I think that most people who own an iPhone or an iPad (or both!) know why people love these devices, but much of the news from this past week consists of surveys and studies finding that — hold on to your seat — people really like iPhones and iPads. I know, crazy right? Here is the news of note from the past week:
- People love Apple products. Two weeks ago I mentioned that for the sixth year in a row, Apple was the #1 smartphone manufacturer according to J.D. Power’s customer satisfaction survey. Confirming those results, Harry McCracken reports on a new survey by The American Customer Satisfaction Index revealing that Apple customers are far more satisfied than customers of other technology companies.
- People prefer iPads. Electronista describes a new report by Gartner Research estimating that 73.4% of tablets sold in 2011 will be iPads, i.e. 46.7 million iPads. That’s 5% more than Gartner was predicting just five months ago. No other single platform is expected to have more than 5% tablet market share this year.
- People prefer iPhones. Om Malik of GigaOm reports on a survey by USB Research finding that Apple has an 89% retention rate. In other words, very few iPhone customers later switch to another platform, whereas lots of users of other platforms switch to the iPhone.
- Travelers prefer the iPhone. Ed Sutherland of Cult of Mac reports that, according to Wi-Fi provider Boingo Wireless, iOS devices account for 83% of mobile devices using airport Wi-Fi.
- iPhone and iPad owners use Google. Sein Weintraub of 9to5 Mac reports on Senate Judiciary hearings from earlier this week at Susan Michel, in-house counsel at Google, testified that two-thirds of Google’s mobile traffic comes from Apple iOS devices, which is interesting considering that there are also a ton of smartphones running Google’s own Android operating system.
- Peter Kafka of All Things D reports on a Citigroup survey of what people do with their iPads and other tablets. There are lots of interest statistics there. For example, almost two-thirds of iPad owners have downloaded 11 or more apps, the most common use of iPads is general web surfing and e-mail/instant messaging.
- Daniel Eran Dilger of AppleInsider reports on briefing by Gartner about the vast increase in iPhones in companies caused by employees preferring to use iPhones that they purchased themselves instead of whatever smartphone their companies try to give them.
- Mickey Meece of the New York Times reports on iPad apps that you can use to keep up with the news.
- Sam Grobart of the New York Times reviews the new SoundLink from Bose, a $300 wireless (Bluetooth) speaker for the iPhone or iPad.
- Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times reports on iPad apps that can help you make dessert.
- R. Chew of SimonBlog reviews Office 2 HD, an office suite for the iPad that competes with Quickoffice and Documents to Go.
- Rob Dean of WalkingOffice reviews FormConnect, an app that lets you create forms on the iPad.
- Yesterday I mentioned that one of the sources of confirmation for a new iPhone next month was Al Gore. Jan Vermeulen of the South African site MyBroadband News has more information on Al Gore’s reference to new iPhones at a conference in South Africa this week.
- And finally, I recently reviewed the BoomCAN, a small and useful external speaker for the iPhone and iPad made by Scosche. Scosche makes lots of other accessories for the iPhone that many people would find useful, but I sort of hope that there isn’t a lot of demand for this product — the RDTX pro Portable Radiation Detector for the iPhone. This $329.99 device “empowers you to detect radiation levels with your iPod or iPhone so that you can take control of your well-being.” I hope that none of you have the need to feel this empowerment.
