Once again , the oracular J.D. Power has dubbed Apple the king of the smartphone heap in damage of client gratification . Inits steady surveyof satisfaction among owners of smartphones and traditional cellular phones , Apple topped the itemization of smartphone manufacturers for the fourth serial time .
The studies , conducted between January and June 2010 , follow 6,821 smartphone owner and 11,803 traditional cell speech sound owners who ’ve used their phones for less than two days . ranking calculate on performance in several key factor ; for smartphones , those factor were — in fiat of importance — ease of operation , the operating system , physical design , features , and shelling function .
Apple scored 800 out of 1000 in the ranking ; its closest competitors were Motorola and HTC , who scored 791 and 781 respectively . All three top the industry average for smartphones of 754 , below which you obtain manufacturers such as RIM ( 737 ) , Samsung ( 735 ) , Palm ( 726 ) , and Nokia ( 711 ) . Apple was down antecedently from its score of 811 in the house ’s last survey , but RIM took a far bigger strike , drop to fourth , with Motorola and HTC surging upwardly to fill the gap . chip in that both of those company have let go a turn of mechanical man - powered smartphones this year , it ’s not hard to point to that as a reason for much of their success .
Other interesting discover in the survey include that the average cost of cell phone plans has work up , unsurprisingly , from $ 69 three years ago to $ 78 today , thanks largely to increase use of texting and the addition of data plan . However , consumer are also keeping their headphone longer — an norm of 20.5 month , up from 1999 ’s average of 17.3 months — to avoid the cost of buy a new French telephone or fees for switching providers .
To nobody ’s surprise , J.D. Power also report that apps are a big deal on smartphones , with more than two - thirds of users downloading games , 54 pct using travel software like function and weather , 41 percent downloading utility program , and 36 percent using business - specific programs . The business firm also say that the Android , iOS , and webOS platforms all performed “ particularly well ” among operating system measured , though it did n’t provide exact figure .
It would seem that Apple ’s on a roll , but we ’ll have to wait six months or so to see if it can control onto its title for the 5th square meter .
