Just in case we needed any more convincing that people love their iPhones, the American Customer Satisfaction Index has found through recent surveys that Apple's smartphones are leaving customers the happiest. The iPhone scored 83 on their system, compared to to Nokia, LG and HTC who are all tied at 75, Motorola at 73, Samsung at 71, and RIM at a sad 69. The ACSI also looked at U.S. service providers. Topping the list were regional carriers like U.S. Cellular with 76, then Sprint with 71, followed by Verizon with 70, and AT&T and T-Mobile tied at 69.

Lots of other studies have consistently backed up customer satisfaction for the iPhone, but it's always interesting to see just how much of a lead Apple has on the competition. The fact that the competition is nearly ten points suggests it will take a whole lot of work to bring Android and the other platforms up to snuff with iOS.

Do these rankings stack up with the sentiment you see among friends? Is Sprint really ahead of the other three major U.S. carriers?

Source: ACSI via Wired

Surprise! Everyone loves their iPhones. J.D. Power and Associates have just announced the results of their annual smartphone customer satisfaction survey, and like usual, Apple's iPhone has topped the list. On a 1,000-point scale, spanning criteria of performance, ease of operation, physical design, and features, Apple scored 839. Second place was claimed by HTC with a score of 798, while the industry average was 774.  This is the seventh consecutive win for Apple in this particular survey.

ChangeWave recently published a survey which backs up the sentiment, but I don't think we really need a lot of stats to prove the point that people love their iPhones. The J.D. Power and Associates survey does a good job highlighting what's important to people, though. Battery life is the least satisfying part of a smartphone, according to their research. Software stability is also really high on the list; devices which experienced a crash at least once a week averaged a score of 691.

On that note, what's the very worst thing you could say about your iPhone? The screen size?

Source: J.D. Power and Associates

While we've had our own survey about the supposed excess heat coming from the new third-generation iPad, ChangeWave has done their own, and largely agreed with our results. After polling 200 owners, ChangeWave found that 89% didn't have any "warmgate" problems whatsoever. Besides that, their survey yielded predictably high satisfaction rates; 82% were "very satisfied", and 16% were "somewhat satisfied" with their recent purchase. Of course, the Retina display was indicated as the best feature of the new iPad by 75% of respondents, while the biggest complaint was the device cost (26%) followed by wireless data plan cost (23%). Only 7% said the new iPad's heat was their number one dislike.

For a closer look at why customer satisfaction is so high, be sure to take a look at our extensive review of the new iPad. While there aren't any particular surprises in this survey, it's good to get some hard numbers assuring that yes, people like the new iPad, and no, the heat thing really isn't a problem. I would be really interested in hearing from anyone who got a new iPad and wasn't happy with it; do  y'all know anybody who ended up returning theirs? Maybe some Australians unhappy that they couldn't get LTE on theirs after all?

Source: ChangeWave

ChangeWave has come out with a new survey polling customer satisfaction among new iPhone 4S owners, showing an overwhelming 96% satisfaction rating and propelling the iPhone 4S into "nosebleed territory".

Overall satisfaction with the iPhone 4S showed 77% of users being Very Satisfied and 19% being Somewhat Satisfied, compared to 72% and 21% respectively for the iPhone 4 that launched in 2010.

When asked about which features were enjoyed most in the iPhone 4S, users pointed to Siri as the big seller, and 'general ease of use' coming in second at 39%. The beefed up 8MP camera was also a big seller (33%), but interestingly enough, Apple's new iCloud service came up at just 19%.

In terms of dissatisfaction, users pegged battery life being too short as a big drawback in the 4S, although Apple has been hard at work investigating the issue. Additionally, the lack of 4G support was a downer for some users (30%), but that shouldn't be an issue next year. When looking at dropped calls, the iPhone 4S compared well against its predecessor with only 2.5% of calls dropped compared to 5.2% in July under the iPhone 4.

Overall, it seems that most iPhone 4S users are pretty happy with their purchase despite some battery life hiccups, but it's clear the positives far outweigh the negatives here. How satisfied are you with your new iPhone 4S?

Source: ChangeWave

Despite growing competition as new tablets begin to enter the market, Apple's iPad is still king when it comes to consumer demand and customer satisfaction according to a recent ChangeWave survey.

The new research, which surveyed a total of 3,091 consumers just prior to Apple announcing the iPad 2, confirms the new tablet market has drawn high demand from consumers around the world, with a large majority interested in the iPad specifically. According to the survey, 82% of consumers planning on buying a tablet in the near future will be opting for an iPad, compared to the closest competition, the Motorola Xoom, coming in at only 4%.

On the customer satisfaction front the iPad garnered outstanding numbers among current owners, with 70% being 'very satisfied' with their purchase and 25% being 'somewhat satisfied'. Apple has always done well on the customer satisfaction so we're not surprised with these results. In addition to high customer satisfaction ratings, it looks like the iPad has continued to steal market share from eBook readers like the Amazon Kindle and further suggests the iPad has had a growing impact on netbook and notebook sales.

What does this all mean for Apple? Lack of competition for the original iPad meant their was nothing to stop them from establishing a dominant position in the tablet market. While the survey was conducted just as real competition began to show up, it was also before Apple even announced the iPad 2. So we have a strong suspicion Apple won't have any trouble keeping a strong position throughout 2011.

With the iPad 2 launching tomorrow in the US and other countries shortly after, do you think Apple has anything to worry about going forward? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

[InvestorPlace]

In a recent survey by Consumer Reports, US iPhone exclusive carrier AT&T ranked the worst in a whopping 8 out of 9 categories. The survey took into account the top four carriers - Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. it also looked at a few of the bigger regional carriers as well. Verizon came in at number one out of the four nationwide carriers. It only fell 2nd next to US Cellular.

The survey also ranked smartphones satisfaction. As far as AT&T smartphones went, the iPhone 4 tied the Samsung Captivate as far as customer satisfaction went. I personally wrote a comparison of the iPhone 4 and the Captivate. I thought the Captivate left a lot to be desired as far as UI and ease of use went, but it was certainly one of AT&T's more capable smartphones.

When it comes to overall satisfaction, AT&T had this to say -

We take this seriously and we continually look for new ways to improve the customer experience. The fact is wireless customers have choices and a record number of them chose AT&T in the third quarter, significantly more than our competitors. Hard data from independent drive tests confirms AT&T has the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network with our nearest competitor 20 percent slower on average nationwide and our largest competitor 60 percent slower on average nationwide. And, our dropped call rate is within 1/10 of a percent – the equivalent of just one call in a thousand – of the industry leader.

If AT&T really has the coverage they claim to have, why are customers still so dissatisfied?

[BoyGeniusReport]

Apple's iPhone 4 topped the charts in customer satisfaction again with 8 out of 10 users being very satisfied with their smartphone device. From ChangeWave:

As we’ve consistently seen in our consumer smart phone demand surveys, the Apple iPhone continues to outperform the industry in terms of customer satisfaction.

If you compare Apple's customer satisfaction ratings to specific competing smartphones such as RIM's Blackberry Torch (64%) or the Motorola Droid X (71%), you can clearly see that the iPhone 4 is winning the race by continuing Apple's goal in delivering only the highest quality devices to its users. In addition to RIM and Motorola, Samsung's new Galaxy S Android smartphone failed to reach Apple's level and only saw 55% of its users to be satisfied with the device.

Something else we found interesting was that a full 1/3 of smartphone owners would have chosen the iPhone if it were available on their carrier. With the Verizon iPhone just around the corner, could this spell trouble for other high-end smartphone makers trying to compete with the iPhone?

[InvestorPlace]

iPad owners seem to be loving their devices, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Overall consumer satisfaction with personal computers has grown 4% since last year putting people's overall satisfaction level at 78 out of 100 points. When you break that down, iPads are leading the pack. Satisfaction with the iPad has grown 2% since the last survey. This puts iPad customer satisfaction at 86 points. This is higher than any other manufacturer and 9 points ahead of any other competitor. Dell, HP, and Acer all scored 77s.

CNBC looked into why this number may be so high for Apple and the iPad and they've said this:

“The iPad, even at this early stage, pulled up Apple’s overall numbers – which makes it the highest-scoring product Apple has, and therefore the highest-scoring product ACSI has ever tracked.”

Do you agree with CNBC's reasoning or do you think there's more to it? One thing is obvious, people love their iPads!

[CNBC via TechCrunch]

It is safe to say that it will be a while before AT&T wins any awards for their customer satisfaction. AT&T has come in last place in a Consumer Reports mobile survey of customer service of all four major U.S. cell carriers.

This particular survey involved 50,000 readers in 26 U.S. cities. Questions that were included asked about the four carriers in different categories related to service and customer support. AT&T ranked dead last in 19 of the 26 cities surveyed and overall ranked last in every single city. Sadly the pain does not end there as voice service also ranked last while messaging and data were only average. On the customer service side of things, both the phone and internet service along with overall staff knowledge ranked poorly. Ouch...

And if you are curious as to where the other carriers ranked, Verizon came in 1st while T-Mobile and Sprint respectively took 2nd and 3rd place.

[Via AppleInsider]

Apple's iPhone has hit 30% marketshare in the US, according to ChangeWave. When laying out the current players, 4,225 consumers were surveyed, 39% of whom owned smartphones, and of those the top 3 answers were RIM's Blackberry down ever-so-slightly to 40%, the iPhone up 5% to hit that 30% mark, and Palm steady at 7%. As sibling-site PreCentral.net points out, Windows Mobile, Android, and Symbian weren't even included on the chart (does that mean the percentages were too low and unchanged to graph, Changewave?)

Going forward, iPhone retains the lead for planned future smartphone purchases, though dipping from 44% in June to 36% in September). RIM's second, with 27% up from 23%, and Palm again holds steady at 8%.

Customer satisfaction, however, remains Apple's biggest advantage. The iPhone has a lofty 74%, way out ahead of second place RIM at 43%, LG at 39%, Sanyo at 36%, HTC at 35%, and Palm at 33%. Droid-maker Motorola is at 32%, Nokia at 29%, Samsung at 29%, and Sony/Ericsson at 17%. Ouch.

The bottom line according to Investorplace?

In the horserace among manufacturers, the release of the iPhone 3GS has led to a big jump in smart phone market share for Apple and has placed them within striking distance of Research In Motion — whose slew of models are still number one but have fallen to their lowest level in two years.

[Thanks everyone who sent this in!]

With 82% of iPhone 3GS users claiming they're "very satisfied" and 17% claiming they're "somewhat" satisfied, we don't need Leanna to do the math -- that's 99% pure satisfaction according to RBC/IQ and Changewave (via Macrumors).

Apple sold 5.2 million iPhones last quarter, many of which were likely iPhone 3GS -- that's a spectacular satisfaction rating for a spectacularly successful launch.

Given that rival handset makers aren't (yet?) hitting either those per-product sales or satisfaction levels (and even passionate iPhone boycotters are lamenting the alternatives), we're wondering if the gap isn't widening?

(Of course, AT&T satisfaction levels were somewhat less impressive, to put it kindly...)

Customers like the iPhone. They really do. According to J.D. Power:

Among residential smartphone owners, key factors are ease of operation (30%); operating system (22%); features (21%); physical design (18%); and battery function (9%).

Apple ranks highest among smartphone manufacturers with a score of 791 on a 1,000-point scale, performing particularly well in ease of operation, operating system, features and physical design.

Mapping those two together, it's not hard to see why the iPhone scored top marks; it's really the first true consumer smartphone. Of course, it scores #1 in business as well

Our question to you, however, is how well the above factors match your own personal preferences and priorities? Anything J.D. Power missed out on or miss-ranked?

(Thanks to everyone who sent this in!)

Apple, via Medallia, is sending out customer satisfaction surveys:

Thank you for your purchase of the Apple iPhone 3G. We would like to ask you a few questions about your experience with your new phone. [...] The information you provide will be used to improve our product support. We will not use your responses to sell you products or services.

Questions include where you've gone for iPhone help (cheat sheet: TiPb!), whether you've returned your handset to your carrier for repair or replacement, whether you primarily use Windows or Mac, whether you primarily use your iPhone for work or play, whether it's your first Apple product, and general demographic info.

These questions will no doubt better help Apple understand what you're thinking about your new iPhone 3G -- and which questions they chose to ask will no doubt better help us figure out what Apple's thinking about their iPhone 3G customers... Hmmm...

Have you gotten your survey yet?