Two years ago, my wife and I each had one of those Motoroloa “r” phones – the SLVR and the RAZR. They were ok. They were phones.
When the iPhone came out, I surprised my wife by spending $800 for 2 new phones. She was skeptical about the enourmous price but I was right: in no time at all, we both loved the phones. The iPhones were an enormous leap over our Motorola phones. I started texting for the first time in my life, the map continues to be amazingly useful, visual voice mail… the iPhone is fantastically useful.
Two years later, I would like to purchase the newer iPhone. It is faster and has true GPS. But it is expensive. I would have to spend $200 for the phone and our montly bills would go up. The total cost of ownership is higher.
The new phones are incrementally better but not enough to justify the cost. At least for us. They are a want not a need.
Recently I have been seeing all these advertisements about “iPhone killers” from Microsoft and RIM and Google. I could not be less interested in them. I have an iPhone, why would I want something else?
I cannot think of any reason at all to leave the iphone for another phone except that I was forced to.
This is a textbook example of product innovation. If customers are happy, it takes a lot more than being “better” to get them to change products. You have to be undeniably tons better (like the iPhone was to the SLVR) to get people to act. If your “betterness” is deniable or unclear, good luck.
Clearly everyone doesn’t have an iPhone but I just cannot relate to the hype about any other phone. And I expect apple’s growth in phone market share to continue for a long time.
