOTO is spoiled by US customers, and that's why it's sinking now.
If there were no iPhone, the now 1-year-old W580i would be the next RAZR and be popular for at least another 3 years in the US market. I think 100% of W580i production capacity is used for the US market.

 

[ivladster]

Still no cut, copy, paste, video recording, or ability to send photos to people through a multimedia text message....... we are all lemmings jumping off a cliff. Its sad... oh so sad...... at this rate Apple can bring back and make cassettes popular again and overcome CD's. Sure it is a step in the wrong direction but apparently its what consumers and apple want.

Ahhh whatever, it these features were that important to people Apple wouldn't be number 1. They are probably last on the features list. I know I don't need them.

 

[ivladster]

hey the instink is not on the list... i thought they sold out at every sprint store

They did sold out. Each store had around 10 Instinks

 

[Maxington]

Thats a lot of phones to sell. I just hope Apple doesn't lose it focus by becoming to big...

 

[noone]

This is a major accomplishment considering the fact that nearly every carrier under the sun give RAZR's to people as they walk in the door. The fact that a majority of people are willing to spend $200 to $400 plus a hefty monthly price increase from their previous plan (for most users) is a big thing.

RAZR is a big seller in the USA?

What the? It's one of the worst phone on the market. People in the UK hate them. Hard to use, poor features and break very easy.

See above. They hardly sell them, they give them away. At the very most some carriers charge/d $10 for them, making them the cheapest phone.

 

[aristotle]

Video recording?

I don't give a rat's ass about the camera in the iPhone so why should I care about video recording?

Call me crazy but if I really want to record video, I'd take along my Sony HDR-TG1. I'd also probably use it instead my my iPhone for taking photographs.

Every single camera phone on the market is crap.

 

[iSee]

Wow. This is surprising to me. RAZRs are 0$ with a contract and don't require a data contract (at least that was the deal for my wife ~1.5 years ago), while the iPhone is $199 w/contract and the $30 (IIRC) data plan is required.

It's amazing the iPhone as passed up the RAZR and all the other cheap phones in unit sales, given its cost.

Obviously, people really do want to do a lot more than talk on their phones, and are willing to pay some $ to do it. Hm. Come to think of it, the iPhone is actually not a great pure phone. Battery life, speaker phone, and dialing are weak in various ways (visual voice mail is great, though). So, that implies that for many people, making phone calls isn't even the most important thing they do with their phones. For me personally, that's true. In order, my iPhone is: 1. music player, 2. portable email device, 3. cell phone, 4. portable Internet device, ...

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

Ahhh whatever, it these features were that important to people Apple wouldn't be number 1. They are probably last on the features list. I know I don't need them.

The inability to record video is one reason why I have not considered an iphone.

 

[GSMiller]

Congratulations Apple, you just surpassed technology that is over 4 years old

 

[howie78]

Meh...its a cool phone and definitely has that neat/wow factor but overall its still missing a lot of functionality for it to be the number one phone overall as far technology goes but sales yes. Still would take a Nokia N82, N85, N79, N96 and my even the Samsung Innov8. I mean all those do twice (5 times really) as much but admittedly probably cost more b/c not carried by cellular providers but then again data plans maybe be cheaper due to they're classifications by the carrier depending I guess. I liked the iPhone just poor camera (really poor when compared to other quality cell phones camera) and the locked aspect of it is a another story. But hey most people just like the neato factor of it. I just use my ipod for music (which completely lacks a built-in fm reciever that every other mp3 player in world comes standard with..another soap box). Got to give it to the iPhone it has definitely given apple another revenue stream though. It has its place in the market (a entrance level phone) and performs really well there. Honestly see tons of them everyday where they use to be rare.

Still rather expect more effort from apple to build higher end version. To me it is still just a ipod with a phone in it with a cool accelerator action and album cover fly over ability.

 

[BornAgainMac]

This makes me want to dig up an old story on Macrumors about the iPhone and how Arn was on this TV show and this host guy ripped anyone praising anything about Apple including the rumored phone. I wish I can remember some keywords to find the link. The Apple's rumored phone was suppose to bomb.

 

[50548]

Doing business in the US is really different than doing so in the rest of the world.
How many people outside US are still using RAZR?
It's as old as Pentium 4 in the computer world.
MOTO is spoiled by US customers, and that's why it's sinking now.
If there were no iPhone, the now 1-year-old W580i would be the next RAZR and be popular for at least another 3 years in the US market. I think 100% of W580i production capacity is used for the US market.

Actually I am one of them, bought in 2006...for a basic phone, it does what it does and it's thin...I don't care about extra features as I am not a smartphone user anyway...it's just for calling and SMSing.