“If there’s one constant on the consumer tech calendar, it’s iPhone reviews day,” Vlad Savov writes for The Verge. “Happening sometime between the announcement and the release of the latest iPhone, it manifests itself with glowing accounts of the latest Apple smartphone at the top of the page, and irate accusations of Apple-favoring bias in the comments at the bottom. This is as reliable a phenomenon as today’s autumnal equinox.”
“he funny thing is that everyone’s right. Readers are right to claim that the iPhone is treated differently from other smartphones, and reviewers are correct in doing so,” Savov writes. “The iPhone is reviewed like a transcendental entity that’s more than just the sum of its metal, plastic, and silicon parts, because that’s what it is.”
“Accessory makers are biased in favor of Apple products… Retailers are biased in favor of Apple products… Content producers are biased in favor of Apple products… App developers, too, are biased in favor of Apple products,” Savov writes. “The next time you read an iPhone review, keep all these biases in mind. The iPhone is the favored tech product of a vast swathe of our planet’s population, serving both utilitarian and aspirational purposes. It is the catalyst for and sole supporter of entire ancillary industries. It is the nexus where communication and commerce blend most easily, and it is the surest harbinger of the future that is to come. Any review that doesn’t account for all of these factors might be considered technically objective and ubiased, but it would also be frightfully uninformative. Assessing an iPhone against a blank canvas is akin to describing Notre Dame or Sagrada Família as old, large, religious buildings.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: All humans are biased. All reviews and news reports generated by humans are biased – regardless of intent. Whatever bias exists for Apple is earned, extraordinarily hard-won in fact, and pales in comparison to the torrential deluge of delusional, irrational anti-Apple hatred from FUD-spreading wannabes and those consumers who’ve made remarkably bad technology choices which they consciously or subconsciously feel compelled to defend due to severe cases of Stockholm Syndrome.
Apple invented and defined the modern personal computer (three times: Apple ][, Mac OS, OS X).
Apple invented and defined the modern personal media player.
Apple invented and defined the modern music sales and distribution system.
Apple invented and defined the modern smartphone.
Apple invented and defined the modern tablet.
Apple invented and defined the modern contactless payment system.
Apple invented and defined the modern smartwatch.Rightly so, the rest of the world is therefore judged by how their derivative wannabe products measure up to Apple’s achievements.
Google made a crucial mistake: They gave away Android to “partners” who pushed and continue to push the product into the hands of the exact opposite type of user that Google needs for Android to truly thrive. Hence, Android is a backwater of second-rate, or worse, app versions that are only downloaded when free or ad-supported – but the Android user is notoriously cheap, so the ads don’t sell for much because they don’t work very well. You’d have guessed that Google would have understood this, but you’d have guessed wrong.
Google built a platform that depends heavily on advertising support, but sold it to the very type of customer who’s the least likely to patronize ads.
iOS users are the ones who buy apps, so developers focus on iOS users. iOS users buy products, so accessory makers focus on iOS users. iOS users have money and the proven will to spend it, so vehicle makers focus on iOS users. Etcetera. Android can have the “Hee Haw” demographic. Apple doesn’t want it or need it; it’s far more trouble than it’s worth. – MacDailyNews, November 26, 2012
—
Those who settle for Android devices are not equal to iOS users. The fact is that iOS users are worth significantly more than Android settlers to developers, advertisers, third-party accessory makers (speakers, cases, chargers, cables, etc.), vehicle makers, musicians, TV show producers, movie producers, book authors, carriers, retailers, podcasters… The list goes on and on.
The quality of the customer matters. A lot.
Facile “analyses” that look only at market (unit) share, equating one Android settler to one iOS user, make a fatal error by incorrectly equating users of each platform one-to-one.
When it comes to mobile operating systems, all users are simply not equal. – SteveJack, MacDailyNews, November 15, 2014
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Daniel N.” for the heads up.]