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One-Third of iPhone Users Mistakenly Think They Have 4G

partyBoy said:
SMART people read the details on their phone so they know what features their phone has and not ASSUME they have 4G...50% of the mass public are stupid, I work in customer service (call center) i should know !
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hmmm let's say i wasn't tech savvy and i owned an iPhone 3G. wow cool it has 3G this is awesome. Oh wait, there's now a 3GS model and that has 3G as well? i'm confused.....

oh wow cool now there is an iPhone 4 that looks totally awesome and they say it's blazing fast. My iPhone 3G was called a 3G BC it had 3G....so my new iPhone 4 probably has 4G bc it is called a 4 and they say it's blazing fast it can only have 4G!

Wow the new iPhone 5 just came out....wait i'm a little confused by the numbers here. If my 3G had 3G and my iphone 4 had 4G why doesn't my iPhone 5 have 5G...wait the iPHone 5 doesn't even have 4G yet????

LOL

if you're not tech savvy it's pretty confusing. When iphone comes out with 4g technology then gonna call it a iPhone 4G at that point or will it be an iPhone 12?
 
rmhop81 said:
really? none at all?
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4G is not what it was originally conceived. It has been systematically scaled back so the current LTE and HSPA+ and WiMax don't really meet the what 4G was conceptualized as a few years back. The current "4G" systems are only about 3.9G not meeting all the specified 4G requirements but "4G" makes for a better marketing term than "we are almost 4G".
 
fahadqureshi said:
are you guys suggesting that someone who has no to very little interest in technology would go to a tech site and give a survey related to 4G. not to mention the obvious fact that during their general use of the iphone they have atleast once if not multiple times seen a "3G" symbol in their status bar.

BTW i would probably not answer a survey about a topic in a field which i have little or no interest in.
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I know nothing about the methodology for gathering this info so I have no comment on that. Even if the survey were voluntary, your point only holds if people were brought to it with an invitation along the lines of "Survey for 4G experts."

BTW, I have a 3G iPhone and I occasionally see "E" in my status bar. By your reasoning, I should assume I don't have 3G. If someone is convinced they have 4G, the 3G in the status bar isn't going to mean anything to them, especially if they're aware that 4G hasn't been rolled out everywhere yet.

Regardless, I was just calling people out for the holier-than-thou attitude. Not knowing your way around every tech topic does not make a person an idiot.
 
By 4G it's obvious Apple means LTE/WiMAX (Not HSPA+ because it's 3.9G).

iPhone 3G was named so because it had 3G connectivity.
iPhone 3GS was named so because it improved on the iPhone 3G.

iPod Touches are denoted 2nd gen and such, not 2G. iTouch 4G is not correct, iPod Touch 4th Gen is.
Likewise, the 3rd generation iPad will be called 3G by idiot consumers and cause massive confusion. :p;)
 
Is this a device manufacturer created problem or lack of consumer education from service providers in their efforts to one-up the competition?

It's a great statistic but rather useless unless some context surrounding the stat is given.
 
Hate to break it to you...

Prodo123 said:
By 4G it's obvious Apple means LTE/WiMAX (Not HSPA+ because it's 3.9G).

iPhone 3G was named so because it had 3G connectivity.
iPhone 3GS was named so because it improved on the iPhone 3G.

iPod Touches are denoted 2nd gen and such, not 2G. iTouch 4G is not correct, iPod Touch 4th Gen is.
Likewise, the 3rd generation iPad will be called 3G by idiot consumers and cause massive confusion. :p;)
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WiMax and LTE are currently 3.9G as well.
 
rmhop81 said:
really? none at all?
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The ITU's official 4G definition specifies 1Gbps download speeds for stationary or slow-moving devices (like handsets held by pedestrians) and 100Mbps download speeds for fast-moving devices (like a handset in a car or train).

4G is now being used by mobile operators as a marketing term for what are essentially 3.5G services (like HSPA+) or 3.9G services (like the current implementation of LTE). Future iterations of LTE will eventually qualify as true 4G per the ITU's definition.

Actually, I really won't call Verizon or AT&T's LTE as 3.9G; they're really more like 3.6G or 3.7G. They have a long ways to go to get to true 4G speeds. The LTE implementations in other markets should be further along. American mobile operators are a couple of years behind those in other industrialized nations.
 
wikus said:
Consumers are generally ignorant, especially apple consumers in the last 5 years (only buying apple because of the logo and pretty looks, nevermind function).
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welcome to the iOS generation
 
inkswamp said:
SMART people read the nutritional information and ingredients of everything they eat. Quick, how many calories and grams of sodium were in your breakfast this morning?

What, you got better things to do? :rolleyes:
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It depends if they are dieting & are watching what they are eating & that was a bad example, cause i read the nutritional charts, im a ex-bodybuilder and i watch what i eat >>> FAIL >>>
 
Let's make this thread more interesting;

turn it into a poll asking us if we have 4g on our iPhones.
 
SandboxGeneral said:
Just goes to show that the majority of people aren't tech savvy or care to know the details as long as it "just works."
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I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I wouldn't expect all consumers to be tech junkies if they don't have to be. They just need to get on with their everyday lives without tearing down their smartphones to see what parts are in it. Most don't do that with watches, toasters, refrigerators, etc., so why should they be all that concerned about the inner workings of their smartphones. If a product works well enough to their satisfaction or exceeds that, they'll stick with it. ;)
 
Prodo123 said:
By 4G it's obvious Apple means LTE/WiMAX (Not HSPA+ because it's 3.9G).

iPhone 3G was named so because it had 3G connectivity.
iPhone 3GS was named so because it improved on the iPhone 3G.

iPod Touches are denoted 2nd gen and such, not 2G. iTouch 4G is not correct, iPod Touch 4th Gen is.
Likewise, the 3rd generation iPad will be called 3G by idiot consumers and cause massive confusion. :p;)
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iphone was called iphone because it was the iphone
iphone 3g was called 3g because it wouldn't be a good marketing move to call it the "iPhone 2", since it barely got out from America until the 2nd gen
iphone 3gs was called 3gs because it was in fact the third gen, was an improvement over the 3g but with the same design, so it made sense to have similar names.
iPhone 4 was called 4 because it was the 4th gen. Apple didn't call it the 4G iPhone, EVER, just like it didn't call the first-gen "iPhone 2G", "iPhone EDGE", "iPhone 2007" or crap like that. It's user-made babbling. iPhone 4 is 4, not 4G, because "4G" is currently used to define phones with some degree of radio evolution which allows them to get superior-to-HSPA performance.

With the iPods the "xG" denomination actually makes sense, because there is no cellular radio, and no risk for mistaking with 4G, so you can shorten "G" for "generation".
 
cvaldes said:
I just bought a bottle of this.

Bonus: it works great with my Mac as well!

:D
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hahaha I was starting to believe after I read the explanation, then I saw customer review names:
Ted Smith
Todd Smith
Tina Smith
Toraidio Smith
Theresa Smith
Tim Smith

But I bet you could easily sell a bunch of those with some advertisement. I mean the "magic bracelets" (Bio Balance etc) do sell, although there is absolutely no scientific research about them.
 
gpat said:
iphone was called iphone because it was the iphone
iphone 3g was called 3g because it wouldn't be a good marketing move to call it the "iPhone 2", since it barely got out from America until the 2nd gen
iphone 3gs was called 3gs because it was in fact the third gen, was an improvement over the 3g but with the same design, so it made sense to have similar names.
iPhone 4 was called 4 because it was the 4th gen. Apple didn't call it the 4G iPhone, EVER, just like it didn't call the first-gen "iPhone 2G", "iPhone EDGE", "iPhone 2007" or crap like that. It's user-made babbling. iPhone 4 is 4, not 4G, because "4G" is currently used to define phones with some degree of radio evolution which allows them to get superior-to-HSPA performance.

With the iPods the "xG" denomination actually makes sense, because there is no cellular radio, and no risk for mistaking with 4G, so you can shorten "G" for "generation".
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someone who isn't tech savvy doesn't give a crap about all that. you can call an iPod an iPod 2G now bc you say it's ok? lol

ridiculous.

so now an iPod 3G is just 3rd generation it doesn't mean 3g data like the iPhone 3G? and you wonder why peeps get confused
 
rmhop81 said:
someone who isn't tech savvy doesn't give a crap about all that. you can call an iPod an iPod 2G now bc you say it's ok? lol

ridiculous.

so now an iPod 3G is just 3rd generation it doesn't mean 3g data like the iPhone 3G? and you wonder why peeps get confused
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Of course the "3G" on "iPod 3G" doesn't mean "3G Data" because there isn't any model with 3G data, so there shouldn't be any reason to get confused, as the iPod has no cellular data by definition.

So if I call the 3rd gen iPod nano "iPod Nano 3G" you get confused because the "3G" could mean "3G data"? LOL.
 
inkswamp said:
Regardless, I was just calling people out for the holier-than-thou attitude. Not knowing your way around every tech topic does not make a person an idiot.
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My apologies if my axiom offended. Yes, it's a tad incendiary but saying "The average consumer is rather ignorant" doesn't have the same flair. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that every consumer is an idiot, just that it is more common place than I feel it should be in today's information-age. And to be sure, there have been many occasions where I, as a consumer, have also been an idiot. So, I am not claiming to be holier than anyone else. Just stating my perspective.

- dejo, Frequent Average Consumer :D
 
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yay!

In other news: 34% of car owners don't know how to check oil level in their cars. They though their cars ran on gasoline, not oil.
 
HSPA+ is considered 4G - not the actual LTE-Advanced "4G", but 4G none-the-less
 
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