ChangeWave Research today announced the results of a survey of over 4,000 professional and early-adopter smartphone users, primarily focused on the North American market. According to the survey, consumers looking to purchase a smartphone over the next 90 days are increasingly preferring the iPhone over Android by a count of 46%-32%, even with Apple holding off on introducing a iPhone in June as it has done every year since its original debut.
Historical tracking of consumer preference shows an interesting pattern, with Android rapidly gaining favor with consumers in the latter half of 2009 and equalling the iPhone by early 2010. And while the release of the iPhone 4 in mid-2010 gave Apple a temporary 20-point edge, it quickly returned to a neck-and-neck race over the remainder of 2010.
But 2011 has seen Apple suddenly open up a decent-sized margin over Android, as Apple has continued to expand availability and introduced the CDMA iPhone running on Verizon. The survey also points to Apple's iCloud announcement as a positive for the iPhone with 21% of current Apple product owners and 13% of non-owners reporting that iCloud has made them more likely to purchase Apple products going forward.
Apple also continues to lead in consumer satisfaction with 70% of iPhone owners reporting that they are "very satisfied" with the device, although that number has dropped slightly over the device's four-year lifetime. Android and Windows Phone 7 sit in the 50-60% range for "very satisfied" scores, while Research in Motion's BlackBerry platform has fallen to a new low with only 27% of owners registering as very satisfied with their devices. The loss of customer satisfaction with BlackBerry has also bled over into future purchasing plans, with only 4% of consumers looking to purchase a smartphone within the next 90 days planning to turn to a BlackBerry device.
Top Rated Comments
Take the low end Android phones out of the total sales figures too.... you will see the Android phone aren't nearly as popular either.
Isn't the iPhone the only smartphone that runs iOS?
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/reviews/2010/11/worst-gadget-ever-ars-reviews-a-99-android-tablet.ars
They can keep the crown.
Developers agree as well:
http://hken.ibtimes.com/articles/181693/20110717/developers-prefer-apple-s-ios-including-google.htm
The purpose of an Android device is a gateway to ad revenue.
The purpose of an iOS device is to provide the best possible user experience. And it shows.
This is why even Apple's old, outdated 3GS still outsells new Android handsets:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385153,00.asp
A MILLION times, this.
It's not all about the hardware. I remember the Droid (lol) commercials talking about how it has XXX hardware, and crap loads of RAM, and super-fast Snapdragon (?) processor. Basically, it will melt your face off with its hardware.
But you're basically running that sports car into a brick wall by loading Android on it.
A 2+ year old 3GS is still way, way better than most of the Android shovelware devices out there. Even when performance took a hit with iOS 4.x, it still runs better and is easier to use than Android OS.
Android came out in 2008. We're quickly heading into 2012, and Android is still a beta-quality experience at best.
Have you used an Android device to do any text processing? Bad keyboard, and completely nasty interface for modifying text. You know that little magnifying glass iOS has for moving the cursor around and selecting text? You'll find out how amazing and important it is on iOS within a few minutes of using Android and not having anything like it.
1. The survey was conducted among professionals and early adopters. This is why apple makes so much more money selling so many less phones. 2. If you don't care, why read the article?