A little concrete proof that many consumers have no idea what they’re buying: a survey of 7485 American and European phone owners found that 46 per cent of those who owned an iPhone 4 believed that it could be used to access 4G networks.
Picture by John Karakatsanis
As we’ve covered in some detail before, 4G is a messy and confusing term that is used in different ways around the world. The charitable explanation is that the term has been so abused that no-one has any idea what it means anyway. The less charitable explanation is that many people have no idea what kind of network their phone connects to or what speeds it offers.
Ogre
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 9:44 AMThe headline reminds me of a quote: “The internet once consisted of smart people in front of dumb terminals. Now it’s the other way around”
Peter
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 5:41 PM+1
Chris
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 10:10 AMThey are probably the same people that think the iphone is the only smartphone on the market, and could spend far less on a cheaper phone to do what they want.
Grayda
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 10:35 AMBut other “smart phones” don’t have Angry Birds. I know Android doesn’t, because it’s for Loonux hackers and is made in China by children. Steve Jobs even told me so.
light487
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 10:49 AMAndroid doesn’t have Angry Birds?? What the…?
http://market.android.com/details?id=com.rovio.angrybirds
http://market.android.com/details?id=com.rovio.angrybirdsrio
http://market.android.com/details?id=com.rovio.angrybirdsseasons
Oh wait.. sarcasm? trolling? :)
nebarik
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 10:13 AMhell, ive heard some people refer to there generic non apple smart phone, as a “apple iphone”
especially hilarious when these same people bring it into a apple store or apple reseller such as the one i work at asking for help with there “iphone”
wsDK_II
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 10:21 AMwow people who are dumber then iPhone users.
this is a sad day :(
olearymo
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 3:39 PMDumber *then* iPhone users? I don’t think you’re one to talk dude.
Grayda
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 10:46 AMWell it kind of makes sense. There was the iPhone 2G and 3G, so perhaps people thought they simply dropped the “G” from the title and called it the iPhone 4.
As Chris said, I know of people who buy an iPhone because they believe it’s the only phone that does what it does, and any mention of Android is from your geeky nephew (and therefore is worth ignoring because it’s too complex to understand), while the rest of your family doesn’t know what their phone runs, they just know that it’s not an Apple.
While I was at Southern Cross Station in Melbourne, my wife and I stood in one spot and counted how many individual iPad 2 ads we could see without moving. We counted 9.
Perhaps Android needs to saturate markets with advertising like this. Don’t promote the phone, promote the OS and let the consumer find the right Android phone for them.
liraniel
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 11:05 AMNo Grayda, that means that the consumer would have to think about what they want from a phone when they already know what they want. And what they want is Angry Birds, Siri, and to just walk into Telstra and walk out with an iPhone.
ThePengwin
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 12:37 PM“Perhaps Android needs to saturate markets with advertising like this. Don’t promote the phone, promote the OS and let the consumer find the right Android phone for them”
The problem with that is that Samsung, LG, Acer, Asus dont want you to buy and android phone, They want you to buy a Samsung, LG, Acer, Asus phone.
Google does some android ads, but one android experience on one device may or may not be the same on others, so its not the full truth to say that all android devices are equal, as all iOS devices (except for 1 or two features like Siri) are.
TSH
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 1:35 PMThat is the power of Apple’s marketing: being able to control all aspects of the device to ensure consistency means it can really market the experience (something everyone can relate to) and not just something technical like the OS (which only geeks care about).
:–]
TSH
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 1:37 PMInterestingly, the few times I’ve turned on my TV I’ve seen a couple of ads from MS for Windows Phone. With their uncompromising hardware requirements they can do the same thing as Apple: market an experience. Hopefully their standards don’t slip!
Fred
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 9:44 PMI hope Microsoft get their OS to float as a 3rd major OS in the mix will be better for consumers and competition. Nokia has always made pretty decent hardware, so some software to match will be a breath of fresh air. I think it is going to happen as it’s starting to take off.
Chris
Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 6:48 AMMaybe some of these “dumb” people are just smart people who have more important things on their minds than the meaning of the model number of their phone.
naved
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 9:27 PMabsolutely right
that’s why apple works for more people than android.
people who dont want to bother too much about how to use the phone and still want to use smart phone.they want apple to care of it. so they can take care of other important things.
naved
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 9:31 PMwhat i mean is people who dont want to bother too much about the phone and want something that works without much technical knowledge. not everyone is a developer or a techno geek
Shane-o
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 6:41 PMI love the saying:
The internet doesn’t make people stupid, it just makes stupid peoples’ thought more accessible to others’.
(I hope I got the punctuation correct)
Shane-o
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 6:46 PMHa ha. I just realized I’ve buggered up my own statement by accidently missing out the ‘s’ in ‘thought’
I guess I just proved my own statement as correct. lmao!