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"We’ve been completely blown away by the customer response" to the iPhone 5, says an Apple...
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Friday, September 14, 2012, 6:19 PM ET"We’ve been completely blown away by the customer response" to the iPhone 5, says an Apple (AAPL +1.2%) spokeswoman. The strong early demand has already been enough for two of Apple's biggest sell-side fans to sing its praises again. Topeka's Brian White now thinks his projections for 10M-12M FQ4 iPhone 5 sales could be conservative. Piper's Gene Munster predicts the phone's feel and build will take consumers by surprise, and notes its social media buzz has been very strong.
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Really.... certainly not scientific, but I just count.... same thing on the street..... call it 8 out of 10- does that mean all 80% will upgrade- of course not.... still, you do the lunch count where you are at. Out of every 10.... how many iPhones?
While riding metro/commuter-train in Singapore and Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) I saw lots of iPhones (about 8 out of 10) among students, businessmen, housewives and senior citizens. [people here have higher standard of living though]
During my wife's trip to Korea (Seoul) she noticed EVERYONE with the 4" Samsung and NOBODY has iPhone (which attest to Korean's patriotism).
In Taiwan I saw a mixture of more HTC, some iPhone and a few Samsung (and lots of relatives/friends asking if I can get them iPhone)
In China, I saw people with cheap knock-off (but nice looking) non-smart phone. But when I do see someone with an iPhone, I also notice he/she being in the middle to high income (the rich) category with nice cars, wardrob, "real" LV purse and/or is a business owner or politician.
In Hong Kong and the nearby ShengZhen (China border), I saw not just iPhones but and lots of phones that accepts dual-sim-cards because people cross the border between HK and China to work/visit.
In metro Philippines I saw most people with non-smart phone and they only use SMS text and rarely call each other (something screwy with their telco because it cost a fortune to call but very cheap to text) and most people are pre-paid, and has a system of transfer phone credits among friends.
I was in Canada recently, and you guessed it, ALMOST EVERYONE used Blackberry.
In Southern California, I see more iPhones than Galaxy, just like what you saw at SF.
My conclusion? Apple still have a lot of markets they have yet to penetrate!!!
It seems to be a "fashion statement" like carrying Coach, Dooney Bourke, Trafalgar; ride the wave.
I noticed something beyond that the Kindle family was high on the list. It's down the list a few spots now because of the release of the new Kindle line, but no 8 on the list of best sellers is the Apple TV. Which Apple considers a "hobby", but on the best sellers list it's the highest rated best seller out of the Kindle family.
Apple has the best marketing campaign around. I wish I could learn something from them about marketing so I can retire rich very soon. Some of the perceptions that Apple managed to convince people:
Apple's products are easy and intuitive to use - So are my Sony Vaio laptops, Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Blackberry Playbook. My wife who is not technologically inclined and I never had to read instruction manuals to use these devices.
Apple's products just work - So are my devices noted above. We turn them on and they just work.
Apple's products are higher quality and more reilable - My oldest Sony VAIO laptop running XP is almost 7 years old now and is still working. My daughters use MBP. One of theirs died completely just after 2 years. I believe the motherboard died beyond repair.
Apple's ecosystem makes life easy for their users - My MSFT and Adroid ecosystem also serve me very well.
Apple has some nice products. But their strength is in their product differentiation and marketing. They are just in a league by themselves as far as marketing is concerned.
I am an engineer by training and am too logical. I just think their products are not worth the extra money.
You're overlooking something. Watch Judge Judy. The people that come up before her are not engineers. They are far more representative of America than an engineer. Look at all the people working in McDonalds, Burger King, Target and Wal*Mart. In the big scheme of things those people are average. The not so smart ones are working in the back.
Re: "I am an engineer by training and am too logical. I just think their products are not worth the extra money. "
Your logic is based on you. You have to base your logic on the mass public. Look at how "complex" TVs are to operate. Do you know how many people were unable to set the time on their VHS players when they lost power? Manufacturers have pretty much stopped putting clocks in TV sets. People couldn't figure how to set the time [or didn't want to take the miniscule effort].
My wife has a Samsung Galaxy III; a top notched phone. I have an iPhone 4S. They weren't substantially different in cost .... if at all. I retired as a systems engineer/senior scientist and there is no doubt at all in my mind that the iPhone is more intuitive than the Galaxy.
Switch to Windows for a minute. I've always built my own desktop systems. I wouldn't even consider buying a Dell. Can you tell me why after a couple of decades I'm still defragging my hard drive? I know why I'm doing it. But why do I have to do it? Do I really want to spend my time defragging my hard drive or tweaking my registry file.
If I went to buy a computer "Tweaking my registry file" is no where on my priority list. It certainly isn't intuitive. I want to tweak Android as much as I want to tweak the firmware in my car. Do you ever look at the menu system for your TV and get the itch to dig into the firmware and change the desktop? I sure don't.
You're falling in the trap so many engineers fall into. You're asking the wrong questions. You're asking about pixels and all other sorts of specs. A system's engineer would ask different questions.
Use your engineer logic and answer the question. Why has the iphone received the top award for customer satisfaction 8 years in a row? Why do Apple products always get the highest customer satisfaction ratings?
User your engineer logic and answer why the ipad accounts for 91% of all tablet web traffic. If the other tablets are just as good, why don't Android tablets account for a lot larger percentage of web traffic. They are at least 30% of the tablet market but only take 9% of web traffic. Why?
Old story about Steve Jobs lambasting an engineer at Apple for how long it took to boot up the operating system. Wasted time. As an engineer you probably shrug off 90 seconds, 60 seconds ... who cares? Steve Jobs cared. I look at my Windows 7 PC and it's pretty clear that Microsoft doesn't care how long it takes my system to boot up. They don't care whether I need to defrag my hard drive. They don't care whether I need to defrag my Registry for system performance.
I'm sick and tired of Microsoft not caring and my next system is going to be an iMac. And it's not because I work at Wal*Mart, I want my computing power to be an appliance not a tool. There's a big difference between an "appliance" and a "tool".
I was given a brand new Dell laptop with Windows 7 by my practice. I've used Windows XP at work for the past decade plus. In know Windows. I hate Windows. The Dell laptop is cheap looking, thick, heavy. I can't stand how clumsy the trackpad is. I had to attack a mouse. I had the IT guy set up my MacBook Pro so it can access our EMR and I don't use the Dell at all. I wouldn't pay $100 for it.
Too bad about your daughter's MBP. I bet if she bothered to take it into the Genius Bar that they would have fixed it or given her a new one, even out of warranty. We've had several instances where Apple has replaced or fixed our out of warranty products for free. The customer service is the best.
Many of your points are well taken. I have not done any disk defrag since the early days of MS DOS and that was a long time ago. I did it because I wanted to have better performance and save disk space. I think that need is essentially gone now with the advance of large capacity disk.
Over the years, I had to call MSFT for support a few times, primarily over driver for old device on new OS. I agree with you that I got the bouncing around between them and the device manufacturers. That was annoying.
As for setting time on VCR. I did have the same problem if I did not have manual with me because of the requirement of holding combination of keys and sequence. This problem is essentially gone now with the use of system, network or internet clock.
As for surfing the net from tablet, I don't know why iPad owners surfed more than others. My wife and I used the Blackberry Playbook to surf when we were sitting in front of the TV, basically, multi-taksing. Other times, we used our laptop. I don't surf in public places like Starbuck. May be the difference is due to demographic of the owners of iPad and other tablets. This should be an interesting market survey.
As for whether Apple's products are more intuitive than others, I am of the opinion that it all depends on the end users. Over the years, I had thought about switching over to Apple but did not. I have tried my daughters' MBP and my relatives' iPad, I did not find them any more intuitive than my Sony VAIO laptop, Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Blackberry Playbook. Like I said before, my wife is the least technologically inclined person I know of and she can use these devices without much coaching from me. That is good enough for me.
IMHO
Where I volunteer, we have a dozen or so pcs running XP. Old PCs admittedly, but we have to run periodic maintenance to include defragging to have a tolerable performance .
You're still doing the same thing. You're taking an extremely small sample, your family, and extrapolating it to millions of people. As an engineer you should know you need at least a thousand or so random samples to come up with a estimate that has a plus/minus 3% probability of being right.
It doesn't mean squat what YOU do with your Playbook. When you make an estimate based on a non random sampling of 3 or 4 users [e.g., your family] what accuracy do you get with your prediction at +/-1 standard deviation?
You're making excuses on the VCR time. You're coming up with one reason why an engineer can't change a clock. You need a manual. Since when has an engineer needed a manual? And by suggesting it's irrelevant now is ... irrelevant. The point wasn't the detail, the point was there was a huge number of people that couldn't handle changing the clock. I doubt it was because everyone was an engineer who lost their manual.
Making "simple" isn't simple. I was beta testing some windows s/w our company was making for a client. One of the numerous problems I found was that they used the F10 key to call up the help menu. When I pointed out to these s/w engineers that the standard was F1, the response I got back was the client will learn that with our s/w it's F10. Morons. It shipped out that way. Guess what one of the first comments from the client was? "Where do I find the Help menu, it's not at F1." ... Classic engineer mentality. "The user can figure it out." That is NOT Apple engineering.
My wife got a Galaxy S3, I'm embarrassed to admit it but I pushed her in that direction because of the screen size. Intuitive junk. I installed 3 different s/w solutions that were supposed to allow me to sync with iTunes. None of them worked. I'm sure I could figure it out eventually but that isn't how I want to spend my time and if I left it to my wife, she would never have music on her S3. It's headed back to AT&T this morning.
A quick check of the Play store looking for apps that I have on my iPhone shows they aren't available. Pocket for one.
I get sucked into helping a friend with his Droid. He's had it well over a month and doesn't do anything with it other than make phone calls. ... But he's proud he has LTE and it was a better bargain then an iPhone.
Tell me what's "logical" about ignoring that the iPhone has won the JD Powers award for best phone 8 years in a row. Everything you write ignores that.
I noticed the iPhones at the opening ceremony. There is plenty of talk about how Apple is not as popular as Samsung (and others) outside the US.
Someone forgot to tell the athletes from these countries.
I believe the one without an iPhone was one of the four "independent" athletes with no country affiliation. What the hell was that about?
Albania...that is a good one, unless you are a SA reader in Albania!
so yes apple has one of the few products that is intuitive which is the way things should be-
now MS is a different story - their products are the opposite and their flaws are well the customers problem - they have to reset their thinking- Windows 8 is already playing havoc on my computer us..
MS may have been converted with Nokia Lumina 920- just maybe
One other thing the populous seems to be missing - I bet 85% of buyers are NOT 4S owners so from the perspective of buyers like me, the comarison should be to the iPhone 4. Maintaining my apps I am using is a big retention factor.