Android Users Aren't As Disloyal As Reported 246
ergo98 writes "As we discussed recently, a CNN article had a statement that '77% of iPhone owners say they'll buy another iPhone, compared to 20% of Android customers who say they'll buy another Android phone.' This was a gross misrepresentation. The CNN story now has up this note: 'Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that 20% of Android customers say they'll buy another Android phone. The survey actually revealed that 20% of all smartphone customers say they'll buy an Android phone.' The Yankee Group has further sought to clarify the situation by saying that the 20% are people who explicitly said they would buy a 'Google-branded' phone (which excludes the overwhelming majority of popular Android phones) — as Google gets out of the business of selling branded phones. Summarizing their position on Android: 'Yankee Group still believes that Android will become the next breakout mobile phone platform, making it the third most popular platform behind iPhone and RIM's Blackberry in installed base for at least the next five years.'"
Confirmation Bias? (Score:4, Interesting)
Someone here got accused of confirmation bias for doubting the study.
by gyrogeerloose (849181)
Alter Relationship
on Saturday July 24, @06:08PM (#33016628)
Who did they ask? People inside of Apple's campus.. You've got to be kidding me.
Got to love it--some research challenges your preconceived notions so, of course, the only thing to do is reconsider said notions, right?
Wrong. Better to disparage the research than admit they might have been incorrect.
Come on, parent is not a troll. (Score:3, Insightful)
by Abcd1234 (188840)
Alter Relationship
on Saturday July 24, @06:17PM (#33016700) Homepage
In fact, he nailed it spot on. The GP doesn't like the conclusions of the study, so he just assumes the study or the researchers are wrong. It's an excellent illustration of confirmation bias (or, in this case, its inverse).
Maybe it was actually confirmation bias from the said Apple fan, that Android was so disliked and hence he got taken in by the false report?
Re:What an Idiotic Blunder (Score:3, Interesting)
Some non-nexus phones are google branded. For example, I have a samsung moment, and it says "Google" on the outside in permanent lettering. So some android phones are additionally google branded
Still, it's pretty stupid to equate android with google branding.
Re:How many Android users know what they're using? (Score:2, Interesting)
My wife likes her HTC Magic (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact it is the only technological device she doesn't constantly complain about. The way it is going she will get a new phone of the same type when this one comes off contract.
Re:What an Idiotic Blunder (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll be sure to consider immediately discarding any statistics released by "Yankee Group" in the future, because they could have just "accidentally" forgot to mention some important detail. Ridiculous.
It's not their fault CNN Money fails at reading comprehension and cannot gist data correctly.
Re:How many Android users know what they're using? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Confirmation Bias? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe it was actually confirmation bias from the said Apple fan, that Android was so disliked and hence he got taken in by the false report?
An apple fan . . . admit they're wrong about Apple being the greatest thing since sliced bread? What weird world did you come from.
I'm an Apple fan, yet I have no problem admitting when they are wrong and their product shortcomings.
Sad to see Google bail on the hardware (Score:5, Interesting)
I really disappointed that Google is going to stop selling handsets. I was waiting for a Nexus Two.
I want a phone that has a pure (plain?) Android experience. I don't want the layers that Motorola and HTC add to differentiate themselves, not to mention all the bloatware. It wouldn't bother me so much if I was able to reformat a phone in the same way I can reformat a Dell or HP machine to clear off all the crap, but as far as I know, I can't.
Re:Damage is already done (Score:2, Interesting)
According to Nielsen [nielsen.com], Android market share in 2010 Q1 was 9%.
If 20% of the overall smartphone market wants to buy an Android phone next, then it means that:
20/9 = 222% of Android users will buy another Android phone!
Take that, Apple! Your 77% is nothing!
p.s. no, I don't believe in any way that this is correct way of looking at these numbers.
Re:It's still looks pretty bad...but it's not. (Score:4, Interesting)
I think Google will make another effort down the line. Android seems to be losing its focus, since it's becoming a lot like Windows Mobile in its execution. The ONLY phone shipping the "Google Experience" (i.e. Android as intended, more or less) was the Nexus One, every other phone out there has some sort of skin FORCEFULLY installed on it (HTC Sense, MOTOBLUR, TouchWiz, etc). To further feed the fire, many of those phones have tons of applications that are completely unnecessary and only seem to help the carrier --- COMPLETELY like the carrier-provided smart (and dumb!) phones that came before the smartphone explosion.
Forget the fact that most of these phones are a bit difficult to root/unlock. When a person buys an iPhone, they get software that, in its stock form, is EXACTLY as Apple intended it. It doesn't have Facebook or anything like that pre-installed; the user get the Apple bits right from the beginning, and everything added after that is entirely up to him or her. Not so when you buy Android...and the sad part is that the stock UI is actually quite good! It's not like Windows Mobile where HTC et. al. HAD to put TouchFLO/Sense on top of it because it was fugly compared to everything else out there.
Look at TouchWiz on the Vibrant, for instance. It tries really, really hard to provide an iPhone-like interface in hopes of being easy to use. The only problem is that it's not. They COULD try and provide something 'different' (which a LOT of people would probably appreciate, if it works) like HTC does with Sense, but that would make way too much sense.
Re:Strange article (Score:2, Interesting)
The CNN article only told half the story. [computerworld.com]
Re:Statistics (Score:4, Interesting)
Simple, the article is written by an Apple fanboi who is trying to find some way to skew things in Apple's favor.
Apple has 28% of the smartphone market, Android has 9%. 20% of ALL smartphone users say they are going to buy Android for their next phone. In other words, even if 100% of iPhone owners were saying they'd buy another IPhone the numbers indicate Android will soon overtake the IPhone in marketshare.
But they don't, only 77% say they intend to stick with the IPhone, indicating that while android should rise to 29% apple will drop from 28%.
Re:Meanwhile Off In Reality (Score:2, Interesting)
Not a troll, these are relevant facts and on topic with regard to the story.
A lot of heavy handed Apple modding in the comments on this one. Looks like some people weren't happy to lose their rosy picture.
Re:Sad to see Google bail on the hardware (Score:2, Interesting)
There are a number of Android phones that can have custom (or vanilla) roms flashed onto them. It's not really any harder now than reinstalling a stock version of an OS on your pc (instead of the rescue disks crap they give you now). The vast majority of the process is quite automated now.
See http://www.mydroidworld.com/ [mydroidworld.com] and their forums for the current state of what phones can bee rooted and what phones can be reflashed and with what. Heck many of the phones can even be overclocked if you so desire :)
Re:It's still looks pretty bad...but it's not. (Score:3, Interesting)
Android seems to be losing its focus, since it's becoming a lot like Windows Mobile in its execution. The ONLY phone shipping the "Google Experience" (i.e. Android as intended, more or less) was the Nexus One, every other phone out there has some sort of skin FORCEFULLY installed on it (HTC Sense, MOTOBLUR, TouchWiz, etc). To further feed the fire, many of those phones have tons of applications that are completely unnecessary and only seem to help the carrier --- COMPLETELY like the carrier-provided smart (and dumb!) phones that came before the smartphone explosion.
Apple's customer is the consumer, and they will fight the carriers to create the experience they believe the consumer will want. They may not deliver an experience you (or I) want, but they are trying to deliver an experience for an end user.
Google's customers are the carriers. They only want to keep the smartphone market segmented and open to their ad/search control. As long as they can sell your eyes and your personal information, they really don't care what your personal experience is. (Except it can't get SO bad that you can't stand to use any Android phone/carrier at all, robbing them of their real income.)
The only thing holding carriers back from totally ruining handsets again is the iPhone and a fanatical Steve Jobs who simply will not allow carriers to mess with things. Other carriers have seen how successful the iPhone is, and so have to at least make as if they care about customers and good design now. If Android trounced the iPhone and Apple went broke next year, we'd soon be back to the worst-of-all-possible-worlds ideas of addware-ladened PCs combined with carrier-controlled designs and restrictions.