Today I’ve made up my mind to buy a windows phone. In fact, I wasn’t the only one. My best friend, my wife, three people I hang out with at work a lot and that guy I chat with (the one who is always trying to sell me a new CRM) all have iPhones and are all counting the days until we can get something better and not an iPhone. Why? Well, three simple reasons. [Keep scrolling for TLDR Summary]
But is the cat? That’s the question that has always saved me from falling prey to my wife’s constant advances into the world of “I want a cat.” Every time she sees a kitten she wants one. They are adorable and as irresistible as donuts after two weeks of dieting! But that appeal fades quickly. The cat gets older and less cute, and then you’re just left with mostly sentimental attachment. That sentimental attachment was all I was left with after my iPhone, like most kittens, got heavier, bigger, and less beautiful. Magic right? No. I just needed a case because I didn’t want to be like my friends whose phones broke from being dropped once on a hard surface at a bad angle. The case gets worn, the screen protector ruins the beautiful pixels. The phone just isn’t beautiful anymore.
2. Kittens are so easy to feed and don’t require much!
But cats get bigger, and older, and then get problems and develop a host of medical expenses. The price tag you saw on the wall is never the same as the final bill of sale. This is the reality I came home to with the iPhone. After the purchase I found out I needed to buy more. What was originally just an expensive $200 upgrade (I’m on a Verizon plan) that was supposed to be everything… turned into so much more. $100+ for warranty that didn’t include theft. Charger. Case (did I mention it breaks if you drop it?). Screen cleaners. Jacks. hooks. docks. Integrating my iPhone comfortably into my life proved to be expensive.
But cats don’t. My friend, whose name (Ashley) shall not be named (it’s Ashley, I mentioned that right?), has a cat that she spends hours taking care of every day. The cat just eats its own fur off, doesn’t pay attention to her, and when it does it’s only because it needs something from her. It’s basically like an added leech to the family that no one wants around but, well, it’s family right? Did I mention my iPhone loved me too? Siri even said I was starting to grow on her. She used to at least. Now? Nothing. It just freezes constantly (especially when loading the camera), doesn’t respond to simple commands, can’t understand anything I say and let’s not even get into how it handles my files or loading videos from the web. It feels awful. I spend more time staring at a frozen screen or a loading screen than I do at anything else on my phone. I spend more time trying to open a phone call (the swipe bar freezes constantly) than I do on the phone calls.
The lesson, and the should have.
[TLDR Summary] If there is anything I’ve learned in my life from doing sales, it’s that every complaint (even my own ones) is a key tool to making or selling a better product. In this case, Apple is making three major mistakes, mistakes that I see Samsung making too. They aren’t making products that are dependent on after market products for their design, look, and feel. They are so concerned with pricing that they aren’t packaging everything into a single bundle. And last, but certainly not least, they are making users pick between a slow product, or one without security updates. Having only the only update option an option to move from iOS 6, which worked fine, to iOS 7, which freezes all the time, isn’t good for the users, and may encourage some to buy a new phone… but some of those new phones will be a different brand.
Thanks for your time (and I know a Windows Phone or Android may end up having the exact same issues, I just don’t know yet),
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140621180727-129677058-iphones-and-cute-kittens-lesson-learned?trk=prof-post
Post Script Note: That is the link to my Linkedin. Please feel free to add me.
Post Post Script Note: Yes, this entire post was an excuse to share with you a cute kitten picture that I liked.
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