iPhone 4S owners love Siri, hate the battery life
Apps, iCloud - we've heard of 'em
Apple, do more with Siri but for feck's sake sort out the iPhone 4S' battery life.
Those are the key messages for the company if feedback from a couple of hundred owners of its latest handset, collated by market watcher ChangeWave, is anything to go by.
Siri is clearly the feature most punters like best, with 49 per cent of 4S owners highlighting it as a favoured feature. The handset's general ease of use came second, with 39 per cent of those questioned by ChangeWave ticking that box.
The 4S' screen resolution attracted only 23 per cent of 4S owners, while third-party apps appeal to only 13 per cent of them.
Apple's new online service, iCloud, appealed to just 19 per cent of folk questioned. The company clearly needs to do more promo work there.
The two key downers owners have with the iPhone 4S are battery life - mentioned by 38 per cent of them - and its lack of 4G support (30 per cent). That highlights ChangeWave's US centricity - we wouldn't expect quite so many British 4S owners mentioning it.
But they might fancy a larger screen. Some 11 per cent of owners surveyed said screen size is a 4S flaw. Good job the next version will have one. Network coverage and data speed bothered nine per cent, an excessive number of dropped calls were highlighted by eight per cent.
Some six per cent want handwriting recognition. Newton fanboys, you think?
But the battery is the big issue. Around 40 per cent of owners said they'd experienced reduced battery life, though only eight per cent of them said it was a big deal. ®
COMMENTS
"third-party apps appeal to only 13 per cent of them."
That's the kind of figure that makes you think, "what were the questions, exactly?"
Slapped wrist for the Reg
I wondered about that 13% too, so I went looking for the original survey
http://www.changewaveresearch.com/articles/2011/iphone4s_20111201.html
The actual question was "What do you like best about your iPhone 4s?", with multiple responses allowed.
So saying Siri is the feature that punters like best is ok.
Saying third party apps and iCloud "Appeal" to only 13% and 19% respectively is not ok; it's misleading.
If you ask me what I like best about my phone and give me an open choice, I'll probably pick the ability to make calls and that it fits in my pocket. It doesn't mean it's not stuffed to bursting with third party apps.
http://www.changewaveresearch.com/articles/2011/iphone4s_20111201.html
"What do you like best about your iPhone 4S"
Total of all responses: 222%.
Shame the Reg missed out the next question on the survey. It's a corker:
"Do you trust statistics compiled from incoherent surveys?"
Yes: 80%
No: 80%
Not sure: 50%
From what I've heard from iPhone users I know, most of them started it up, asked it a few questions, got a few chuckles over some of the humourous answers, then never looked at it again.
It may develop into a totally new way of interacting with technology in the future, but for now at least, it's a gimmick.
They could be using it secretly
In that one of its modes is "raise to speak", i.e. you put the handset on your face and have a conversation with it exactly as though it were a real person, sometimes repeating yourself just like when you're talking to a real person.
That said, probably people just aren't using it. I know I wouldn't.
