New Study Paints iPhone Owners as Materialistic, Fickle Egomaniacs
Are iPhone users really that bad? We're not buying it. It's odd that a consumer electronics shopping site would sponsor a study that paints such a lousy picture of iPhone owners, but that's exactly what Retrevo.com has done. For whatever reason, the results of their recent report on smartphone owners in the U.S. has returned some unflattering figures about those who own Apple's ubiquitous handheld, the iPhone, as compared to the more business-minded folks who choose a Blackberry instead.
According to this study, iPhone owners are more likely to judge potential partners based on their gadgets and not their college degree, handle breakups via email or text, and yet somehow still think of themselves as "intellectuals" despite the fact that they spend more time than their counterparts texting, watching videos, and visiting adult sites on their phones.
Really?
If you're an iPhone owner yourself, you're probably going to be taken a bit aback by these findings. For example, the study claims that "cool gadgets" make a person three times more attractive to an iPhone owner than a college degree. Meanwhile "old" gadgets are a turnoff to one in three iPhone users. And yet, if that person spends a little too much time with said gadgets, one in four iPhone owners will break up with them. One in three will do it via email or text message.
Taken on their own, it's hard to say whether these stats are indicative of anything about iPhone owners specifically, or if they could apply to any group of smartphone-owning mobile users. That's why the report compares the iPhone and Blackberry owners on each topic. When studied this way, iPhone owners beat Blackberry owners in every category where "winning" is actually the equivalent of being a materialistic, flaky, fickle dolt...well, at least in our opinion.
To spin the findings even further in Blackberry's favor, one of the questions involved asking the mobile users how they "see" themselves. 40% of the iPhone owners claimed they were an "intellectual" while only 36% of Blackberry users said the same. Propped up against the other results, it's an almost laughable claim.
Don't Buy this Hype
Clearly, this survey wasn't meant to be an in-depth examination of the smartphone toting population - in fact, it's more likely just a publicity stunt to generate talk about Retrevo. Given the questions asked, there were bound to be some "rather interesting" findings, no matter how the respondents answered. And by keeping the sample size to a low number - only 445 individuals - there's no guarantee that these folks are representative of the population at large in any way. After all, who signs up for online surveys anyway? While the panel of participants was distributed across gender, age, income and location in the U.S., what's undisclosed is how the questions were asked - was this done scientifically or were they leading questions designed to generate these sorts of results? We'd bet on the latter.
Still, you have to wonder if there isn't a tiny bit of truth hiding in these numbers somewhere. Could it be that those who buy Apple's smartphone are a little more wrapped up in mobile life than those whose smartphone purchase probably had more to do with accessing company email in a timely fashion? That may be possible, but that wouldn't exactly be an incredible reveal if so, now would it?
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something tells me, this was written by an iphone owner ;)
What did we all expect?
There is a cult of brainwashed shallow vain consumers out there, and I don't doubt lots of iPhone users are on the list. So is anyone that goes to a store lining up the night before any product goes on sale. It is not reserved for iPhone users though. Think clothes (look at my "Louis Vuitton" bag) or wine connoisseurs. People that buy Hummers. Then again, perhaps most people carrying an iPhone have it encased in Louis Vuitton leather and are texting while drivng drunk down the road in their Hummers?
not all iphone owner are materialistic egomaniacs, but materialistic egomaniacs sure love iphone.
@Kolja: Guilty! But am I wrong? :)
Study is consistent with my observations.
When you buy what has become a status symbol, with all the trappings that accompany it, why should you be surprised?
Buy what you need vs. what you desire, and the results can be quite different.
Sarah, yes, you might be wrong.
These data seem to have nothing to do with being "wrapped up in the mobile life" and more to do with being wrapped up in needing social approval. After all, those seeking quick access to company email are desiring to be mobile as well, right?
Of course not all iPhone users are going to fit that profile, and many won't fit it at all, however, my observations and opinions seem to align with views expressed by Charles, Jacky, and Rikki.
Every person I know of with an iPhone, wants others to know they have an iPhone. Why is that?
There definitely is a segment of our society that chases status. It's like they've never let go of the immature social thinking of high school, where girls like guys with nice cars. For some people, "things" are indicators of "cool," and they have to have the right things, be they clothes, cars, gadgets or whatever.
Watch closely the "I'm a mac / I'm a PC" ad campaign. The PC is the out of touch nerd, the Mac is the hip, cool guy. Apple's whole image is meant to exude cool, targeting people who want to be perceived as such.
Of course, some people just want a phone, media player, and perhaps some apps, and don't want to carry multiple devices to get that, but that doesn't seem to the be primary motivation of a large number of iPhone users.
People vary in their perceptions of life, others, and what is important, from the selflessness of Tibetan monks to the show-off materialistic celebrity.
The thing is, what the monks tend to own is surprisingly similar to what other monks tend to own, just as what the gadgets and possessions of the shallow crowd own tends to be similar to the others.
The lines for iPhones were amusing to many, including me, as we observed a group of people who valued early adoption of the next hip thing far above their own time.
By the way, if you are going to write an article defending iPhone users from a study, you REALLY should disclose whether or not you own an iPhone.
And for the record, I do not.
This hits about 95% of the iPhone users I know.
Especially the "Materialistic, Fickle Egomaniacs" ...oh wait
Study is consistent with my observations as well. I haven't met a single iPhone owner yet who doesn't tell me that I personally "need" it and who does not explain to me how stupid I am for not giving in to consumerist marketing ploys.
I would have to agree with the study and many of the comments here. Iphone users are douche bags! Lol
Maybe they say you need it because they love it, and think you might too?
I never thought I'd get one as I thought they were wanky too. After researching what I needed gadget-wise (mp3 player, recorder for interviews, ebook reader as travel a lot - as well as phone/email etc) the iphone won as I got all these things in one, and it does all of these things very well. The voice recorder and ebook reader is far better and easier to use than the one I had on my palm smartphone.
So I guess now I'm one of those egomaniacs too, enjoying my iPhone.
This study intrigued us so we looked at some of our own data about Hunch users who have iPhones. We found just a few similarities with the findings in this study, but we discovered many differences as well. http://blog.hunch.com/?p=8414
Sounds like non-iphone users are jealous egotistical elitists who like to judge others for being different than themselves. This is true of 95% of all commentators I've encountered in this post.
I may be wrong here but being "cool" and "likable" sounds better than being a jealous judgmental phone curmudgeon. Just my guess.
My Credentials: Don't own either an iphone or a crackberry. I own an LG. I use Mac and Windows and like them both. (Just dropped the Multi-computeral love bomb on the haters of in this conversation.)
Comment #13 (Smart Sounding), it is utterly ASTOUNDING how you label others as "jealous," "egotistical," "elitists," and "judgmental phone curmudgeon[s]," and then turn around and claim that THEY are the haters in this conversation!
That's not too "smart sounding" to me. :-/
As I wrote earlier...
"Not all iPhone users are going to fit that profile, and many won't fit it at all," and
"Some people just want a phone, media player, and perhaps some apps, and don't want to carry multiple devices to get that."
Once again I say that there are tons of iPhone users who get them for their functionality, not for coolness.
Unfortunately for these people, by buying a device that is also the darling of people who ARE into the cool factor, they risk being grouped with that crowd, even if it isn't really their crowd.
BTW, the fun of an iPhone isn't lost on me at all. I have an iPod Touch which runs iPhone apps, and it is one handy little gadget. I use it for many things, including as an e-book reader. My phone, though, is an Android based G1 by Google and HTC, mostly because I want my Google calendar and contacts synchronized with my phone (in other words: functionality).
Also, I'm typing this on an Apple MacBook Pro, and next to it on my desk is my Windows desktop PC, and I see nothing extraordinary about this "multi-computeral love bomb."
For many of us, perhaps most of us, it's not about love and hate, it's just about having the right tool for the job.
You forgot teeth pickers and fingernail biters. Next time you are at Costco waiting in line, don't look to see how many are using their iphone, but how many are picking their teeth using their iphone. I've been a Palm users since before it was a phone. The novelty of touch screen and PDA use as worn off.
Sarah, are you familiar with the formula typically used to compute sample sizes? Even with very large populations you rarely need to go above 300. The population of smartphone users is VERY large, but my guess is that the sample size you mentioned it enough for a valid result.
Since you say the survey "was distributed across gender, age, income and location in the U.S." it sounds to me like it was demographically controlled? Put these things together and you may be looking at a web survey that really stands out in terms of methodology.
I think this is retrevo's marketing scheme to have people talking about their study, like what we are doing now by attacking people who would be offended by their study in the hopes of making it viral.
But looking at their results closely, blackberry owners aren't far behind in their use of their smartphone. There is definitely a bit of bias against the iPhone. What would make this study more relevant if they discounted the brands and studied the behaviour of smartphone users in particular wether the person uses iphone, blackberry, palm etc.
There may be some truth to their findings but the way they got their findings is really a bit sketchy.
This is so massively unfair.
Most iPhone owners are just regular folks. Some even shop at Wal-Mart and Restoration Hardware and suchlike...
It is iPhone App Developers that are skewing this survey.
*****
BTW, can I link to my Apps from this Comment? Really, I have copious amounts of primo peerless Apps I forged by hand, in only a few minutes...
Seeing has how a college degree is almost worthless these days, and the value and mobile knowledge that an iPhone can wield, I would say yes, an iPhone user is more attractive.
Wait, I've heard all this before. I work in marketing. We ran several ad campaigns in the 90's to encourage wider cell phone use in various European countries. Each brief basically depicted the early adopters using cell phones back then as "Materialistic, Fickle Egomaniacs". Although I suspect the credibility of the Retrivo survey, it may be saying more about the early adopters in general than iPhone owners specifically. See also: It's Official: Early Adopters Are Jackasses. http://consumerist.com/5017777/
does anyone ever go to the source anymore?
people here are discussing the survey based on this blogger's filtered view of it.
on retrevo's site they mention that the survey was done independently. this isn't a marketing scheme.
The Retrevo Gadgetology report is an ongoing study of people and electronics from the consumer electronics shopping site Retrevo.com. The data for this report came from a study of online individuals (non-Retrevo users), conducted by an independent panel. The sample size was 445 iPhone and BlackBerry owners distributed across gender, age, income and location in the United States. The responses have a confidence interval of 4% at a 95% confidence level.
445 is a big enough sample.
Plus, the part about intellectuals really doesn't show any significant differences between the two - remember there's a 4% confidence interval.
so ya- basically learn to read statistics.
That's really great news ....... new study paints iphone owners as materialistic fickle