DailyTech - Analyst Worries iPhone Users are Suffering from "Stockholm Syndrome"

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Blog: Gadgets Analyst Worries iPhone Users are Suffering from "Stockholm Syndrome"
Jason Mick (Blog) - December 15, 2009 5:49 PM

24 comment(s) - last by invidious.. on Dec 23 at 1:22 PM

Are iPhone customers in the U.S. being held hostage?

In many countries the iPhone is freely available on several networks. However, in the U.S. only AT&T has the right to sell the iPhones. That has been a headache for U.S. customers that complain over high dropped call rates. And to make matters worse, AT&T is considering fining those who liberally take advantage of their "unlimited" data package.

Still many iPhone users defend AT&T and insist that their situation isn't really that bad. Now one analyst has offered up a possible explanation for the customers' behavior -- they're acting like hostages.

Strand Consulting writes in a report entitled: "How will psychologists describe the iPhone syndrome in the future?":

Apple has launched a beautiful phone with a fantastic user interface that has had a number of technological shortcomings that many iPhone users have accepted and defended, despite those shortcomings resulting in limitations in iPhone users' daily lives."

When we examine the iPhone users' arguments defending the iPhone, it reminds us of the famous Stockholm Syndrome - a term that was invented by psychologists after a hostage drama in Stockholm. Here hostages reacted to the psychological pressure they were experiencing, by defending the people that had held them hostage for 6 days.

While Strand Consulting may be on to something there, they fail to consider another more common psychological affliction among tech users -- fanboyism. This affliction drives iPhone, Android, and Windows Mobile users alike to extol the virtues of their beloved platform of choice while turning a blind eye to its shortcomings.

Strand Consulting concludes its analysis, commenting, "If you are one of the many other phone manufacturers: Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG, HTC etc., you will most probably be very envious of the euphoria that Apple has invoked in their customers. Strand Consulting is always open to objective criticism and we would be happy to participate in any debates regarding the conclusions in our reports."

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Bull$!@$

By amanojaku on 12/15/2009 8:28:24 PM , Rating: 5

quote:
This affliction drives iPhone, Android, and Windows Mobile users alike to extol the virtues of their beloved platform of choice while turning a blind eye to its shortcomings.

When the Palm Pre debuted my friend bought one and immediately fell in love. He only spoke about it twice, however. The first time is when he bought it, the second because I asked how he still felt. I know he loves it. Not because he said so, but because he can't put the damn thing down.

With one exception, every iPhone owner has pushed the damn thing in my face. At every opportunity these people feel the need the need to display their fancy gadget. But they don't give off that "in love" feeling my friend has with his Pre. If anything, they seem to be indifferent to the phone itself and more interested in you seeing them with it.

The lone exception? He didn't care for the iPhone, but he loved one baseball app. He could watch 3d versions of any live game played in "real time". Other than that he was happy it only cost him $200.

RE: Bull$!@$

By hiscross on 12/15/09, Rating: 0

RE: Bull$!@$

By aebiv on 12/15/2009 9:50:26 PM , Rating: 2

Me, everyone on my company and family as well...

Pick yourself up a Dash 3G if you are a BlackBerry person, or a TP2 or Diamond2 if you're into touch screens.

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RE: Bull$!@$

By omnicronx on 12/16/2009 12:15:12 PM , Rating: 2

Me :)But only because I cook my own ROMS :)

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RE: Bull$!@$

By Flunk on 12/18/2009 8:58:15 AM , Rating: 2

I love Windows Mobile, it's really easy to program for. I can see how people who aren't software developers wouldn't care about that but I especially love how easy it is to port .NET applications to Windows Mobile.

I can see why non-programmer may not be so happy because the interface seems really dated these days but where else are you going to get such a wide array of applications, many of which are free? (Anyone who says the iTunes store should get their head examined as it has several orders of magnitude less choice.)

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RE: Bull$!@$

By kmmatney on 12/15/2009 10:30:18 PM , Rating: 2

Well, I don't know if I "love" my iPhone, but I'm very extremely happy with it. I would call is a strong "like".

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RE: Bull$!@$

By inperfectdarkness on 12/19/2009 12:50:44 PM , Rating: 3

so i'm right?

it's not really an iPhone, it's an iPenis?

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RE: Bull$!@$

By aqwan135 on 12/20/09, Rating: -1

Iphones Aren't Bad

By angryhippy on 12/16/2009 1:20:39 AM , Rating: 5

I have to admit I love my Iphone. I wonder if the "Dropped Call" problem is a big city issue, I live in a small town and I've hardly ever had dropped calls on my Iphone. Sound quality hasn't been an issue either, I don't notice the difference compared to my old Nokia.

I have to admit my girlfriend who uses Verizon tends to have better signal strength, specially in remote locations. My old Nokia seemed to have better signal strength too, so I don't think the Iphone excels at that. It is very easy to use, and fun though, and there's lots of of fun and useful Iphone apps for free or 99¢, even if 95% of them are crap.

While I'm annoyed with some of the Iphone's 3GS shortcomings (no flash, no expandable storage, no easily changeable batteries, tethering disabled, and being stuck with AT&T which is pretty mediocre, and not the best prices) I use my Iphone all the time, and there seems to be an app for almost anything I can think of. It's certainly the most fun phone I've ever had, and it has pretty decent graphics in games. I do have high hopes for the new droid phones though, the latest motorola ones look pretty exciting and try to address the shortcomings of the Iphone. The Iphone touchscreen keyboard works surprisingly well, though I'd rather have a slide out keyboard for long messages.

Apple kind of seems like a company of idiot savants, they can be very innovative with style and ease of use, but they always seem to leave out features that "everybody else" has, and try to milk you for money as much as possible. Like when I changed from Windows XP to 7 I had to delete all the media on my Iphone and sync everything to it again, because it wouldn't let me simply add music to it anymore. And why can't I use the Iphone as a thumb drive, (I think their might be an app that allows you to put regular files on it at least) I mean it's got 16 GB of storage, and fast transfer rates, but I can't just copy random files to it. It's like some departments of Apple are run by monkeys on crack. Let's create a really cool product, and then be complete retards about certain common features. I may love my Iphone but I hope droid phones kick it's ass soon.!

RE: Iphones Aren't Bad

By marvdmartian on 12/16/2009 12:12:13 PM , Rating: 5

quote:
It's like some departments of Apple are run by monkeys on crack.

Seriously....whoever's running this joint needs to add this line as one of the quotes at the bottom of every DailyTech article. Awesome!!

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RE: Iphones Aren't Bad

By MatthiasF on 12/16/2009 4:17:38 PM , Rating: 3

There are many simple things they could have done to make the iPhone better in general (as well as other smart phones). The first thing that comes to mind is bringing back the infrared diode. Put it next to the camera hole, since most CCDs in digital cameras can see infrared you could use the phone as a television remote or other point-to-point communications. Applications of this simple addition are endless, like a wireless keyboard, sync to computer, instant messaging without the Internet or phone network (very clandestine), small file transfers (digital business cards like PDAs), or talking to interactive kiosks and appliances like ATMs, cashiers, museum exhibits (no need to rent those headphone tour things), automobiles (send a location to your in-car navigation), television DVR, snack machines (send requests for new products into a computer inside the machine or use some sort of account system instead of cash), airline check-in, RedBox machines or emergency medical records.

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RE: Iphones Aren't Bad

By kmmatney on 12/17/2009 8:59:43 PM , Rating: 2

I use goodreader to dump files onto my iPhone. I think there are other apps that can do this as well.

(posting this from an iPhone, btw)

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"Diamonds in the rough..."

By farsawoos on 12/18/2009 10:44:32 AM , Rating: 2

I recently purchased an HTC Hero and became a first-time Sprint customer. So far, I love the phone and the service. The interface (though I realize not pure Android) is intuitive, easy to navigate, shiny, and one might even say clever. It has some quirks, mostly related to the dated hardware it's running on. But it has one flaw that, despite all its positives, and despite all my contentment w/ the device in the face of the iPhone mega-orgy going on in the rest of my circles, makes me think it has a long way to go before ever taking on the iPhone:

the browser.

To me, the iPhone's greatest strength (despite what any of the fanbois may claim) is its browser, and it is a strength that will continue to hold them at the top until one of the other brands (Google?) releases a device with a *true*, fully functional browser, instead of the stripped-out Javascript and WebKit engines like what Android 1.6 has. 2.0 might be different, but I don't know. These work - technically - but they're by no means what the iPhone's full-on Safari browser w/ zoom gives you.

Someone will eventually get there. Until then, I'm glad the iPhone exists, because it pushed mobile devices in a way they needed. I'm happy with my Android phone and look forward to the next big update (2.0 hopefully) for it. :)

RE: "Diamonds in the rough..."

By Hare on 12/18/2009 11:49:23 AM , Rating: 2

You might want to try the Nokia N900.

http://maemo.nokia.com/features/maemo-browser/

Supports Firefox plugins. Adblock is pretty usefull. You can also install Firefox. The browsing experience is pretty much superior to iPhone in every single aspect (cursor marking mode, plugin support, flash and javascript support etc etc). The display is btw 800x480 (compare that to iPhone: 480x320).

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RE: "Diamonds in the rough..."

By SunAngel on 12/21/2009 1:02:01 AM , Rating: 2

I will explain this everyone...first, the nokia 900 is a pocket computer with an add-on phone function, second, the device and software are separatable...meaning expandability is up to devs willing to program for it (this is why it won't be an iPhone killer), and third, it uses external storage cards. as difficult as this may be to believe, paying Apple $100 for an additional 16gb of internal storage is not as bad as it seems once you have the phone in your hands. data transfers are much faster than transfer in a computer to microsd cards.

the thing apple has done with the iphone may seem juevnile to some IT people but to average, everyday joes and sallies ease of use always triumps using command line interfaces.

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RE: "Diamonds in the rough..."

By Bateluer on 12/21/2009 4:51:05 PM , Rating: 2

For Android, grab one of the other browsers if you don't like the default Browser. I've been using Dolphin for a while now and I like it. The pending release of Fennec, Firefox Mobile, will likely be a game changer though.

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Science

By Smilin on 12/17/2009 10:02:49 AM , Rating: 5

So science has finally discovered that there are fanboys.

/golfclap

RE: Science

By fatedtodie on 12/21/2009 12:42:42 PM , Rating: 1

I think it is more science has discovered the root of fanboy-ism and thus a way to treat/eliminate it.

But your attempt at sarcastic comment about the lack of importance of this is noted and ignored.

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Sounds like...

By TheEinstein on 12/17/2009 5:44:05 PM , Rating: 1

Democrats defending the short comings of their party...

Environmentalists defending the lies of Global Warming...

Europe saying America should not be a super power...

Lots of this syndrome going around.

RE: Sounds like...

By Master Kenobi

(blog) on 12/18/2009 9:12:37 AM , Rating: 2

I'm on the phone with the wambulance right now.

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RE: Sounds like...

By Smilin on 12/18/2009 1:28:42 PM , Rating: 2

If you're on AT&T I bet you only heard one "waa-waaa" before your call got dropped.

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IF ATT spent the money on something else

By SerafinaEva on 12/15/2009 6:44:36 PM , Rating: 2

If ATT spent the money they used to get the exclusivity of the Iphone on making their network better, they wouldn't have to falsely advertise their unlimited data plans.

RE: IF ATT spent the money on something else

By fatedtodie on 12/17/2009 10:01:46 AM , Rating: 2

You know if you make the same point in 15 different articles just because it says ATT or iPhone that doesn't make the point more valid.

We get it, AT&T has crappy service. Wait it doesn't, wait it does... wait it doesn't.

Just leave it alone. The article was about iphone users being like hostages. Your comment actually is proving the article's point while you miss the point of it all together.

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Another blog about this?

By invidious on 12/23/2009 1:22:05 PM , Rating: 2

Or maybe they just live in one of the many areas were ATT's coverage is perfectly fine.

An upset vocal minority gets more press then the average happy consumer. That doesn't mean everyone who is silent is suffering from a psycological dissorder.