Speaking as a guy who just punted his iPhone for a Droid a few weeks ago, there was definitely part of me who has been saying "Why did I put up with that for so long?" 'It' being the awful call performance (data and apps were great).
I'm sure I'm not the only one... So why DID I put up with it? Part of it might be a love-affair with Apple due to their exceptional marketing and the near mythical status of Steve Jobs.
Consumers aren't stupid-- but I can't imagine how you could think that all of your decisions are rational... Or even most of them. Ever done any A/B testing? Why would an orange button perform 20% better than a blue one?
Bargh and several colleagues chose a group of undergraduates as subjects and gave them two scrambled-sentence tests. The first test was sprinkled with rude words like “disturb,” “bother,” and “intrude.” The second test was sprinkled with polite words like “respect,” “considerate,” and “yield.”
In both cases, the tests were indiscreet. None of the subjects picked up on the word trend consciously. But it primed them subconsciously.
After taking the five-minute test, students were asked to walk down the hall and talk to the person running the experiment about their next assignment. An actor was strategically engaged in conversation with the experimenter when the students would arrive. And the goal was to see how long it would take students to interrupt.
"Bargh wanted to know if the subjects who were primed with polite words would take longer to interrupt the conversation than those primed with rude words. They thought the subconscious priming would have a slight affect. But the affect was pretty profound in quantitative terms.
The people primed with rude words interrupted, on average, after only five minutes. But 82% of the people primed with polite words never interrupted at all. Who knows how long they would have patiently and politely waited if the researchers hadn’t give the test a ten-minute time limit. [Note by Tony: Those damn ethics committees... Milgram would never be able to get away with his experiment today!]"
I don't think so. There were virtually no apps on the iPhone that were important to me (though it is a touch faster than the Droid in terms of data speed). My iPhone was, for me, first and foremost a phone. And it was TERRIBLE at that (dropping calls constantly). (note: I'm in Seattle-- from what I understand, it's a problem that's most common in NYC, SF, and Seattle)
"So your explanation for the iPhone phenomenon is that Apple use its (certainly smaller) ad budget supernaturally better than everyone else...?"
No, I didn't say that (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man ). The closest thing I did say to that was "Part of it might be a love-affair with Apple due to their exceptional marketing and the near mythical status of Steve Jobs." A big part is certainly the UI. People love the Apple/iPhone brand for a lot of reasons-- many of these reasons are perfectly rational.
My point was that consumers tend to over-estimate how rational their decisions and their brand loyalty are.
I'm sure I'm not the only one... So why DID I put up with it? Part of it might be a love-affair with Apple due to their exceptional marketing and the near mythical status of Steve Jobs.
Consumers aren't stupid-- but I can't imagine how you could think that all of your decisions are rational... Or even most of them. Ever done any A/B testing? Why would an orange button perform 20% better than a blue one?
What about priming studies?
(more thoughts in an old blog post: http://www.tonywright.com/2007/the-fuss-about-macs-priming-a... )
Here's the interesting bit:
Bargh and several colleagues chose a group of undergraduates as subjects and gave them two scrambled-sentence tests. The first test was sprinkled with rude words like “disturb,” “bother,” and “intrude.” The second test was sprinkled with polite words like “respect,” “considerate,” and “yield.”
In both cases, the tests were indiscreet. None of the subjects picked up on the word trend consciously. But it primed them subconsciously.
After taking the five-minute test, students were asked to walk down the hall and talk to the person running the experiment about their next assignment. An actor was strategically engaged in conversation with the experimenter when the students would arrive. And the goal was to see how long it would take students to interrupt.
"Bargh wanted to know if the subjects who were primed with polite words would take longer to interrupt the conversation than those primed with rude words. They thought the subconscious priming would have a slight affect. But the affect was pretty profound in quantitative terms.
The people primed with rude words interrupted, on average, after only five minutes. But 82% of the people primed with polite words never interrupted at all. Who knows how long they would have patiently and politely waited if the researchers hadn’t give the test a ten-minute time limit. [Note by Tony: Those damn ethics committees... Milgram would never be able to get away with his experiment today!]"