Majority Of iPhone 5 Purchase Aspirants Not Jonesing For Larger Display
Posted by CharlesMoore on Sunday Jul 22, 2012 Under iPhone 5 Opinion, iPhone 5 PredictionsiPhone 3x and 4x users pondering a switch to Android handsets like Samsung’s Galaxy S III represent a minuscule minority among iPhone owners according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster’s annual smartphone purchasing survey in a note to clients issued last Tuesday. The survey was conducted by querying 400 people in Minnesota, New York, and California, and in China and Korea.
It also seems that demand for a larger-screened iPhone is subdued at best. When survey respondents were shown to-scale drawings of the current iPhone with its 3.5-inch display and Motorola’s Droid Razr Maxx, which has a 4.3-inch display, 56 percent of respondents preferred the smaller display regardless of which phone they currently own — iPhone, Android, or BlackBerry.
The Register’s Rik Myslewski suggests that while Apple is widely expected to include a larger display as one of the feature upgrades on its upcoming iPhone 5 (or wherever it ends up being called), how well that product performs in the marketplace will likely not be determined by the small-versus-large display question. I’m inclined to agree. For practical reasons, smaller smartphone panels like the iPhone’s current Retina displays have their advantages.
Among survey respondents, just 19 percent said they’re planning to purchase an Android phone, a vestigial 2.5 percent of hardcore Blackberry loyalists affirming that their next phone will be from RIM, and 65 percent planning to buy an iPhone. with 51 percent saying they’re waiting for the iPhone 5. Ninety-four point two percent of present iPhone owners say they’re planning to on replacing it with another iPhone. Even 33% of current Android users plan switching to the iPhone, as do 38 percent of current Blackberry users Gene Munster figures Apple has about 80 million iPhone 5 sales (that would be nearly half of an estimated 170 million sales worldwide) “in the bag,” and will sell around 125 million iPhones overall (including 4S and other model sales) in the company’s 2012 fiscal year.
In other news, BGR’s Jonathan S. Geller says reports last week that the next-generation iPhone has entered its production phase are premature, according to a “trusted source.” Geller says that while it’s entirely possible that Apple is producing new iPhone engineering samples and commenced manufacturing device enclosures to identify and fix any problems with the manufacturing line before real production begins, the product is at the third of multiple multiple “engineering verification test” stages, which are to be followed by two “design verification test” phasees.
Geller also says he’s got confirmation current iPhone test mules have 1GB of RAM, double the iPhone 4S’s 512MB RAM capacity, 4G LTE and Near Field Communication (NFC) support, and he shares the dominant consensus that the new iPhone will be released at the end of September or early October.
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July 22nd, 2012 at 7:48 am
I have my doubts regarding the accuracy of this when it is based upon only 400 participants. Elementary statistics teaches that the larger the sample the more accurate the assumption. I, for one, will be trading my iphone 4s for the larger screen of an S3 or One X. Apple’s meager attempt at enlarging the screen is just not enough. I also feel that the competition has passed Apple by. Apple has too tight of a grip on their OS. Five years ago they set the bar so high that it appeared no one could surpass it. Now I think Samsung and others have been listening to users and giving them what they want.
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July 22nd, 2012 at 8:22 am
James – The way I understood it, they queried 400 people in each of those locations for a total of 2000 participants, but I agree that it’s ambiguous.
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July 22nd, 2012 at 11:05 am
James, why do you feel that your (singular) opinion is more accurate than even a tiny 400-person survey? Do you feel insulted by falling into the 5.8% group on iPhone users that plans to switch? And even if you feel that Samsung is listening to you, does that invalidate the opinions of 94.2% of iPhone users that plan to stick with Apple?
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July 22nd, 2012 at 11:22 am
“Geller also says he’s got confirmation current iPhone test mules have 1GB of RAM, double the iPhone 4S’s 512MB RAM capacity”
I rather know how much GHz the iphone will have. 1GB RAM is the standard for new smartphones now. I hope it can atleast match the 1,4 GHz quarcore of the SGIII.
Also, all these polls talk about screensize and such, what about battery life? That’s way more important in my eyes. I want my iphone to last atleast a day.
It seems that most ppl want a bigger screen for games and such. If i want to play games, i’ll buy a real gaming device like the nintendo or something. A bigger screen is also more difficult to pocket and also to use with just 1 hand. I’ll be happy if the screen size remains the same. However, it’s understandable that some like a bigger screen but i’m not a fan.
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July 22nd, 2012 at 12:36 pm
If Apple released two versions, one with a 3.5 inch screen and one with a 4.x inch screen I feel 90% would see the two side by side and buy the larger. I am looking forward to a bigger display the same way I was upgrading to a 17 in laptop from my 15, everything was easier to use and read and im not going to fret about the phone taking up a half cubic inch of pocket real estate.
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July 22nd, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Am I the only one here that is more concerned about the thickness of the new phone rather than the screen size? The reason why I didn’t hop on board the 4S train is due to the bulkiness of the device. My 3Gs due to the round edges feels somewhat more aero dynamique… hence me enduring the torture process that seems to be the wait for the next Iphone, whatever it maybe called
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July 22nd, 2012 at 4:46 pm
I think the marketplace is showing that people want and like larger displays. I trust sales results more than a survey. This sounds like it could be an attempt by Apple (or their surrogates) to lower expectations on a device already being manufactured with a smaller screen. If Apple releases the new phone with a small screen then many will look at and say really, you had two and a half years and this is what you came up with?
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July 22nd, 2012 at 6:12 pm
@berocee,the 3GS is 25% thicker than the 4S, the 3GS being 12 mm and the 4S being 9 mm. So if you don’t like the shape I guess I see what you’re saying, but at the same time I don’t because the form factor of the 4/4S is iconic and unlike any other smartphone design. Anyway, my point is that to say you haven’t gotten the 4S due to it’s bulkiness is just strange, becuase it feels tiny compared to the 3GS.
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July 22nd, 2012 at 6:13 pm
two and a half years and this will be their 1st 4G phone, shameful really…
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July 22nd, 2012 at 7:04 pm
all you saying ’2.5 years’ they wouldnt have been really focusing on it that long, a year and a bit maybe, and apple will never release 2 iphones, apple never compete with themselves, im predicting the following features:
* larger screen (at first i wouldnt like it, but i would get use to it quickly, my 4S is broken and I dont have the money to replace it, so i bought a cheap $20 phone and within 2 weeks i was use to the size)
* better cameras
* LTE & NFC
* SIRI
* 1GB RAM
* Battery that lasts 1 day
* Quad core A6 processor OR an A5X processor (the latter being more likely)
these are my predictions, and I also predict that next years model with be the iPhone whatever S and will be a simple refresh like the 3GS and 4S (by the way, I also predicted very early on last year that it would be the 4S and not the 5, just look at apple’s trends and it was clear we wouldnt see anything but a refresh last year)
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July 22nd, 2012 at 8:21 pm
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July 22nd, 2012 at 8:39 pm
If you go to any blog or article talking about the screen size, you will find similar comments to those stated here over the last several weeks about people wanting a larger display. You will also find hundreds of comments against the 4S Stretch design. While that number isn’t very large, if you look at it as a ratio to the comments of people that like the smaller screen idea, or the the 4S Stretch…it is significantly disproportionate.
I completely agree with @DudeAbides. I don’t care how much others try to convince me that the current size or the 4S Stretch is ideal, I’m not buying it. I would be willing to bet that millions of others wouldnt either. And apparently over 10 million sg3′s have been sold already this month. Use that for some market data. If people don’t seem to like the bigger screen sizes then how come so many millions are buying them?
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July 22nd, 2012 at 8:42 pm
@James, Surveys have statistical accuracy, but not precision of every person, hence the +/- 4 percentage points, and the absolute horror I have when the census comes around and there are calls for statistical counting of people.
@xtonyx, I thought you were wrong, but I checked, and you are indeed right! Thanks for challenging my thinking… here’s the data for the rest of us:
http://ipod.about.com/od/decidingwhichipodtobuy/a/iphone_chart.htm
@Zorro, over the last few weeks you’ve been anti-iphone, right? just checking… I do appreciate that you correctly show that iPhone 5 development has been going on longer than the 4 release date. Concurrent engineering is the norm. I wouldn’t be surpassed if the iPhone 7 is on the drawing board right now.
@Riordan, I think you’re spot on, except the development cycle, but that’s probably a conversation for the bar. Apple won’t tell us how long things took.
@GetSwole: October 6, 2011.
wait… 6/10/2011 in the Day/Month/Year format
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July 22nd, 2012 at 9:35 pm
@ xtonyx, I know that the 4S is thinner… I’ve made the comparison many times. Thats why I mentioned the aerodynamic form and wrote “feels like…” i never said it actually was thinner. The “iconic” design is also something totally depending on opinion. I don’t find something shaped like a box iconic just for the fact that it is different than all other cell phones. For me having seen the development of cell phones going from bigger to smaller, boxier to smoother, and so forth, I found the design of the 4S bulkier and not to my liking. Being also a person that always keeps the cell phone in the back of my jeans pocket, I hate having the shape of things being marked with that white border on the jeans and due to the roundness of the 3/3GS this has still not happened, but it would just be a matter of weeks with the sharper edges of the iphone 4. At the end of the day again its just a matter of opinion. I for one am hoping for a somewhat bigger screen, thinner form factor (ipod touch?), better battery and better camera. Following those criterias, even with no upgrade on the processor and so forth As long as the iOS 6 with apps runs smoothly I would still buy the Iphone ahead of the SG3…
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July 22nd, 2012 at 10:06 pm
I just upgraded to a Sony Experia Ion yesterday for the larger screen. I almost regret it, Android OS isn’t as great as they say, I do realize that the Ion shipped with an old OS, two versions behind, so maybe the newest is better but Gingerbread stinks. My old flip phones I could click on a song and a menu would come up and allow you to set it as sms alert or ringtone or you could easily set custom ringtones or sms alert tones for contacts. Also you could easily handle pictures from the gallery creating folders and moving them around and what not, or set a contacts birthday when you were entering their info and have it alert you on their birthday. Why do I have to open Astro to make new picture folders? Why can’t I do it from the gallery? Don’t get me started on email, I have to download a yahoo app to get it pushed, yahoo’s the only one I need pushed. Like I say I just bought it yesterday so maybe I just have a lot to learn still.
These are just a few problems I have I know I can do these things on android but it’s not as easy as the old timey phones so far, you have to open other file handling apps or search for and download other apps to do the simplest things that junk phones do. Come to think of it my last 2 blackberries did most of these things fairly easily, too bad the hardware wasn’t what I wanted.
I say I almost regret it but I don’t, iphone has a lot of OS problems (like having to spend 20 minutes on the computer in itunes to make one song a ringtone) but the android OS is so disjointed it is worse in my opinion but the big screen on the Ion makes up for it, I can live with androids clunkyness until iphone straitens up and goes big screen. And who knows maybe At&t will release the newest Android OS for the Ion soon and maybe I’ll love it.
Sorry for the long post but yes screen size did make me buy a different phone and even with all the OS shortcomings it was worth it.
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July 22nd, 2012 at 11:31 pm
Dude abides ur 100% right and anyone who thinks a bigger screen wouldn’t be way better is retarded. Those other phones with a bigger screen make all the diff in te world when ur talking about looking at web pages and such. Get swole, ur an idiot and are probably pretty puny waiting for ur cycle to kick in. Ur takin the guys point way too literal of telling apple what ppl want.
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July 23rd, 2012 at 2:56 am
@Baulsak49, if you’re going to call people retarded you should learn how to spell first – people in glass houses …
If they introduced an iPhone mini (as was rumored last year) I would be quite tempted.
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July 23rd, 2012 at 3:00 am
Im still waiting on my dates. Go ahead and dislike the comment because you know I’m right lmfao I doubt any of you have personally contacted Apple to tell them you want a bigger screen. Instead you complain to your friends about it and threaten news blogs that you’ll go to the SG3 if Apple doesn’t release a bigger screen.
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July 23rd, 2012 at 4:28 am
Im still Rockin the 3GS and I have say I’m glad apple isn’t blowing up the screen size. I can easily put it my pocket and use it with 1 hand. My girlfriend got a Samsung (forgot model) and its huge. Sure it’s got a good picture, but I’d rather have something I wouldn’t have to cart around in a fanny pack or a man purse.
@baulsak49 I like your “bigger is better” speech. You must be overcompensating for something or you just have a really cute fanny pack. Either way I’ll stick with my 3 year old phone that hasn’t let me down and just wait for the iPhone 5.
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July 23rd, 2012 at 11:30 am
I understand people’s opinions about not wanting a bigger screen, but I seriously don’t think Apple is going overboard with a slight size update. It will still be as easy to pocket as the current 4s. While this is just a rendering of supposed dimensions, check out this pic (from MacRumors). I bet users will barely notice the size increase.
http://i50.tinypic.com/34nsiuh.jpg
Now if the rumors were that Apple was going to directly compete with the size of Samsung’s flagship, then I could see people being more concerned.
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July 23rd, 2012 at 2:31 pm
I have an iPhone 3G & [still] waiting for the 5. I have not considered an Android phone at all, I’ve had enough conversations with app developers that I simply don’t trust them enough. The only thing I have considered is a Windows Phone, but in Canada there’s not enough choice (Nokia Lumia the only choice & not compatible with Windows Phone 8). So for me, I’ll wait for the 5 or whatever the next one will be called.
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July 23rd, 2012 at 9:40 pm
All I gotta say is that it better not be a damn stretched iPhone 4s or I hate to say it, but galaxy s 3 here I come.
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