New Owners Survey Shows iPhone 4S More Popular than its Apple Predecessor
BETHESDA, MD - A new ChangeWave Research survey of iPhone 4S owners shows customer satisfaction ratings for the latest Apple smart phone are higher than for its predecessor, the iPhone 4. ChangeWave Research is a division of The 451 Group.
Context & Ripple Effects
This survey closes a loop ChangeWave opened in August 2010, when its poll of iPhone 4 owners landed weeks after the antenna controversy that forced Apple's public letter on the iPhone 4. The 4S arrives without that baggage, and the new-owners data shows satisfaction running above the predecessor's.
The result lands on top of momentum rather than creating it: Consumer Reports had already broken from its 2010 stance to recommend the iPhone 4S in November 2011, so two independent raters now agree within a month. The same-day news cycle around Cook defending Siri shows the product's headline feature drawing fire even as overall owner sentiment holds up.
First-order effects
- Apple heads into the December holiday quarter with survey-backed satisfaction claims it can use in retail and carrier channels, at a moment when Siri criticism is its most visible vulnerability.
- Rival handset makers competing for the same upgrade buyers now face an incumbent whose latest model rates higher with owners than its predecessor did.
Second-order effects
- Carrier sales floors gain a simple talking point — highest owner satisfaction — that shifts upgrade conversations toward Apple devices during the peak gifting season.
- Competitors are pushed to counter with their own owner-experience metrics rather than hardware specs alone, since satisfaction is the axis where Apple currently wins.
Third-order effects
- If satisfaction surveys keep tracking purchase intent this closely, they harden into a standard competitive benchmark for smartphones, rewarding ecosystem stickiness over spec-sheet differentiation.
The trend: Smartphone competition is shifting from launch-day hardware comparisons to post-purchase owner satisfaction as the metric that drives upgrades.