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Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

121 points by nowooski 3y ago

aryan14 3y ago
Any situation where a company can be put in a better position with statistics will 99% of the time lead to the company hiring a statistics firm that favours them.
post_break 3y ago
Just like how they compare the M2 processors to an Intel iMac in bench marks which in itself is kind of ridiculous, this is unsurprising.
- threeseed 3y ago
  They do that to encourage existing Apple users to upgrade. Apple is growing market share but not massively so. Hence new revenue will need to come from it's existing user base.
coldcache 3y ago
A number this high is absurd to get in a survey of the general public -- always remember Lizardman's Constant [1]. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...
- dpkonofa 3y ago
  It’s not a survey of the general public, though. That’s why the OP article is nonsense. This is most-likely a NetPromoter survey. It is a survey of verified iPhone purchasers/owners just after the 14 day return window who decided to keep it. It’s self-selective but it’s not unattainable like the article claims.
  - howinteresting 3y ago
    It is not a NetPromoter survey as clearly outlined in the article. It is a non-representative 451 Research survey.
- nisse72 3y ago
  TIL: Obama is a hippopotamus
pm2222 3y ago
If only there’s no carrier lock and photos can be backed up easily to personal storage.
- matricaria 3y ago
  Is carrier lock still a thing in the US?
  - RandallBrown 3y ago
    I think it is, but it's not like you can't get unlocked iPhones in the US. I think carriers also are required to unlock your phone if you ask them, but I may be imagining that.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      Yes, they have to unlock after contract ends. https://www.fcc.gov/general/cell-phone-unlocking https://www.fcc.gov/general/cell-phone-unlocking
    - pm2222 3y ago
      Yes att is fine with unlocking after contract is done.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    If you buy from a carrier, yes.
  - RhodesianHunter 3y ago
    Generally it's only a thing any more if you get your phone discounted as part of signing up with or renewing at a certain carrier. If you just go out and buy a phone outright you can generally use it anywhere.
  - pm2222 3y ago
    It is. I paid discounted full price through my employer and because it’s on a business plan it’s locked.
beebmam 3y ago
I've yet to use a single iphone that I was satisfied with. My last experience with an iphone was when my GPS began to malfunction and Apple's proposed solution was to have me buy a brand new iphone at no discount.
- nashashmi 3y ago
  You must be in the top 1%
- ricardobeat 3y ago
  GPS malfunction? There’s something I haven’t heard in 15 years of smartphones.
asutekku 3y ago
They are using Google reviews as proxy for customer satisfaction. I really can't take rest of the article seriously after that, knowing anyone can leave a review at Google and there's no guarantee they own the phone. Sure, 99% satisfaction rate is pretty much impossible, but if all Apple asked was "are you satisfied with iPhone 14" with "yes" & "not at all" options and only surveyed iPhone 14 owners, I can easily see the number being 99%.
- ars 3y ago
  > I really can't take rest of the article seriously after that, knowing anyone can leave a review at Google and there's no guarantee they own the phone. Do you mean you can't take Apple seriously? The article is calling out this issue, not engaging in it. > I can easily see the number being 99%. No, it can't. It's utterly impossible for it to be 99% unless it's fake data.
  - sezycei 3y ago
    > utterly impossible No, it's not. Unbelievably unlikely? For sure.
    - threeseed 3y ago
      No it's very likely in fact. iPhone has been around for 15 years so there almost isn't a person on this planet who doesn't know (a) what it is, (b) what the competition is and (c) whether it's a right fit for them. So if you're surveying existing users you're talking to people who knew before they purchased the iPhone that it was going to be a suitable fit for them. So of course the survey is going to be highly biased in favour of a positive rating.
      - ars 3y ago
        People buy things all the time that are not a perfect fit, just the best they are able to get at that time. Or they are forced into it for other reason. 99% is not possible. Nothing on Earth has a 99% satisfaction rating - not even breathing.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
razemio 3y ago
"They opened our email 73 times, but didn’t respond." This counter does not work right? I know it is a minor thing, but I immediately stopped reading further. I have a problem...
- minsc_and_boo 3y ago
  Email pixel tracking is an industry standard these days. Every time the email loads the pixel, it counts +1. Some platforms like Gmail partially obfuscate it.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - razemio 3y ago
    I am totally out of the loop when it comes to these things. My client always opens in plain text or html render with JS and external content disabled. I believe this is true for most clients. On the other hand security scanners, browsers engines and other Middleware stuff can trigger such a counter without any user interaction if I am not mistaken.
    - minsc_and_boo 3y ago
      The pixel is just an image, so unless you disable email images loading by default, the server will still count you. Pre-caching will sometimes mess with the counters though, making the counts lower than the actual.
      - razemio 3y ago
        I understand. The last 3 email clients I used do not load images by default (that what's included in external sources [previous comment]).
- ridiculous_fish 3y ago
  Right, especially with Apple. Apple's Protect Mail Activity feature, which is on by default, "opens" all emails received on a server, to hide the user's IP address. This causes emails with tracker pixels to be falsely reported as read. For a while, I was confused why all of my GitHub notifications were being marked as read! https://twitter.com/ridiculous_fish/status/1460437997866737665 https://twitter.com/ridiculous_fish/status/14604379978667376...
mytailorisrich 3y ago
What is "satisfaction"? Minor gripes are still "satisfaction", IMHO. At the price point I would expect someone not satisfied to return the phone.
- hedgehog 3y ago
  For what alternative? My 14 Pro is way too big, and the camera software is meh, but the lower models have really nerfed cameras and I'm too entangled in the Apple ecosystem to switch to Android even if there were better options. 80% satisfaction seems reasonable, most people seem to like the big phones, and 20% of people with some major complaint or other sounds plausible.
ars 3y ago
I can't remember what it's called (Edit: Lizardman's Constant) but around 4 to 20% of people will give nonsense replies to any survey. Like if you asked Are you Human? 4% (or more) of people will reply "No" just for fun, or because they don't read. So you can try to adjust for this by asking a silly question, and if they reply that way ignore their entire survey, but that could lead to issues where they reply correctly on most of it, but false on the "fun" question.
fsociety999 3y ago
I have received Apple satisfaction surveys before and the options are basically this: How satisfied are you with your new iPhone? * Insanely satisfied * Extremely satisfied * Very very satisfied * Quite satisfied * Satisfied * Mostly satisfied * Somewhat satisfied * Neither satisfied or dissatisfied * Neutral * No opinion * Dissatisfied I’m exaggerating a little to make my point, but I suspect that’s more or less how they get these insanely high scores. Also I’m not sure they send the satisfaction surveys to everyone. Probably you have to have a history of purchasing Apple products. I don’t think they are manipulating the data itself as this article seems to suggest though. I think the survey methodology itself is skewed.
- nowooski 3y ago
  Hey - I'm the post author. Thank you for reading! I don't think they are manipulating the data, rather that they are surveying an unrepresentative population of tech enthusiasts, and presenting it as if representative of the entire customer base.
  - throw47474777j 3y ago
    They don’t present it as if it’s representative of the entire base, nor do they ever compare it to anyone else’s metrics, and your claim is based on information openly disclosed about how they create their metric. The piece is just clickbait. Your final paragraph is this decontextualized “Quote”: > “We’re not calling on the SEC to investigate these customer satisfaction claims, since they have more important cases to go after,” Golden said. “But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and we believe Apple should review the survey results they trumpet on every earnings call. If they truly think they are valid, they should publish their methodology, and if not, they should issue retractions.” Which is inherently disingenuous in the way it is written. (We’re not threatening you..) but worse, it’s a quote from your own CEO. The piece is in far worse faith than anything Apple is doing. Please take it down.
    - spdif899 3y ago
      It's one of multiple quotes from the same CEO, who is also posting in this comment section saying "I'm quoted in the post" as though having a blog post on your own company's website where someone you pay does what you told them gives you more credibility
barbariangrunge 3y ago
Give me an iPhone 5 that’s fast enough to run an os that has all the software bloat we have today. Then, stop adding more bloat to force us to buy newer hardware
- rottencupcakes 3y ago
  Give me an Intel Celeron that's fast enough to run Windows XP and then stop changing anything. Give me a 386 that's fast enough to run DOS and stop changing anything. I'm surprised you've made it from mailing lists all the way to Hacker News.
- asutekku 3y ago
  Ironically, in one of their other articles (also based on google reviews) they claim iPhone 5 is the least liked iPhone.
- wilg 3y ago
  Bloat is often just things you don't care about.
  - barbariangrunge 3y ago
    What are you talking about? Computers are thousands of times faster than they used to be, but performance is like half. Look up videos of people running old operating systems on old hardware, how everything happens instantly, even without ssds. The only improvement we've had is in games and web apps, and web apps are a mess
    - wilg 3y ago
      no
NineStarPoint 3y ago
So obviously 99% is impossibly high, but iPhones (and well made flagship phones in general) being some of the most popular things ever made wouldn’t be very surprising to me. People’s lives revolve around their phones. They’re probably people’s most used item after their bed. And for the most part they work really well. That 20% of people don’t like Thanksgiving and the Shawshank redemption isn’t surprising to me, and I don’t think that means the iPhone couldn’t have higher than 90% approval rating. (Especially since a lot of people who don’t like iPhones would have gone to Androids at this point anyway, so current iPhone customers is a somewhat self selecting demographic)
- jrockway 3y ago
  Yeah, I agree with that. The article asks: > If Apple’s claims of 99% satisfaction were true, it would mean the iPhone 14 was not only the most popular mass market consumer product of all time, but it would also probably make it the most popular anything of all time. Is it not the most popular mass market consumer product of all time? People spend their lives on their phone these days, and I've never heard anyone say anything about their iPhone. I have one and it's fine. I'm satisfied. I have end-to-end encrypted backups, the battery lasts long enough, the screen is nice to look at, etc. If I like some sort of tech product, it's probably hard to find people that don't.
- bredren 3y ago
  > I don’t think that means the iPhone couldn’t have higher than 90% approval rating. I would be surprised if iPhone didn't have 90%+ customer satisfaction narrowly scoped to usage of the phone. The product as hardware combined with software and supporting services are the best money can buy. Apple regularly pushes the smartphone category forward on fronts neglected by other companies. That said, consumers seem to think more broadly about their experience than just the phone. For example an unexpected failure of an official or 3rd party case might influence overall satisfaction. The article mentions a 3% difference based on 5G availability, as another. So without an explanation of the carve out, 99% does seem a bit too good to be true. Apple should publish how these numbers are arrived at. If its a decent measurement it could help set an evolving standard for the category.
- 3y ago
dktnj 3y ago
Trick in getting 99% satisfaction is asking you about it 30 nanoseconds after you bought it or before you even received it.
rickstanley 3y ago
Prime Day I bought my first iPhone, iPhone 14, with a good discount and cashback, I was between it and Zenfone 9. Not sure what to expect in general to be honest, but I expect a good battery life and updates, these were two factors that contributed to my final choice. I'll sure miss sideloading certain apps, but that's the price for a walled garden and security (I guess?). Let's see if I'm going to be one of the "99%"...
havelhovel 3y ago
> Trader Joe’s fans will stand in line for hours for groceries but still give the store just an 84% satisfaction rating, according to a survey by the American Customer Satisfaction Institute. It’s tough competition, but I think this is the most absurd sentence in the article. Nevermind the difference between a premium consumer good and a grocery store, my takeaway is that reported satisfaction could be much higher among TJ shoppers without the hours long waits.
- tedunangst 3y ago
  Satisfaction might even be higher among people waiting an hour in line; if they weren't happy they wouldn't wait.
_Nat_ 3y ago
[This PDF](http://media.wix.com/ugd/bbfb8a_2ea66bffc09b40d099237bb8381346f1.pdf http://media.wix.com/ugd/bbfb8a_2ea66bffc09b40d099237bb83813... ) appears to provide information about their methodology -- noting it was linked from [this article](https://www.macrumors.com/2015/07/20/apple-watch-tops-iphone-ipad-customer-sat/ https://www.macrumors.com/2015/07/20/apple-watch-tops-iphone... ). In short, it looks like potential-respondents first had to apply (e.g., in response to [this Facebook post](https://www.facebook.com/Wristly.co/posts/apple-watch-owner-join-our-inner-circle-be-in-the-know-and-help-shape-the-future/372856999575519/ https://www.facebook.com/Wristly.co/posts/apple-watch-owner-... )), and then they pre-screened potential-respondents.. and it sounds like respondents may have had some sort of a weekly commitment?, as the document includes: > To finish, a big thank you to the 1,100+ strong members of the Wristly Inner Circle- we wouldn’t be able to learn so much so fast about the Apple Watch without your weekly contribution. So it doesn't sound like a random sampling of Apple-product users. Anyway, then apparently they ask if a respondent's satisfied with a product, giving 4 options: "Very Satisfied/Delighted", "Somewhat Satisfied","Neither Satisfied or Dissatisfied", and "Somewhat Dissatisfied". Then, they add up the first 2 categories as their "key metric of customer satisfaction". --- To note it, [this blog-post](https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/04/20/iphone-x-customer-satisfaction https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/04/20/iphone-x-custom... ) claims to quote "Ben Bajarin, on the result of a survey of iPhone X owners conducted last month" saying: > When it came to overall customer satisfaction, iPhone X owners in our study gave the product an overall 97% customer satisfaction. [...] Just to contrast that with the original Apple Watch research with Wristly I was involved in, 66% of Apple Watch owners indicated they were very satisfied with Apple Watch, a product which also ranked a 97% customer satisfaction number in the first Apple Watch study we did. Point being that, while the above PDF appears to talk about the Apple Watch, it sounds like they're strongly implying that the customer-satisfaction figures for the iPhone were largely done in a similar manner -- and, at least in the case of the above-quoted speaker, by some of the same people.
- user_named 3y ago
  Apple is NPD manifested as a corporation. Everything they do is self-gratifying, so of course also this. "All-new"... Pffft.
autoexec 3y ago
There are people who practically worship apple. A new iphone could ship broken and a certain percentage of buyers would praise it as being brilliant. They'll never be unsatisfied with an apple product. There's another group whose satisfaction has nothing to do with the phone itself and everything to do with knowing that it was new and highly expensive and out of reach for many. As long as they can pull it out of their pocket and show it off they'll be happy. Adding to that, people already have a tendency to convince themselves after the fact that an expensive purchase was a good deal, and that companies pay for fake reviews and I'm not surprised iphone reviews seem inflated.
- nowooski 3y ago
  I do think there is something to the idea that people want to satisfied by something they spend a lot of money on. Though, 99% is a bit much.
loeg 3y ago
The original title, "Apple claims 99% iPhone 14 satisfaction. Is that possible? (No). We investigate" (which this was submitted under originally) is less click-baity than the current version: "Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?"
- addisonl 3y ago
  These both seem the same to me as far as click bait goes…
- lolinder 3y ago
  I pinged dang to ask him to change the title to match the title of the actual article, because it was obvious from the rate of upvotes and the quality of comments that the title as submitted was inflamatory. I can't measure clicks, but the pace of upvotes on this submission slowed dramatically after dang changed it: it had reached ~50 upvotes in about half an hour (~100 upvotes an hour), and now it's been here for another hour with only ~30 more upvotes (~15 upvotes an hour).
- tgv 3y ago
  The advantage is that the answer to the title question is yes for once.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
YetAnotherNick 3y ago
Apple has 14 days return policy in many countries. Wouldn't non return count as satisfaction? Does Apple announce that number?
wereHamster 3y ago
Is there a legal limit how much you can fake the numbers before you are held accountable? Seems like Apple is pulling a lot of numbers out of their rear end. See also LTT's recent video about Apple quite clearly faking Mac Studio performance numbers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buLyy7x2dcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buLyy7x2dcQ
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
yuters 3y ago
I'm curious about the stat of the email being opened 73 times. I'm wondering if someone at apple who has access to that contact email address has the option "Protect Mail Activity" turned off on their Apple Mail client or if this is a bug.
BSEdlMMldESB 3y ago
maybe they're also considering the satisfaction of the slate of hardware? /joking
bell-cot 3y ago
At what age is it reasonable to assume that a modern western consumer understands that Marketing routinely uses some torturously contorted standards for "truth"? Family lore: My kid brother was ~5 years old when he bit into a spoonful of a breakfast cereal that he had asked for after having seen it advertised - and unhappily blurted out "it tasted good on TV!".
winstonreggie5 3y ago
[dead]

121 points by nowooski 3y ago

Any situation where a company can be put in a better position with statistics will 99% of the time lead to the company hiring a statistics firm that favours them.

post_break 3y ago

Just like how they compare the M2 processors to an Intel iMac in bench marks which in itself is kind of ridiculous, this is unsurprising.

threeseed 3y ago
They do that to encourage existing Apple users to upgrade. Apple is growing market share but not massively so. Hence new revenue will need to come from it's existing user base.

coldcache 3y ago

A number this high is absurd to get in a survey of the general public -- always remember Lizardman's Constant [1]. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...

dpkonofa 3y ago
It’s not a survey of the general public, though. That’s why the OP article is nonsense. This is most-likely a NetPromoter survey. It is a survey of verified iPhone purchasers/owners just after the 14 day return window who decided to keep it. It’s self-selective but it’s not unattainable like the article claims.
- howinteresting 3y ago
  It is not a NetPromoter survey as clearly outlined in the article. It is a non-representative 451 Research survey.
nisse72 3y ago
TIL: Obama is a hippopotamus

pm2222 3y ago

If only there’s no carrier lock and photos can be backed up easily to personal storage.

matricaria 3y ago
Is carrier lock still a thing in the US?
- RandallBrown 3y ago
  I think it is, but it's not like you can't get unlocked iPhones in the US. I think carriers also are required to unlock your phone if you ask them, but I may be imagining that.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Yes, they have to unlock after contract ends. https://www.fcc.gov/general/cell-phone-unlocking https://www.fcc.gov/general/cell-phone-unlocking
  - pm2222 3y ago
    Yes att is fine with unlocking after contract is done.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  If you buy from a carrier, yes.
- RhodesianHunter 3y ago
  Generally it's only a thing any more if you get your phone discounted as part of signing up with or renewing at a certain carrier. If you just go out and buy a phone outright you can generally use it anywhere.
- pm2222 3y ago
  It is. I paid discounted full price through my employer and because it’s on a business plan it’s locked.

beebmam 3y ago

I've yet to use a single iphone that I was satisfied with. My last experience with an iphone was when my GPS began to malfunction and Apple's proposed solution was to have me buy a brand new iphone at no discount.

nashashmi 3y ago
You must be in the top 1%
ricardobeat 3y ago
GPS malfunction? There’s something I haven’t heard in 15 years of smartphones.

asutekku 3y ago

They are using Google reviews as proxy for customer satisfaction. I really can't take rest of the article seriously after that, knowing anyone can leave a review at Google and there's no guarantee they own the phone. Sure, 99% satisfaction rate is pretty much impossible, but if all Apple asked was "are you satisfied with iPhone 14" with "yes" & "not at all" options and only surveyed iPhone 14 owners, I can easily see the number being 99%.

ars 3y ago
> I really can't take rest of the article seriously after that, knowing anyone can leave a review at Google and there's no guarantee they own the phone. Do you mean you can't take Apple seriously? The article is calling out this issue, not engaging in it. > I can easily see the number being 99%. No, it can't. It's utterly impossible for it to be 99% unless it's fake data.
- sezycei 3y ago
  > utterly impossible No, it's not. Unbelievably unlikely? For sure.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    No it's very likely in fact. iPhone has been around for 15 years so there almost isn't a person on this planet who doesn't know (a) what it is, (b) what the competition is and (c) whether it's a right fit for them. So if you're surveying existing users you're talking to people who knew before they purchased the iPhone that it was going to be a suitable fit for them. So of course the survey is going to be highly biased in favour of a positive rating.
    - ars 3y ago
      People buy things all the time that are not a perfect fit, just the best they are able to get at that time. Or they are forced into it for other reason. 99% is not possible. Nothing on Earth has a 99% satisfaction rating - not even breathing.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

razemio 3y ago

"They opened our email 73 times, but didn’t respond." This counter does not work right? I know it is a minor thing, but I immediately stopped reading further. I have a problem...

minsc_and_boo 3y ago
Email pixel tracking is an industry standard these days. Every time the email loads the pixel, it counts +1. Some platforms like Gmail partially obfuscate it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- razemio 3y ago
  I am totally out of the loop when it comes to these things. My client always opens in plain text or html render with JS and external content disabled. I believe this is true for most clients. On the other hand security scanners, browsers engines and other Middleware stuff can trigger such a counter without any user interaction if I am not mistaken.
  - minsc_and_boo 3y ago
    The pixel is just an image, so unless you disable email images loading by default, the server will still count you. Pre-caching will sometimes mess with the counters though, making the counts lower than the actual.
    - razemio 3y ago
      I understand. The last 3 email clients I used do not load images by default (that what's included in external sources [previous comment]).
ridiculous_fish 3y ago
Right, especially with Apple. Apple's Protect Mail Activity feature, which is on by default, "opens" all emails received on a server, to hide the user's IP address. This causes emails with tracker pixels to be falsely reported as read. For a while, I was confused why all of my GitHub notifications were being marked as read! https://twitter.com/ridiculous_fish/status/1460437997866737665 https://twitter.com/ridiculous_fish/status/14604379978667376...

mytailorisrich 3y ago

What is "satisfaction"? Minor gripes are still "satisfaction", IMHO. At the price point I would expect someone not satisfied to return the phone.

hedgehog 3y ago
For what alternative? My 14 Pro is way too big, and the camera software is meh, but the lower models have really nerfed cameras and I'm too entangled in the Apple ecosystem to switch to Android even if there were better options. 80% satisfaction seems reasonable, most people seem to like the big phones, and 20% of people with some major complaint or other sounds plausible.

ars 3y ago

I can't remember what it's called (Edit: Lizardman's Constant) but around 4 to 20% of people will give nonsense replies to any survey. Like if you asked Are you Human? 4% (or more) of people will reply "No" just for fun, or because they don't read. So you can try to adjust for this by asking a silly question, and if they reply that way ignore their entire survey, but that could lead to issues where they reply correctly on most of it, but false on the "fun" question.

fsociety999 3y ago

I have received Apple satisfaction surveys before and the options are basically this: How satisfied are you with your new iPhone? * Insanely satisfied * Extremely satisfied * Very very satisfied * Quite satisfied * Satisfied * Mostly satisfied * Somewhat satisfied * Neither satisfied or dissatisfied * Neutral * No opinion * Dissatisfied I’m exaggerating a little to make my point, but I suspect that’s more or less how they get these insanely high scores. Also I’m not sure they send the satisfaction surveys to everyone. Probably you have to have a history of purchasing Apple products. I don’t think they are manipulating the data itself as this article seems to suggest though. I think the survey methodology itself is skewed.

nowooski 3y ago
Hey - I'm the post author. Thank you for reading! I don't think they are manipulating the data, rather that they are surveying an unrepresentative population of tech enthusiasts, and presenting it as if representative of the entire customer base.
- throw47474777j 3y ago
  They don’t present it as if it’s representative of the entire base, nor do they ever compare it to anyone else’s metrics, and your claim is based on information openly disclosed about how they create their metric. The piece is just clickbait. Your final paragraph is this decontextualized “Quote”: > “We’re not calling on the SEC to investigate these customer satisfaction claims, since they have more important cases to go after,” Golden said. “But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and we believe Apple should review the survey results they trumpet on every earnings call. If they truly think they are valid, they should publish their methodology, and if not, they should issue retractions.” Which is inherently disingenuous in the way it is written. (We’re not threatening you..) but worse, it’s a quote from your own CEO. The piece is in far worse faith than anything Apple is doing. Please take it down.
  - spdif899 3y ago
    It's one of multiple quotes from the same CEO, who is also posting in this comment section saying "I'm quoted in the post" as though having a blog post on your own company's website where someone you pay does what you told them gives you more credibility

barbariangrunge 3y ago

Give me an iPhone 5 that’s fast enough to run an os that has all the software bloat we have today. Then, stop adding more bloat to force us to buy newer hardware

rottencupcakes 3y ago
Give me an Intel Celeron that's fast enough to run Windows XP and then stop changing anything. Give me a 386 that's fast enough to run DOS and stop changing anything. I'm surprised you've made it from mailing lists all the way to Hacker News.
asutekku 3y ago
Ironically, in one of their other articles (also based on google reviews) they claim iPhone 5 is the least liked iPhone.
wilg 3y ago
Bloat is often just things you don't care about.
- barbariangrunge 3y ago
  What are you talking about? Computers are thousands of times faster than they used to be, but performance is like half. Look up videos of people running old operating systems on old hardware, how everything happens instantly, even without ssds. The only improvement we've had is in games and web apps, and web apps are a mess
  - wilg 3y ago
    no

NineStarPoint 3y ago

So obviously 99% is impossibly high, but iPhones (and well made flagship phones in general) being some of the most popular things ever made wouldn’t be very surprising to me. People’s lives revolve around their phones. They’re probably people’s most used item after their bed. And for the most part they work really well. That 20% of people don’t like Thanksgiving and the Shawshank redemption isn’t surprising to me, and I don’t think that means the iPhone couldn’t have higher than 90% approval rating. (Especially since a lot of people who don’t like iPhones would have gone to Androids at this point anyway, so current iPhone customers is a somewhat self selecting demographic)

jrockway 3y ago
Yeah, I agree with that. The article asks: > If Apple’s claims of 99% satisfaction were true, it would mean the iPhone 14 was not only the most popular mass market consumer product of all time, but it would also probably make it the most popular anything of all time. Is it not the most popular mass market consumer product of all time? People spend their lives on their phone these days, and I've never heard anyone say anything about their iPhone. I have one and it's fine. I'm satisfied. I have end-to-end encrypted backups, the battery lasts long enough, the screen is nice to look at, etc. If I like some sort of tech product, it's probably hard to find people that don't.
bredren 3y ago
> I don’t think that means the iPhone couldn’t have higher than 90% approval rating. I would be surprised if iPhone didn't have 90%+ customer satisfaction narrowly scoped to usage of the phone. The product as hardware combined with software and supporting services are the best money can buy. Apple regularly pushes the smartphone category forward on fronts neglected by other companies. That said, consumers seem to think more broadly about their experience than just the phone. For example an unexpected failure of an official or 3rd party case might influence overall satisfaction. The article mentions a 3% difference based on 5G availability, as another. So without an explanation of the carve out, 99% does seem a bit too good to be true. Apple should publish how these numbers are arrived at. If its a decent measurement it could help set an evolving standard for the category.
3y ago

dktnj 3y ago

Trick in getting 99% satisfaction is asking you about it 30 nanoseconds after you bought it or before you even received it.

rickstanley 3y ago

Prime Day I bought my first iPhone, iPhone 14, with a good discount and cashback, I was between it and Zenfone 9. Not sure what to expect in general to be honest, but I expect a good battery life and updates, these were two factors that contributed to my final choice. I'll sure miss sideloading certain apps, but that's the price for a walled garden and security (I guess?). Let's see if I'm going to be one of the "99%"...

havelhovel 3y ago

> Trader Joe’s fans will stand in line for hours for groceries but still give the store just an 84% satisfaction rating, according to a survey by the American Customer Satisfaction Institute. It’s tough competition, but I think this is the most absurd sentence in the article. Nevermind the difference between a premium consumer good and a grocery store, my takeaway is that reported satisfaction could be much higher among TJ shoppers without the hours long waits.

tedunangst 3y ago
Satisfaction might even be higher among people waiting an hour in line; if they weren't happy they wouldn't wait.

_Nat_ 3y ago

[This PDF](http://media.wix.com/ugd/bbfb8a_2ea66bffc09b40d099237bb8381346f1.pdf http://media.wix.com/ugd/bbfb8a_2ea66bffc09b40d099237bb83813... ) appears to provide information about their methodology -- noting it was linked from [this article](https://www.macrumors.com/2015/07/20/apple-watch-tops-iphone-ipad-customer-sat/ https://www.macrumors.com/2015/07/20/apple-watch-tops-iphone... ). In short, it looks like potential-respondents first had to apply (e.g., in response to [this Facebook post](https://www.facebook.com/Wristly.co/posts/apple-watch-owner-join-our-inner-circle-be-in-the-know-and-help-shape-the-future/372856999575519/ https://www.facebook.com/Wristly.co/posts/apple-watch-owner-... )), and then they pre-screened potential-respondents.. and it sounds like respondents may have had some sort of a weekly commitment?, as the document includes: > To finish, a big thank you to the 1,100+ strong members of the Wristly Inner Circle- we wouldn’t be able to learn so much so fast about the Apple Watch without your weekly contribution. So it doesn't sound like a random sampling of Apple-product users. Anyway, then apparently they ask if a respondent's satisfied with a product, giving 4 options: "Very Satisfied/Delighted", "Somewhat Satisfied","Neither Satisfied or Dissatisfied", and "Somewhat Dissatisfied". Then, they add up the first 2 categories as their "key metric of customer satisfaction". --- To note it, [this blog-post](https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/04/20/iphone-x-customer-satisfaction https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/04/20/iphone-x-custom... ) claims to quote "Ben Bajarin, on the result of a survey of iPhone X owners conducted last month" saying: > When it came to overall customer satisfaction, iPhone X owners in our study gave the product an overall 97% customer satisfaction. [...] Just to contrast that with the original Apple Watch research with Wristly I was involved in, 66% of Apple Watch owners indicated they were very satisfied with Apple Watch, a product which also ranked a 97% customer satisfaction number in the first Apple Watch study we did. Point being that, while the above PDF appears to talk about the Apple Watch, it sounds like they're strongly implying that the customer-satisfaction figures for the iPhone were largely done in a similar manner -- and, at least in the case of the above-quoted speaker, by some of the same people.

user_named 3y ago
Apple is NPD manifested as a corporation. Everything they do is self-gratifying, so of course also this. "All-new"... Pffft.

autoexec 3y ago

There are people who practically worship apple. A new iphone could ship broken and a certain percentage of buyers would praise it as being brilliant. They'll never be unsatisfied with an apple product. There's another group whose satisfaction has nothing to do with the phone itself and everything to do with knowing that it was new and highly expensive and out of reach for many. As long as they can pull it out of their pocket and show it off they'll be happy. Adding to that, people already have a tendency to convince themselves after the fact that an expensive purchase was a good deal, and that companies pay for fake reviews and I'm not surprised iphone reviews seem inflated.

nowooski 3y ago
I do think there is something to the idea that people want to satisfied by something they spend a lot of money on. Though, 99% is a bit much.

loeg 3y ago

The original title, "Apple claims 99% iPhone 14 satisfaction. Is that possible? (No). We investigate" (which this was submitted under originally) is less click-baity than the current version: "Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?"

addisonl 3y ago
These both seem the same to me as far as click bait goes…
lolinder 3y ago
I pinged dang to ask him to change the title to match the title of the actual article, because it was obvious from the rate of upvotes and the quality of comments that the title as submitted was inflamatory. I can't measure clicks, but the pace of upvotes on this submission slowed dramatically after dang changed it: it had reached ~50 upvotes in about half an hour (~100 upvotes an hour), and now it's been here for another hour with only ~30 more upvotes (~15 upvotes an hour).
tgv 3y ago
The advantage is that the answer to the title question is yes for once.
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YetAnotherNick 3y ago

Apple has 14 days return policy in many countries. Wouldn't non return count as satisfaction? Does Apple announce that number?

wereHamster 3y ago

Is there a legal limit how much you can fake the numbers before you are held accountable? Seems like Apple is pulling a lot of numbers out of their rear end. See also LTT's recent video about Apple quite clearly faking Mac Studio performance numbers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buLyy7x2dcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buLyy7x2dcQ

deleted 3y ago
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yuters 3y ago

I'm curious about the stat of the email being opened 73 times. I'm wondering if someone at apple who has access to that contact email address has the option "Protect Mail Activity" turned off on their Apple Mail client or if this is a bug.

BSEdlMMldESB 3y ago

maybe they're also considering the satisfaction of the slate of hardware? /joking

bell-cot 3y ago

At what age is it reasonable to assume that a modern western consumer understands that Marketing routinely uses some torturously contorted standards for "truth"? Family lore: My kid brother was ~5 years old when he bit into a spoonful of a breakfast cereal that he had asked for after having seen it advertised - and unhappily blurted out "it tasted good on TV!".

winstonreggie5 3y ago

[dead]