“Martin Fichter, the acting president of HTC America, appeared today at the Mobile Future Forward conference in downtown Seattle,” John Cook reports for GeekWire. “And the Bellevue wireless executive shared some interesting insights on everything from Windows Phone 7 to the ongoing wireless patent wars to why college kids — at least in his recent survey at Reed College — don’t think iPhones are cool anymore.”
Apple is innovating. Samsung is innovating. We are innovating. Everybody is innovating. And everybody is doing different things for the end consumers. I brought my daughter back to college — she’s down in Portland at Reed — and I talked to a few of the kids on her floor. And none of them has an iPhone because they told me: ‘My dad has an iPhone.’ There’s an interesting thing that’s going on in the market. The iPhone becomes a little less cool than it was. They were carrying HTCs. They were carrying Samsungs. They were even carrying some Chinese manufacture’s devices. If you look at a college campus, Mac Book Airs are cool. iPhones are not that cool anymore. We here are using iPhones, but our kids don’t find them that cool anymore. – Martin Fichter, acting president, HTC America
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Reed? No wonder Steve dropped out after only one semester.
You know what’s really uncool? Lying about innovating and then capping it off with a weak-ass, ginned-up anecdote that the market proves utterly untrue every single minute of every single day.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Followup study reveals other things teens consider uncool because “dad has them”:
Car
House
College Degree
Job
Income
Great answer
don’t forget food.
Also…
> but our kids don’t find them that cool anymore.
Since when do “kids” define what is “cool” for the majority of customers? Microsoft tried to appeal to the younger part of the market with Kin (and Zune), and that failed utterly to appeal to anyone. I mean, I didn’t want to be the people portrayed in that marketing. So good luck to HTC, if that’s their strategy.
Beautifully put……………..
LOL
Go into any mall, any movie theater, any airplane and you will see tons of iPhones and a quite a few Android phones and a couple blackberries and the only reason there are so many Androids is because they are giving them away. If the cost the same as the iPhone, there’d be even more iPhones.
If you can’t beat them, lie about them and hope people believe you I guess.
Another reason – the iPhone is not yet available on their carrier. (They may still be on Mom & Dad’s family plan.)
I know what you mean. I’m a Machead through and through but currently have an HTC Wildfire- which I really like actually. It costs me a tenner a month from T Mobile with a great talk time/text/internet package. The cheapest iPhone deal I can find here in the UK is still at least three times that.
I lol’ed. Reed college definitely = all college kids, right?
Reed College is the one that Steve Jobs dropped out of.
Since when has HTC known anything about “cool”?
FINALLY someone at HTC has taken a stand and reminded us about what is cool and what isn’t.
Thank you, Martin Fichter.
After reading this article, I feel bad for his daughter.
Not that he’s a bad dad (seriously) but because everyone is going to be waving their iPhones at her. (or something that vibrates..,,)
Yes that’s why my three teenage boys all whom have 3GS iPhones are wanting the iPhone 4 or the next model. Sure my wife and I each have the iPhone 4. But to say the iPhones are not neat, new, and have that wow factor anymore. Is a bit of a laugh! All three of my boys have offered to camp out on release night of the next iPhone. One is a year away from college. So I better warn him that iPhones are not cool anymore.
Oh wait he was also with me in line over night for the iPhone 4. I guess it just depends on what college campus and if the parents in top of affording tuition can also purchase the best phones for their kids. I won’t sacrifice quality with my kids and expect them to have the same standards as I do. So iPhones it will be.
… and if he’s right, there won’t be any queues of people lining up to buy the next iPhone.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
My kid is in well known private college and he has an iPhone, most of his friends have iPhones, and he report that the ones who have Android phones WANT iPhones. How’s that for an anecdote?
Yes, but do their iPhones have a statistically significant Coolness Factor within the 18 to 21 year old consumer contingent relative to the same Android consumer contingent? And what Attribute Factors are responsible for the resulting Coolness scoring within these classifications? Is, in fact, anecdotal hearsay an adequate source of data to allow performing these analyses?
We’re waiting for your answer Mr. Fichter… 😯
Hahaha, I bet Steve calls up Reed’s President and asks him what the stats are on their campus network, to verify what Mr. HTC states anecdotally.
As for “cool”, “cool” has no staying power. “cool” is pejorative. It’s a put-down, because “cool” is just what’s in fashion today, and out-of-fashion tomorrow. The iPhone was NEVER “cool”, because the iPhone has practical benefits that are amazing, and timeless. People who don’t get Apple, think it’s down to marketing, or Steve’s RDF, or some notion of “cool”. Mr. HTC doesn’t get it.
Or, to put it another way, great battery life is “cool”. Great app selection is “cool”. Great user interface is “cool”. Great usability is “cool”. Not having to worry about accidentally downloading a lot of malware apps is “cool”.
By this scale, how many “cool” points do HTC’s devices have, exactly? I would say, not many!
Actually what they told him was “My dad has an iPhone. I don’t have a job or money to buy my own iPhone. That’s what I really want. Since he’s paying for my education and expenses he got me a cheap phone for now. When he upgrades I’ll get his old iPhone. Can’t wait.” He just quit listening to them when he heard what he wanted to hear.
the HTC guy probably misunderstood, the kids actually said:
“my dad bought an iPhone and gave me his old %$#@ HTC, Dad! That’s not cool! “.
@ Dave –
THAT is funny
Oh yes, the boss of the HTC America division… So much power in a Taiwanese company. LOL!
You know he is making this up… No college age kid is going to use the word “cool” to describe anything… He screws up his whole story by using a word from his generation… He’s not even a good liar … What a boob… He should understand that…. It’s from his generation!
Perhaps he wanted to say hip instead of cool.
…or 23 skidoo
Groovy
bitchin’, or tubular
This guy MUST be smoking something very very illegal…
This message from Mr. “L-7” himself.
+1
One of the dumbest observation of an executive. Thank goodness he works for HTC. He’ll make for a fine addition to the crew of clueless executives. lol
I would like to know at what school this dolt got his MBA.
Let’s go burn it down!
Reed College?
Didn’t Steve Jobs decide that Reed College isn’t cool, back in 1972?
Is this some kind of payback?
I’m not surprised actually. When something becomes as ubiquitous as the iPhone has, it’s not cool anymore. 🙂 That’s why Apple keeps upping the ante…. the next one is right around the corner.
Personally, I think this war between smart phones and which is better is actually kind of stupid. They are all good phones and some are great substitutes for others. For example: if you want a phone that is able to browse the web smoothly, two great phones to choose from would be the iPhone and the Galaxy S. Both actually get the job done as expected. However, the choice of which phone you think is better depends on you and whatever reasons you have for choosing it. I for one, really have no problem with HTC phones. However, the reason I choose iPhone over HTC has nothing to do with the phone or the brand. What is driving me away from HTC phones is Android and its malware venerability. Obviously, to me, security is an important factor which is why I choose iPhone.
Now other people may have different reasons. Some may want android because they have had it for a long time and don’t want to bother trying iOS. Others may choose android just cuz they have a verity of choices for a lower price tag than the iPhone. And maybe others are just fanboys/girls that put down a certain device that is not made by a certain company and cant stand the existance of such a thing. The reasons for people to prefer one over the other is an ongoing list.
One more thing: your information is far from accurate. The iPhone is popular worldwide. You can’t generalize that the iPhone itself is no longer popular because some people in a college campus prefer other brands. The world’s entire population is not contained in that college campus you visited. It’s only a tiny, unnoticeable percent of it.
My kids can’t wait till iPhone 5 comes out so they can get my year old iPhone 4. Thats how “uncool” it is.
I ask again…..how is it that they pay these bozo CEOs so much and how is it they can get these jobs in the first place?
Another example, I used to work at a startup company that became quite well to do in the dot com era,…(yes we actually had a product and yes we were actually making quite a profit with 70% gross margins)….but we had this CEO that kept thinking we were CISCO or something and kept blowing billions on buying dud companies. To this day I keep thinking how is it that this bozo ran our company to the ground when any of us original members could have done a better job. You can add Bartz, Ballmer, Apotheker(sp) and the two 1/2 CEO’s to the list. Sorry, a bit off topic but I just had to get that off my chest.
Stop copying them then
What an astonishing coincidence! The kids don’t think iPhones are cool anymore, they all carry iPhone’s competitors’ phones, and HE just happens to be an iPhone competitor!! Wow, what are the chances?!
I kinda see what he is saying, sorta.
At work if someone has an iphone there isn’t much to talk about unless its jailbroken. Otherwise its just like every other iphone.
If its an android, well we got all sorts of stuff to chat about including comparing features, rooting tech and other stupid crap.
I wouldn’t use my coworkers as a metric for the overall “coolness” of the iphone though. I just assume the iphone users at work have lives and better things to do than rooting and rom modding.
Yes my life is this pathetic
iPhones are BEYOND cool, dweeb, WAY beyond mere cool.
… whistling past the graveyard.