I was recently dragged into a Verizon store by a nontechnical friend to help with buying a second smartphone. I let them browse for a while then asked them what they thought about what they saw. I was actually thinking of recommending an iPhone since they really do offer a simpler interaction model over the rest.
After a couple questions I realized that she couldn't figure out which ones were the iPhones from the Android from the Windows Phone. So I walked around with her to the phones that she liked and answered a few questions about each (storage, battery, if it was a popular phone that sort of thing). I realized that she hadn't even checked out the iPhones at all. They were kept over in a special Apple section of the store, and from a distance looked like the small budget smart phones they had elsewhere in the store. So she had skipped them entirely. All of the phones she liked were in the larger screen sizes.
I took her over to them and the conversation went something like this, "and these are the famous iPhones, give them a try, they're really easy to use."
She messed with it a bit, "isn't there a bigger one, like the other phones?"
I pointed out that it's designed to be easier to use in one hand, for people on the go.
"But it's so small, it's hard to see things on the screen, I have to hold it so close" She pointed to the iPad mini they had there "something in-between that one and this one"
And that was that, it came down to a decision between the Droid MAXX, the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy Note II. She walked out with an S4.
Ooh ooh, if we're playing anectodal data game day I'll pitch in too.
One girl I knew was complaining about how big her phone is and asked me about my 4s at the time so I let her try it out. She decided she'd get the 5 right after it was out because her current phone was "too damn big to text with easily". I pointed out she could install a different launcher/keyboard but her phone had never been updated.
This is the problem with anecdotes. The plural is not data.
I also know a fair amount of women primarily that have iphones because they don't like the giant android phones. But again, could just be my friends, where I live, the alignments of whatever influencing buying decisions.
I'm getting more annoyed with all of these "my anecdote X which reinforces view Y means company FOO should BLAH" comments. They don't really contribute to actual discussion of the technical problems at hand, which are interesting. Hopefully that didn't come off too harsh as its just intended to spark more of a discussion of can we please stop with anecdotes in these stories in future? Pretty please? If you come to the twin cities I'll even buy you beer, or if we're ever in the same spot. I'm not above bribing.
The S4 size tends to do poorly with women (not just anecdotally, but based on market surveys.) It's large enough that it won't fit into their pockets. But if you go even larger (Galaxy Note) then women start to find the larger size okay, because they're going to put in their purse/bag anyway (but men now find they can't fit it in their pocket easily, so they dislike that size jump more.)
So the 4" and 6-7" sizes end up being more popular for women, while the 5" sizes do worse, because they're not as big as the Notes but still too big to fit in a woman's pocket.
(Similarly, there's appeal to the 7" size for guys because it's something you can fit in a jacket pocket.)
Right. She actually like the way the Windows phone hardware looked the best -- it's colorful and different looking than everything else. But I think she would have bought an iPhone to be honest just based on name recognition if Apple would offer competitive sizes. With the way it was presented in the store, it had as much sales sex appeal as the aging netbook display to one side of it and the feature phone display behind it.
The iPhone 5 just absolutely mystifies me, they had a 4 and 4s for sale there too but unless you hold the phones right next to one another and see the extra row of icons on the screen, they're virtually indistinguishable as products to most people, yet the 5 costs much more. To a nontechnical buyer it seems inexplicable that this extra row of icons costs $100-$200 difference in price. Even digging into the specs, I couldn't really make a case for the 5 over the 4 series without getting into technical specs she didn't care about. Her comments were "the 5 is the new one, but I'm getting price gouged for it, and the 4 is on the way out...and these other phones are really popular too"
In the store, with all of the important context clues that stores put around flagship products, the iPhone section felt like it was selling to a market that was quickly disappearing. Like selling incredibly nice horsewhips at a car dealership.
All I'm saying is, Apple would have made a sale that day if they offered a slightly larger product in addition to their already popular one. They don't offer it, and they lost a customer. I'd imagine this same decision happens thousands of times a day and it's bizarre that they haven't identified that market segment as one to compete in.
Apple took it's sweet time to get into the small tablet market, and now is selling iPad minis like they're going out of style. Why not get into the slightly larger smartphone market which has already proven itself to be at least as popular a segment as the niche the iPhone is in.
Comments
Interesting that they declare phones with less than 4" diagonal screens to be barely smartphones, when that's the size of all iPhones before the 5...
I was recently dragged into a Verizon store by a nontechnical friend to help with buying a second smartphone. I let them browse for a while then asked them what they thought about what they saw. I was actually thinking of recommending an iPhone since they really do offer a simpler interaction model over the rest.
After a couple questions I realized that she couldn't figure out which ones were the iPhones from the Android from the Windows Phone. So I walked around with her to the phones that she liked and answered a few questions about each (storage, battery, if it was a popular phone that sort of thing). I realized that she hadn't even checked out the iPhones at all. They were kept over in a special Apple section of the store, and from a distance looked like the small budget smart phones they had elsewhere in the store. So she had skipped them entirely. All of the phones she liked were in the larger screen sizes.
I took her over to them and the conversation went something like this, "and these are the famous iPhones, give them a try, they're really easy to use." She messed with it a bit, "isn't there a bigger one, like the other phones?" I pointed out that it's designed to be easier to use in one hand, for people on the go. "But it's so small, it's hard to see things on the screen, I have to hold it so close" She pointed to the iPad mini they had there "something in-between that one and this one"
And that was that, it came down to a decision between the Droid MAXX, the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy Note II. She walked out with an S4.
Ooh ooh, if we're playing anectodal data game day I'll pitch in too.
One girl I knew was complaining about how big her phone is and asked me about my 4s at the time so I let her try it out. She decided she'd get the 5 right after it was out because her current phone was "too damn big to text with easily". I pointed out she could install a different launcher/keyboard but her phone had never been updated.
This is the problem with anecdotes. The plural is not data.
I also know a fair amount of women primarily that have iphones because they don't like the giant android phones. But again, could just be my friends, where I live, the alignments of whatever influencing buying decisions.
I'm getting more annoyed with all of these "my anecdote X which reinforces view Y means company FOO should BLAH" comments. They don't really contribute to actual discussion of the technical problems at hand, which are interesting. Hopefully that didn't come off too harsh as its just intended to spark more of a discussion of can we please stop with anecdotes in these stories in future? Pretty please? If you come to the twin cities I'll even buy you beer, or if we're ever in the same spot. I'm not above bribing.
The S4 size tends to do poorly with women (not just anecdotally, but based on market surveys.) It's large enough that it won't fit into their pockets. But if you go even larger (Galaxy Note) then women start to find the larger size okay, because they're going to put in their purse/bag anyway (but men now find they can't fit it in their pocket easily, so they dislike that size jump more.)
So the 4" and 6-7" sizes end up being more popular for women, while the 5" sizes do worse, because they're not as big as the Notes but still too big to fit in a woman's pocket.
(Similarly, there's appeal to the 7" size for guys because it's something you can fit in a jacket pocket.)
You might be reading too much into the comment.
For both your and parent's anecdote, screen size was the primary determinant for this user. I wouldn't be surprised if that's common.
It's a good reminder that many people don't buy a device based on the topics we discuss a lot like openness, lock-in, carriers, and fragmentation.
Right. She actually like the way the Windows phone hardware looked the best -- it's colorful and different looking than everything else. But I think she would have bought an iPhone to be honest just based on name recognition if Apple would offer competitive sizes. With the way it was presented in the store, it had as much sales sex appeal as the aging netbook display to one side of it and the feature phone display behind it.
The iPhone 5 just absolutely mystifies me, they had a 4 and 4s for sale there too but unless you hold the phones right next to one another and see the extra row of icons on the screen, they're virtually indistinguishable as products to most people, yet the 5 costs much more. To a nontechnical buyer it seems inexplicable that this extra row of icons costs $100-$200 difference in price. Even digging into the specs, I couldn't really make a case for the 5 over the 4 series without getting into technical specs she didn't care about. Her comments were "the 5 is the new one, but I'm getting price gouged for it, and the 4 is on the way out...and these other phones are really popular too"
In the store, with all of the important context clues that stores put around flagship products, the iPhone section felt like it was selling to a market that was quickly disappearing. Like selling incredibly nice horsewhips at a car dealership.
Even Nintendo sells two sizes of their portables.
All I'm saying is, Apple would have made a sale that day if they offered a slightly larger product in addition to their already popular one. They don't offer it, and they lost a customer. I'd imagine this same decision happens thousands of times a day and it's bizarre that they haven't identified that market segment as one to compete in.
Apple took it's sweet time to get into the small tablet market, and now is selling iPad minis like they're going out of style. Why not get into the slightly larger smartphone market which has already proven itself to be at least as popular a segment as the niche the iPhone is in.