I’ve been trying to decide which mobile phone to switch to for quite a while.
Not that I wish to abandon my current one, really. I’ve never been quite the sort who forsakes a gadget just because it has a newer cousin.
In fact, I’ve even given my trusty little flick phone a nickname, Switchblade. (Yes, it seems kind of odd when you start naming inanimate objects that you own. Or call them what they are not. )
Anyway, being naturally attracted to beautiful things, the increasing level of sophistication in product aesthetics does distract me from the actual functionality from time to time.
Speaking of mobile phones and aesthetics, I came across this blog entry the other day.
A Japanese social networking application developer for iPhone, Satoshi Nakajima, did an online survey targeted at non-iPhone owners who visited his blog. He posed questions asking why they did not own one, whether they had ever touched one (yeah, “touch” is the keyword), and what they thought of iPhone owners, etc.
He has just done another survey with iPhone owners as well, but I thought the “why not” version was more interesting though.
Back to the question of “why not”. More than half of the 708 respondents attributed the reason to the exclusiveness of the phone to one carrier, SoftBank, in the Japanese market. So, technically speaking, it is pointless speaking about owning one if they subscribe to another mobile operator.
It also turned out that despite not owning the phone, more than 70 per cent of the respondents have actually touched one before, and one in ten have done that many, many times.
Looks like the tactile urge is hard to resist, especially if you see a friend carrying a phone known for its touch screen functions. *Itchy fingers.*
The other question that caught my eye was what the respondents thought of iPhone owners. (Ah, image, image.) A third of them replied that the latter were the sort who favoured new things. More interestingly, close to 30 per cent said they envied those who owned one.
And what is the best part about the iPhone, from a non-owner’s point-of-view?
A third of them thought that its plentiful applications was its greatest attraction. Its ease of use came in second, with 21 per cent picking this answer. But notably, because of its perceived difference from the other phones in the market, 19 per cent saw that as its greatest draw.
As for me, reckon I’ll take my time to make my choice.
Switchblade’s ringing.
Yeah, it’s definitely a tough choice to make…there’s lots of phones out there to choose from (both smartphone and non-smartphone). I’ve used the iPhone before, but I prefer Blackberry for now since it’s just a great email and web type device. It lacks the Media and Apps depth (for now) that iPhone has managed to build…but it definitely is HIGHLY reliable and has a huge history.
Thanks for dropping by, paradisereason. Guess it’s never easy to know which exactly is the “best” choice. It’s probably more like a matter of keeping the post-purchase dissonance to a minimum, if there is any.
The adulation prob stems from the fact that Japanese as a culture take their gadgets seriously. If the question were posed to another culture , the results might have been v different. Once read somewhere(sorry can’t quote here) that a survey was done on little kids in different cultures using a robot dog. The japanese kids stayed intrigued throughout, while i think it was the swedish(or scandinavian kids) that lost interest after an initial time frame.
Hee as you can tell, i don’t envy the cult of the iphone. I have and ipod touch and after the 1st 2 weeks, it has become a white elephant….
Hi Xiao, won’t be surprised at the results. Speaking of cults, someone just told me that he is now waiting for everyone to get an iPhone. Then he is going to switch to a Blackberry so that he will be “different” from the rest. Haha.