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Apple leads smartphone customer satisfaction

By | October 8, 2009, 8:59am PDT

Apple is the top smartphone dog in both consumer and business satisfaction, according to J.D. Power and Associates 2009 rankings.

J.D. Power released a bevy of surveys gauging the satisfaction with traditional mobile phones and smartphones (statement). The surveys ranked vendors by whether consumers are using the phones for business or personal use. Apple led both categories.

Among smartphones used for personal reasons, Apple led the pack followed by LG and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry. Key factors for personal use include ease of use, operating system, features and designs. Here’s the breakdown:

In the business category, Apple was the top dog followed by RIM’s BlackBerry.

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Topics

J.D. Power Associates, Smart Phone, Apple Inc., Customer Satisfaction, Smart Phones, Handhelds, Cellular Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Hardware, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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RE: Apple leads smartphone customer satisfaction
dfwekrdfe56-24353621201615702709665493157816 Updated - 5th Nov
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0 Votes
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Let the flame wars begin
j.m.galvin 8th Oct 2009
nt
0 Votes
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No question that Apple changed the game
davebarnes 8th Oct 2009
over 2 years ago.
Why aren't the others catching up?

Nokia seems to have disappeared.
Microsoft latest 6.5 is a disappointment even to Paul Thurrott.
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I can understand the reference to
GuidingLight 8th Oct 2009
Nokia, but Microsoft has nothing to do with this. The operating system can be only as good as the hardware it is loaded on.

That would be like blaming Android just because someone loaded it on a lousy phone.
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"...only as good as the hardware..."
brian ansorge 8th Oct 2009
Guess you'd have a hard time explaining why people have tried so hard to get OS X running on non-Macintosh Intel boxes.

Or, conversely, why *nobody* would even dream of desecrating a Macintosh with Vista.

Don't even bother *trying* to explain. You'd only look foolish.

So, which "hardware" does Vista *not* suck on? Which "hardware" will Vista 2.0 *not* suck on?
  • Flagged
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Vista?
wright_is 8th Oct 2009
Doesn't run on any 'phone, as far as I'm aware...

Vista doesn't suck on my iMac, my Toshiba Tecra or my Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo P, it is okay on the HP I've just set up for one of the managers as well...

That said, the hardware argument for WindowsMobile is bogus. The hardware is often excellent, but the internals of Windows Mobile / Windows Phone are so burried in the past that they are difficult to use with a finger. You can do it, I did, but it isn't fun. The iPhone, on the other hand, is FUN!

Same for the BlackBerry, it is a pain to use, I'm for ever hitting the wrong keys and the user interface is dreadful.
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"Nokia seems to have disappeared"
Sleeper Service 8th Oct 2009
Aside from the 40% smartphone market share you mean?

This is a US survey and Nokia don't sell in the US to any degree.
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When open source Semaphore OS comes out - the rest will be out of business
j.m.galvin 8th Oct 2009
Simple, free and open source.

Every cell phone maker will be buried

http://www.braingle.com/brainteasers/codes/semaphore.php
0 Votes
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Proving once again that the consumer ....
ShadeTree 8th Oct 2009
... that buys Apple products has to reassure themselves that they made the right choice. With the spotty phone performance and absense of 3G coverage associated with the iPhone how does anyone justify being satisfied?
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I see...
msalzberg Updated - 8th Oct 2009
so any Apple customer who's satisfied isn't really satisfied; he only
thinks he is.

Does that logic only apply to Apple's customers, or are all satisfied
customers really unsatisfied?
0 Votes
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It applies to iphone customers ....
ShadeTree 8th Oct 2009
... who have spotty voice and data coverage, who also just now received the ability to send picture messages and bluetooth stereobut not AVCRP, etc... In other words, all the lemmings that put up with the deficiencies in the iPhone and still rate it highly.
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Extremely humorous
NonZealot 8th Oct 2009
Funny how the rabid Apple fanboys will doubt physical logs of dropped call statistics because of a poorly run, self selecting opinion based survey!
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Please link
oncall 9th Oct 2009
The physical logs. Or are you just referring to what one Apple Genius at one
store said?
0 Votes
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Give up...
msalzberg 11th Oct 2009
NonZealot is not telling the truth. He'll just run away to avoid answering
for his lies.
0 Votes
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Now I get it...
msalzberg 8th Oct 2009
the survey doesn't mean what it says, it means what you say.

I'd love to see the methodology you used to skew your results. Did you,
for example, cut out all data on HTCs crappy phones?
0 Votes
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No , I don't think you do get it ....
ShadeTree Updated - 8th Oct 2009
... Koolaid drinker. The complaints about crappy coverage, (voice and data) come from iPhone users. Have you seen the complaints from Jason O'Grady, a self-confessed Apple fanboy, in his blog on this site? The fact that Apple leaves out features even though they are present in every other smart phone to force you guys to rebuy the next generation is well documented. The first iPhone had no 3G. Buy the next version and get 3G but no picture messaging or Bluetooth stereo. No problem buy the next generation. Now that they have duped you once again be sure and go praise them in a satisfaction survey! P.T. Barnum was right when he said "there is a sucker born every second". What he failed to mention was they are known as the Apple faithfull!
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Break It Down
DannyO_0x98 8th Oct 2009
Company markets device and makes promises. Based on promises,
price, and, perhaps general reputation of manufacturer, customer
buys product. After some period of use, someone asks if the customer
is satisfied with the product they bought.

I suppose one could argue that those satisfied customers are idiots,
but why bother? As to features found in other phones, that's generally
irrelevant. If other features were compelling enough, they would have
left the iPhone, gotten that other smartphone, and their opinions are
found in the numbers for that manufacturer. If the other features
weren't enough to sell that other phone, than the customer does not
have a basis of comparison. Rightly or wrongly, people blame dropped
calls on the service provider.

Somehow, something as innocuous as iPhone buyers are happy with
their iPhone requires your commentary. Why do you even care?

A rhetorical question I leave suspended as I head out the door.
0 Votes
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Somehow, something as innocuous as ...
ShadeTree 9th Oct 2009
...me sharing my opinion forces you to reply. Why do you even care?

A rhetorical question I leave suspended as I head out the door.
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"how does anyone 'justify' being satisfied ..."
brian ansorge 8th Oct 2009
Probably the same way *you* justify commenting on a phone *you* don't even own.

Kool-Aid?

You drink from Steve Ballmer's cup.

All those "satisfied" iPhone users? Nothing to do with the *hardare* or *OS* or *provider.*

Nothing at all. Keep telling yourself that.;)

0 Votes
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I don't have to be poked ....
ShadeTree 8th Oct 2009
... in the eye to know it hurts! You know if you were being honest you would probably realize that you can compare features and user reviews without buying the product. I know you Apple faithful tend to assume it is the greatest thing out there just because it come from Apple but some of us compare products before declaring the winner. t makes sense though. Since you guys never try anything else you probably are satisfied!
0 Votes
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New Apple ad
NonZealot Updated - 8th Oct 2009
iPhone (with no 3G in 2007): $599
iPhone 3G (painfully slow device): $599
iPhone 3G S (still with one of the lowest resolutions available on any smartphone): $599
Having Apple fanatics pay for an upgrade every year to get features everyone else has had for years and then flood the forums with apologies: priceless

happy
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iPhone - Not just in San Francisco
wright_is 9th Oct 2009
Here in Germany, the network used is the ex-state run T-Mobile. The coverage is excellent, 3G coverage is good and I've never had a dropped call or any other problems with the service. Just because AT&T dropped the ball doesn't mean that all iPhone users suffer.

I think O2 in the UK is very similar, as are most of the other European countries.

That said, the tech support failed, my original handset was faulty and was returned 3 times, before the acknowledged the fault and replaced it. Since then it has been fine.

I have an htc Touch Pro, which I used for over a year, as well as the iPhone and a company BlackBerry in my desk drawer. The only one I use is the iPhone, the BB and TP are horrible to use, in comparison.
0 Votes
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RE: Apple leads smartphone customer satisfaction
Loverock Davidson 8th Oct 2009
A phone with 30% dropped call rate gets #1 in customer satisfaction? There is something wrong with this ranking system.
0 Votes
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So maybe that "30% dropped call rate"...
msalzberg 8th Oct 2009
is fiction.

But I see you also believe that Apple's satisfied customers aren't really
satisfied; they only think they are.
0 Votes
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I can imagine somebody like that . . .
brian ansorge 8th Oct 2009
telling their spouse [after finding out they have been "cheating" with some other man/woman for several months]:

"but, you only *think* you are being satisfied!"

"Really, I'm a good lover, really I am!"

"What does s/he have that I *don't* have?"

[You don't even want to know!]

  • Flagged
0 Votes
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new york
bannedfromzdnetagain 8th Oct 2009
did it ever appear to you that not all iphone users live in new york?
0 Votes
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Please show us proof of that...
msalzberg 8th Oct 2009
30% dropped call rate.
0 Votes
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Which model phone was used for HTC, RIM, Nokia, etc.?
NonZealot 8th Oct 2009
Presumably, to keep the test fair, they only tested 1 model in the same category and price range from each manufacturer, right? So can you please tell us which single model of phone they used for each of the manufacturers?

Also, it would be nice if the graphs were actually displayed on a 1,000 point scale instead of zooming in to make the differences look huge. Regraphing this on a scale of 0 - 1000, you see that the differences are negligible, something that smashes the arguments of the Apple fanboys that Apple is miles ahead of everyone else. It makes it even worse if, as I suspect, they did not restrict testing to one model from the other manufacturers. For all we know, people are extremely satisfied with HTC's high end touch screen phones but don't really like the others. This survey simply doesn't, and can't, address that point. I know whenever any iPhone owner sees my HTC Touch Diamond, they realize that they made the wrong choice. happy

But hey, as click-bait, this article worked as intended. Good job!
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If you really wanted answers...
msalzberg 8th Oct 2009
about the methodology you'd check with JD Power, which conducted
the survey.

You should notice, however, that it is a survey of brands, not
individual models.

If you're unhappy with the results because HTC makes cheap, shoddy
phones as well as your favorite, perhaps you should try to convince
HTC to focus on quality for its entire product line.

I fully agree, by the way, with your comments on the graphs. A graph
with 60% cut off is very misleading. Of course, that won't change the
results.
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Stop stalking me.
NonZealot 8th Oct 2009
Seriously, your obsession is disturbing.
  • Flagged
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"Whenever they *see* ... Touch Diamond ..."
brian ansorge 8th Oct 2009
"...they 'realize' they made a wrong choice."

Likewise [taking the TROLL bait]:

"Whenever they *use* an iPhone, they *realize* they made the *right* choice."

It's that simple, really.

The numbers speak for themselves.

The MCSE monkeys, MS Fanbois and Shills speak for themselves.
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Really? What numbers? Where?
NonZealot 8th Oct 2009
What numbers show that the iPhone has higher customer satisfaction than the HTC Touch Diamond?
0 Votes
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Which model phone was used for Apple?
msalzberg 8th Oct 2009
iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB? The $99 model or the
$299 model?

It would be misleading to compare a $99 iPhone with a $299 Blackberry,
wouldn't it?
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iphone users love their phone?
bannedfromzdnetagain 8th Oct 2009
oh the humanity! that can't be true! but what about all those
missing features? you can't even use it with a pen! this can't
be right. i don't belive it! no, i refuse to believe that!!
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Believe It
yobtaf 9th Oct 2009
Sour grapes
0 Votes
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Waiting for response...
wright_is 8th Oct 2009
from my CEO. He traded his BlackBerry for an iPhone yesterday... He never liked the BlackBerry and always travelled with a Palm M5 in his pocket for appointments etc. As he could never get on with the BlackBerry keyboard and input methods.

I've been using a WM phone, played with a BlackBerry and use my personal iPhone, all with the company Exchange Server.

To be honest, the iPhone provides the best experience of the three and with Apple's iPhone config tool, it is a doddle to update with new policies and certificates.
0 Votes
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RE: Apple leads smartphone customer satisfaction
dfwekrdfe56-24353621201615702709665493157816 Updated - 5th Nov
Fantastic lions jerseys piece detroit lions jerseys of writing ?C Image battling with lion jerseys this type of to obtain pretty some time to it happens to be outstanding to this important personal information.

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