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Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

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Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#81

Post by goldenjm »

NineStarPoint wrote: post #27

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, an…

I'm quoted in the post. I agree, it is plausible that iPhones have a 90%+ satisfaction rate. Apple's claim isn't 90%, or 92% or even 95%, but 99%. I agree that 99% is impossibly high.

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#82

Post by camillomiller »

goldenjm wrote: post #62
asutekku wrote: post #7

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…

I'm quoted in the post. We're using Google reviews as one of several imperfect comparison points to Apple's 99% claim. You're absolutely right about a key downside to Google reviews. The limited information 451 provides on their survey methodology shows that they aren't asking about satisfaction as a yes-or-no style question. If you want to go really deep on online review manipulation, I'm co-author of this research…

> America’s favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, enjoys 82% popularity according to a 2023 survey by Statista. Memorial Day comes in second at 77%.

> The three most popular movies of all time on IMDB are The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather and The Dark Knight. They have ratings of 9.2, 9.2 and 9.0 respectively.

These examples are so orange and apples it’s baffling the authors even came up with them.

You compare the most advanced personal pocket computer of all time with a patriotic holiday (assuming patriotism as an absolute value) or a movie about inmates escaping a prison. Like, really?!

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#83

Post by tedunangst »

havelhovel wrote: post #45

> 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 am…

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

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#84

Post by throw47474777j »

nowooski wrote: post #47
fsociety999 wrote: post #19

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…

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.

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.

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#85

Post by barbariangrunge »

wilg wrote: post #42
barbariangrunge wrote: post #22

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

Bloat is often just things you don't care about.

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

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#86

Post by tgv »

loeg wrote: post #58

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?"

The advantage is that the answer to the title question is yes for once.

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#87

Post by bell-cot »

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!".

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#88

Post by buffington »

camillomiller wrote: post #82
goldenjm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quoted in the post. We're using Google reviews as one of several imperfect comparison points to Apple's 99% claim. You're absolutely right about a key downside to Google reviews. The limited information 451 provides on their survey methodology shows that they aren't asking about satisfaction as a yes-or-no style question. If you want to go really deep on online review manipulation, I'm co-author of this research…

> America’s favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, enjoys 82% popularity according to a 2023 survey by Statista. Memorial Day comes in second at 77%. > The three most popular movies of all time on IMDB are The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather and The Dark Knight. They have ratings of 9.2, 9.2 and 9.0 respectively. These examples are so orange and apples it’s baffling the authors even came up with them. You compare the mo…

That's not what's being compared. It's the rating those things received compared to the rating of the phone.

I think it's fair to include the ratings of the highest rated [whatever] to compare to the ratings of another [whatever].

The author is saying "even people's favorite things don't get such high ratings."

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#89

Post by hiccuphippo »

NineStarPoint wrote: post #27

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, an…

My thinking is maybe iPhone 14 customers are satisfied by it, but I'm satisfied by my phone, not because it's a great phone but because any modern phone has the bare minimum I need to get satisfied by it.

Those people aren't using other phones so they wouldn't know if they'd be satisfied by them.

Re: Is Apple making implausible iPhone satisfaction claims?

#90

Post by jonas-w »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #68
ridiculous_fish wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my peer comment: Apple Mail really does download external images automatically, on a server to hide your IP address. It then rewrites those emails to reference the cached images from the server. Every tracker pixel sent to a mail account with this feature will be counted as read, whether or not the user opens it.

Gmail does that too, no? I remember an HN discussion on this many years ago. Here, I found a corroborating link from 2013: https://www.litmus.com/blog/gmail-adds-image-caching-what-yo...

Ah I didn't see that one, they mention this on another page [0] (scroll a bit down). But they mention also that it still reliably detects views and that google released a new feature a while ago "dynamic email", which automatically loads but can also be disabled.

[0] https://mailtrack.io/blog/google-email-tracking-gmail/

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