Apple’s faithful have lapped up the tenth-anniversary iPhone X, and made it the carefully worded best-selling iPhone in Apple’s current line-up of smartphones. But there’s one feature that is very few of the millions of users are satisfied with, and it is one that Apple has had many opportunities to put right.
Tech.pinions recent survey of early adopters of the iPhone X was set up to discover both what features users are satisfied with, and the overall satisfaction with the handset. First up, the headline number of handset satisfaction is high… significantly so, as Tech.pinions’ Ben Bajarin points out:
When it came to overall customer satisfaction, iPhone X owners in our study gave the product an overall 97% customer satisfaction. While that number is impressive, what really stands out when you do customer satisfaction studies is the percentage who say they are very satisfied with the product. Considering you add up the total number of very satisfied, and satisfied, to get your total customer satisfaction number a product can have a high number of satisfied responses and lower number of very satisfied responses and still achieve a high number. The higher the very satisfied responses, the better a product truly is. In our study, 85% of iPhone X owners said they were very satisfied with the product.
That said, it’s worth pointing out that the survey targets early adopters, who are heavily invested in the product and will show significant levels of confirmation bias in regards their purchase. Which makes the high point higher (and I’ve no doubt the 97 percent mark will feature in the next Apple keynote to show how well received the under-performing iPhone X has been).
It also makes the low points even lower.
Only one feature is rated below sixty percent. Siri scores an out of favour twenty percent in terms of satisfaction. While Bajarin highlights that the early adopters can be a very critical bunch (just as they can be very positive) the fact that Siri is rated so low is not a good sign for Apple.
The next battlefield in consumer electronics is voice control. Google and Amazon have invested heavily in this technology and are seen as leaders of the pack. Siri is struggling to catch up, and the standalone HomePod speaker is not flying off the shelves.
If the early adopters are not happy with Apple’s voice interface - which is has been working on in public since October 2011 - then Apple’s foundation for the next wave of innovation is on shaky ground.
Now read more about the three new iPhones that will replace the iPhone X…
