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Wireless Networking Handhelds Iphone

Android Users Aren't As Disloyal As Reported 246

Posted by kdawson from the ask-the-right-question dept.
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.'"
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Android Users Aren't As Disloyal As Reported More

Android Users Aren't As Disloyal As Reported

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  • Confirmation Bias? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by recoiledsnake ( 879048 ) on Monday July 26, 2010 @06:44PM (#33038320)

    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: (Score:2, Funny)

      by OverlordQ ( 264228 )

      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.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by therealobsideus ( 1610557 )

        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.

    • Re:Confirmation Bias? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MobileTatsu-NJG ( 946591 ) on Monday July 26, 2010 @06:56PM (#33038442)

      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?

      Why does this have to be an 'either/or' question? We all know surveys like this don't really provide an actual usable data.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by WrongSizeGlass ( 838941 )

        Why does this have to be an 'either/or' question? We all know surveys like this don't really provide an actual usable data.

        Actually, 77% of these surveys don't really provide usable data. 20% want to be an Android survey.

    • Re:Confirmation Bias? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MintOreo ( 1849326 ) on Monday July 26, 2010 @07:00PM (#33038478)
      Woo, my confirmation bias tells me your incredulity is confirmation bias.

      In my experience people who bemoan others for 'preconceived notions' are most often the ones truly guilty of it. Similarly, to be 'open-minded' has simply come to mean 'alternately' or 'unconventionally' 'minded'. Sad world we live in where cultural-mental 'progress' is merely a shift and all the same problems exist; but I've gotten off topic.

    • Push Poll (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TheMeuge ( 645043 )

      This is a marketing strategy known as the Push Poll (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_poll).

      You ask the questions in such a way as to get the answer you want.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sancho ( 17056 ) *

        That's not really how the article describes push polling, which is more of a way of campaigning (or mudslinging) than a method of polling. Push polling is a way to get the people you poll to think something is true. This is more of a manipulation of the poll in order to get the results you want so that the rest of the world thinks that your outcome is true.

    • 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?

      Or maybe gyrogeerloose's reaction of "This poll result can't be right because I don't believe it" was an illogical one even though it was ultimately correct.

      • Often times if it smells there's something wrong. It doesn't apply to genuine fanbois, but frequently when a study seems incredible it's because the study was done incorrectly. Which is easy to do a minor shift in wording can get an entirely different result. In this case I doubt very much that Android users are that unloyal, it's just kind of hard to know since it's still in development and isn't as well defined as what an iPhone is.

    • Just because you were vindicated in hindsight doesn't mean they didn't have a point. Did your doubt of the announced conclusion of the study arise from examining the study itself and its methodology, or at least a track record of bad reporting by the reporter? Or was it based on the (announced) conclusions, and a refusal to believe them?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        I'm going to guess neither. I'd imagine it was more of an application of Sagan's Law: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

        A study that says that a popular smartphone OS is so bad that only 20% of its users plan to buy another one is an extraordinary claim. If that were true, there's no way that a second or third manufacturer would start building phones based on the same OS and technology, much less the almost two DOZEN smartphone makers currently building Android-based phones. Even as an

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by blair1q ( 305137 )

      Well, no, this is how thinking works.

      Something comes up from the back of your brain to the middle, and the middle says "yeah that's right" or "wait a second, that can't be right" and if it thinks it's right the front of your brain makes it come out your face.

      In the hive-mind we do the same thing, only journalists are the back of the brain and the rest of us are the middle and there is no real front. So there's lots of uncoordinated data coming from the back and we're in the middle judging its quality and i

    • The original comment here [slashdot.org].....says absolutely nothing other than, "I don't like the results of the study and so I think it's false." If he had given any evidence at all, any at all, for why he believed that way, you might argue that it wasn't confirmation bias. If he had even given commentary, like this guy [slashdot.org], he wouldn't have been accused of confirmation bias (and that guy got modded up).

      The fact is, if all you have to say is "I don't like the results of this study" then how can you say it's not confirma

  • It's as if millions of fanboys suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced

  • What an Idiotic Blunder (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ceraphis ( 1611217 ) on Monday July 26, 2010 @06:45PM (#33038328)
    Not only did I not trust Yankee Group's numbers before, but now I realize they asked an ignorant question about "google branded" phones? What the hell sense does that have in a comparison between iPhones and Android phones? 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.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by DriedClexler ( 814907 )

      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: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Em Ellel ( 523581 )

        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.

        If you read the links, "Google Branded" only includes phones manufactured under Google name (i.e. Nexus One) - does not include the "Google Inside" stickers on some Android phones. They only collected data on manufacturer name of the phone, not os - so they have no idea on Android stats as same manufacturers would manufacture non-Android phones.

        -Em

    • Re:What an Idiotic Blunder (Score:4, Interesting)

      by OverlordQ ( 264228 ) on Monday July 26, 2010 @06:57PM (#33038456) Journal

      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.

    • Not only did I not trust Yankee Group's numbers before, but now I realize they asked an ignorant question about "google branded" phones? What the hell sense does that have in a comparison between iPhones and Android phones? 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.

      At least they are honest. From the Yankee Group's Blog (linked in story above):

      So what is the right statistic for Android owners? The honest answer is that we don’t know.

      Its not like they are selling statistics.... oh, wait....

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by roc97007 ( 608802 )

      Re: Google branded; People fully immersed in a traditional closed-architecture business model may have trouble wrapping their brains around Android.

      The i-phone is a device created by a manufacturer. It has a gui and an app store and a bazillion apps and these things only run on the device from this manufacturer. Sales of the device are easy to track -- Apple sells a certain number of phones, and that is the sum total of i-phones sold.

      Android is not a device. Trivially it's an operating system, but

      • I don't think it's really all that different from comparing Windows market share to Mac OS or even just OS X (to keep things slightly simpler and more relevant) market share. Windows is an OS which runs on hardware sold by lots of manufacturers and there are numerous versions of it in use at any point in time. OS X is software developed by Apple to run on hardware sold by Apple. There are still a few versions of it in use at any point in time.

        There's really nothing here that should be confusing to anyone

  • How many Android users know what they're using? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Monday July 26, 2010 @06:45PM (#33038334)
    I know a number of people who have "that cool phone" or "the phone I saw on that tv show". They dont know its Android since thats not really a brand name. This is expounded by how different the UI elements are on different brands Android phones. HTC looks quite different from Motorola (stupid moto-blur) and so on. Some manufacturers are even rebranding Google funconality, see the "Genius Button".
    • Exactly. With the exception of Verizon, the other 3 major carriers have done a pretty poor job of branding their Android phones. AT&T's branding is nearly non-existent (look at the commercials for the Backflip and the HTC Aria could be a Windows Mobile phone from the screenshots they show...)

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by 16K Ram Pack ( 690082 )
      In the UK, the phone shops are now mentioning that phones are Android.

    • Well maybe "google phone" is the right phrase - since most of them have the Google logo on them (on the back).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hadlock ( 143607 )

      I doubt many people (i.e. "consumers") make the connection between the whole dark and stormy "Droid Does" marketing campaign and the light and airy green Android robot mascot.

  • AT&T and Apple couldn't have bought better advertising.

    Even the original statement, 20% of android users are going to get a new phone vs 77% of apple users being happy was biased reporting. If reported in an unbiased manner that would be 80% happy android users vs 77% Apple or 20% unhappy vs 23%, etc. Both would be the positive or the negative.

    Note: As a mildly respected member of the Slashdot community I didn't RTFA just TFS so the article may not have been biased at all.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by semiotec ( 948062 )
      So let's play some numbers game.

      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.

      • That's 77% of apple users, not 77% of the market. That was 20% of the market buying androids (or 'google brand phone') so these numbers do indicate an increase in android market share.

        • That's 77% of apple users, not 77% of the market. That was 20% of the market buying androids (or 'google brand phone') so these numbers do indicate an increase in android market share.

          Its 20% of ALL users with smartphones (including iPhones) say they would buy an Android phone next. The comparable number for that from same study is 34% of all users with smarphones (including iPhones) would buy iPhone (if you do math, that means 12% of non-Apple smartphone users). From same study 77% of iPhone users would buy another iPhone, while 32% of Google Brand phone users (meaning pretty much G1 or NexusOne only, not Android in general) would buy another Google Branded phone( which is insane, consi

      • So let's play some numbers game.

        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.

        It is at least as "correct" as their way. But if you read carefully, they include the iPhone users in the "smartphone" category. Two can play this game -- we can do some "math" too.

        Assuming iPhone in the study is represented roughly same as the market share (28%), this would really skew the numbers in its favor. Lets un-skew. This means that of 34% Smartphone users that would buy iPhone as their next phone, 22% (28%*0.77) are already iPhone users - meaning that only 12% (34%-22%) of the users would switch

    • Offtopic?

  • The iPhone will lose if Apple continues to treat customers the way it currently does.

  • Since putting my 'proper' job on hold I've clocked up around 2 months of 16-hour days working on my first Android game, with roughly a month to go, so it would be great if the whole world would buy Android phones please!

    Oh and if everyone could also start pining for a retro-style vertically-scrolling shoot-em-up then that would be great too :-)

  • My wife likes her HTC Magic (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MichaelSmith ( 789609 ) on Monday July 26, 2010 @06:57PM (#33038448) Homepage Journal

    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: (Score:2)

      by IrquiM ( 471313 )

      And a friend of mine tells me she "want's that iPhone you have!", which is a HTC Desire.

  • Another phone? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Monday July 26, 2010 @06:57PM (#33038458) Journal

    Why would you need two phones?

  • A lot of people automatically associate Android with Google because the first line of Android-capable phones (G1, Hero, myTouch3G) were marketed that way. In fact, I think the release of the Droid on Verizon officially put a stop to that trend, but I'm not entirely sure about that. Thus, I'd say that surveying how many are likely to get Google-branded phones is a pretty reasonable indicator of how well Android is doing in the marketplace.

    Nonetheless, even though Android doesn't seem to be getting a lot of love lately (or at least according to this survey), the thing to keep in mind is that Android's market presence has become notably stronger since the G1 came out. I honestly think that from a phone perspective, the Nexus One had serious potential to realistically compete with the iPhone (3GS) behemoth, considering that it's similar to the iPhone while offering a completely different, and completely usable, experience at a lower price. It's a shame that Google (and T-Mobile!) didn't promote the phone as actively as they could have; it had TONS of potential. Look at how well the Droid's doing on Verizon! (Yes, the Samsung Galaxy S line is much more feature-rich, but it's a toy. The Nexus One was a statement...and a damned good looking one.)

    Let's put it this way: at least it's not just Blackberry and Windows Mobile anymore!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Belial6 ( 794905 )
      It is a shame that Google isn't going to put out an Nexus 2. Contrary to what most people think, I believe the Nexus One was a great success. Just look at home much press Android 2.2 is getting. Yet, the Nexus One is still the only phone that has it. How long would it take for other phones to get the new OS if there wasn't an existing phone on the market that was running it? The Nexus One may not have taken over the hardware market, but it was an astounding success in advertising, and a huge factor in
      • It was a great success. Look at the phones that have been released before (Droid, Aria, Espresso, Behold, etc.) and after (Droid X, Galaxy S, EVO) the Nexus One. I won't say that it was directly responsible for the proliferation of seriously powerful and (reasonably) feature-packed devices, but it did push the platform forward just like the G1 did.

        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.

        • everything added after that is entirely up to him or her.

          ... well, unless it's porn, flash, or anything programmable ... currently.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by wfolta ( 603698 )

          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 g

      • ? My HTC Hero came from sprint with OS Version 2.2 preloaded.

        I also believe the Evo has 2.2

    • "Thus, I'd say that surveying how many are likely to get Google-branded phones is a pretty reasonable indicator of how well Android is doing in the marketplace. "

      Not when your surveyors are only calling people with actual google branded phones from lists provided by the carriers like these guys.

    • P.S. The story put the lack of love spin on the numbers. The numbers did not.

      Per Neilson Android has 9% market share, IPhone has 28%. This says only 77% of Iphoners are going to keep their phones and 20% of the entire market (including iphoners) are going to buy an Android.

      That means if these numbers are correct Android will soon have a greater marketshare than the IPhone.

      But that was before the front page CNN article telling everyone the IPhone rocks and Android sux0rs.

  • That's the key finding in a survey released this week by Yankee Group, which reports that 73% of iPhone users are very satisfied with AT&T's service.

    The satisfaction rate of AT&T subscribers as a whole is 68%, and only 69% of smartphone users say they are satisfied with their mobile provider, Yankee Group found.

    So... a whopping 5% (4% if you confine yourself to smartphones, which they rather broadly defined) more iPhone users are satisfied with AT&T than the aggregate of all subscribers? What was the margin of error on this? Why is it a story that a tiny bit more iPhone users are satisfied with their provider than non-iPhone users?

  • Does knowing your particular phone sold more/less/is an iPhone really matter?

    Who's keeping score? Why?

    All I care about is that there are smart phones on the market that aren't WinMo, BB or Symbian.

  • Maybe they're just a little less *restricted*.

    :-)

  • Sad to see Google bail on the hardware (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Eponymous Coward ( 6097 ) on Monday July 26, 2010 @07:12PM (#33038628)

    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: (Score:2)

      by Drew M. ( 5831 )

      Let's see... Google gave all of their employees the G1 for Christmas of 2008, same happened with the Nexus One for Christmas of 2009. Maybe you should check back around Christmas time.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by daemonc ( 145175 )

      Personally, I was waiting for the Nexus 6 model... it's seen things you people wouldn't believe.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by bm_luethke ( 253362 )

      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 :)

  • Buy whatever phone you like and shut up about it.

    • Bravo!

      (deep breath) It's JUST a PHONE, people. That felt good.

      ...unless it's running Winders Mobile. Man, I hated that phone.

  • The Yankee Group (Score:4, Informative)

    by gavron ( 1300111 ) on Monday July 26, 2010 @08:49PM (#33039398)

    The Yankee Group has been a microsoft shil for years!

    Do the math.

    I'm not sure how much of a "group" they are. After all, they have more directors and officers than "analysts." Still I'm sure the microsoft money is good.. http://www.yankeegroup.com/listAnalysts.do [yankeegroup.com]

    E

  • Honestly, I think the popularity of these products will increase with time. Right now, it's pretty frustrating, because like a full-blown computer, you have to be concerned with the version a phone is running, and whether or not upgrades are going to be available for it!

    EG. Nextel finally has an Android phone out as of yesterday that supports "push to talk" on their IDEN network. This is great news for those of us with companies stuck on Nextel because so many people are using them as walkie-talkies. Pr

  • Suddenly CNN news Google news rank tanked to the level of the primary school blog

    That should fix'em :-)

    Google ... do some harm, for your fanboys

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