iPhone vs. Pre: Satisfaction bakeoff

Wonder Why iPhone is so high. The customer support is terrible and I don't know why I am making them make them look so good.
common good

I have the 3gs on tmobile, not a big deal that I only have edge, but I don't have to be on AT&T's horrible network, I love t-mobile and the new android sets that are coming out are going to be ridiculous ( in a good way). The iPhone is amazing but they should of made it open to anyone.

Good things do come in small packages. The Pre is a well packaged design and connects to the fastest network in the country. I get my kicks challenging all of my iphone friends to download a webpage at the the same time as my Pre. I leave them in the dust and the bewildered look on their face is precious. The iPhone is also a great phone but the overall cost to operate clearly goes towards the Pre and I like hanging on to my money.

I'd almost be willing to bet there's probably an iPhone app out that that calculates how much better it is than the Pre based on arbitrary statistical data gathered from splintered questionaires

Love the iPhone and what it does. HATE AT&T for what they do which is reap the benefit of Verizon's stupid move of turning down the iPhone.

I have NOT upgraded to the 3GS strictly because I would have to re-sign with AT&T. As soon as my contract is up I'm going to switch to the iPod touch. I also dislike the way Apple has given us three versions of the iPhone in less than my two year contract with AT&T. I was afraid of that when I purchased the first phone, and was told software could be upgraded. But no that's not what happened. I now have over $3000.00 invested in a phone that does not do it's job because of AT&T, when I could invest 10% of that into an IPod touch and not deal with AT&T at all.

I am a big supporter of Apple, and their products because they work. Problem is the IPhone is connected to a third party who does not really understand the value of customer retention and loyalty. AT&T was terrible in my area when I had them before, and that has not changed. Still I knew they were a crap signal and company and went with them anyway because I love Apple and wanted to support them. Bad decision on my part, on both counts.

AT&T are you reading this?? I will never give you another dime of my hard earned money. Apple.... I still love you and your products, but you blew it going with the sub-standard carrier that AT&T is, and you should have taken better care of your loyal clients and introduced a plan that gives original iPhone purchasers a VERY inexpensive upgrade option for both the 2nd generation iPhone and the 3GS.

Apple watch out for falling revenue because there are a lot of people who think like I do out there, and now you have the poor position of never getting a second chance to make a first impression. You are also wide open to the iPhone copy cats out there who lack the vision to create the device in the first place but are perfectly capable of fixing the problem. Microsoft blew it with Vista which helped Apple. Are you going to let AT&T do the same thing to you and help Verizon gain market share back with another manufacturer?

I live in Hollywood Ca, not exactly an off the beaten path place. I HATE AT&T. It doesn't matter if it switches to EDGE or not where I live. My reception is atrocious in my house and I drop calls regularly all over Southern california - A problem I never had with T-Mobile or my Verizon blackberry I have for work. I rate the iPhone highly for what it is, but I rate AT&T terrible for what they are. If I had another choice with my iPhone I would drop AT&T immediately, but I don't. So their curn rates and subscriber base is meaningless. They have me locked in strictly because i like my iPhone and now I have a fee to pay to get out of it. When that day comes though, I am going to terminate them even if they are still the sole provide for iPhone.

And where is the flash for my camera? That's my other big complaint.

@Jan in Denmark - t-mobile, at least in the US, is NOT a CDMA carrier, they're GSM.

@Turley in Memphis - Sprint is losing customer base because people travel, often on business. Since the EU and China BOTH have adopted GSM as their wireless standard, Sprint's CDMA network, however fast, is a dinosaur. It's incompatable with the largest two blocks of cellphone users on the planet. I also believe that AT&T intentionally picked the higher band for their 3G to make their phones incompatible and stop the hemorraging flow of customers to t-mobile.

Well you can add another "Very Satisfied" Pre user in this list..
I just couldn't believe how fast Sprint is on 4G as compare to 3G that I used for 2 years with palm centro.

Anyone else notice that the palm pre likes add up to almost 200%! LOL

ex ped: 47 + 42 = 87, but your maths may vary.

I agree with one thing in this survey - AT&T is the worst part of this whole thing.

I have been an iPhone user for 2 years now, from the original iPhone 2g to the 3GS. However I've been with AT&T longer. More than 5 years ago I signed up with Cingular and was migrated to AT&T after the merger. Their service is absolutely terrible. If I had a choice with another GSM carrier for 3G service in my area, I wouldnt hesistate to switch from this pathetic company to them, even paying the termination fee. I have a blackberry from work with Sprint and EVDO works so much faster than 3G from AT&T...

AT&T is the reason I have not bought an iPhone yet: besides the crappy coverage, I find their politics to be appalling: they jumped at the chance to tap your phone for Bush and Cheney, without any court orders.

I absolutely, categorically will not give them one penny of my money, ever, if there is any way to avoid it.

@ VerizonPre: which "exit" did you take for the Pre? The final one, I hope.

@Nigel: I surprised that a Palm would hire a shill with such poor grammar. If I had doubts before that the company is in trouble, they're gone now.

I've been an iPhone user for a year now. Love the phone but HATE AT&T. In NYC it's almost as if there's no network, it's so hard to get onto. I'd take T-Mobile any day.

I've found that in the Southeast ATT is the best carrier. I couldn't tell you the last time my call was dropped due to lost of signal. This is probably because the acquired Cingular a few years back. 3G is available in ever some of the most rural areas.

I wonder if service was better in San Fran that there wouldn't be such an outrage directed at ATT. If I was ATT, I'd be putting towers in all over in San Fran.

We at Verizon Pre are very exited about the Pre

A month ago I decided to give my employees each an upgrade on their cell phones, something I had not done for approximately two years. The condition was that I would pay for the phone, however each one of them would have to sign their own contracts, nevertheless I would incur the first $70 so long as they remained with my firm. Before I made my decision as to which phone and carrier we would use I requested that we take a ballot and look at the merits of each phone. The results leaned heavily towards the iPhone and Pre, however when the iPhone 3GS was put against the Pre on its own the pendulum swang in the Pre's favor, which I found to be quite interesting. Owing to this I decided to purchase one without committing the entire office, just to see if it had the purported capabilities. Initially I was reluctant to change my iPhone to a Pre, but after using the Pre on Sprint's network for a week I was quite impressed. What I liked the most was is ability to Multifunction and change its battery, which was a problem I had with all my iPhones. Now I can safely say my phone works 24/7. Other features that I liked about the Pre were its Qwerty keyboard, the Flash on its camera, its Synergy, which facilitates the integration of a multitude of calenders, contacts, email etc to be downloaded together. At first many of my employees also were concerned about its ability to access itunes however when they learned about Amazons music store and how easy it was to download music their concerns were allayed. Essentially the Pre can go up against any phone purely based on merit, but what makes it more compelling is its monthly costs which are substantially cheaper because it is tethered to Sprint's network. Believe it or not Sprint's network is substantially better and faster than that of ATT's. As a compensating factor Sprint has begun to accelerate its roll out of its 4G platform, which according to the wireless pundits puts it at least two years ahead of ATT. This will enable Sprint smartphone users average speeds that are at least 4 times faster than anything ATT has to offer. Now I can safely say my office has 51 Palm Pre users that are very satisfied with their phones.

Some people have commented that there has been 3 iPhones and only one Palm Pre- but haven't Palm been making mobile phones for years now??

Apple has released 3 versions of the iPhone in total- and how many has Palm released over the years??

It seems to me that Apple has done a remarkable job in 2-3 years to make such a great phone that other companies that have been around for MUCH longer are only now getting somewhere close to being decent.

To the defenders of AT&T--I live in the Washington, D.C. metro area and use an iPhone. Network quality has gotten to be MUCH worse in recent months, so bad that I now also carry a prepaid phone as a backup. I am very seriously thinking about buying out of my AT&T contract and avoiding the iPhone until Apple brings Verizon (or whomever) on board. I love the iPhone as a portable computer, but it's way too much trouble (and therefore grossly overpriced) as a cellphone.

Very interesting comments which deserves a commentator from abroad. Apple chose ATT because they where the only phoneprovider that used the same type of 3G technology as most of the rest of the World eventhough the CDMA based 3G network used buy t-Mobile had much berger coverage at the time. The first version was proberly with out 3G do to the battery issue but proberly also to give ATT time to improve their 3G coverage. When you talk about poor 3G coverage you havent tried telia Denmarks none excisting 3G network. Regarding the claimed poor radio of the iPhone those claimes has beek debunged by independent test from companies specilizing in testing Mobile phones they concluded that the iPhone was neigher better nor worse than phones from the competitors. One of the test done by a swedish test center places phones from Apple Nokia and SE in a special box which made it possible to test Call quality in different scenarios on a level playingfelt. They concluded that the iPhone had a radioreception equal to the other vendors phones. One of 3 tested iPhones was tested because of claimed poor reception but its value was Well within what could be expected

Your "survey" is flawed. You need the SAME sample size for both devices.

I truly hope that Apple opens the iPhone to other carriers. I can't wait to dump AT&T's lousy wireless system. Two tin cans tied to one another beats AT&T coverage in my area.

If 82% of iPhone owners are "very satisfied" then the most disliked aspect is AT&T, would imply that AT&T isn't that much of an issue for most all users.

AT&T's network is great. It has coverage everywhere I have ever been, and In Utah I had 3G fly fishing in a river while my friend on Verizon had no service that so ever.

However, AT&T's weak point is that it decided to put 3G on a too high of a frequency GSM band, which is very poor for penetrating buildings etc. Therefore, in some Metro areas iPhone reception is weaker, and the device will kick down to EDGE since it can penetrate buildings and cover.

I was just in NYC and my coverage was fine unless I went deep into the center of a building, then it went to EDGE. This wasn't a problem very often. I think the complaints are way overblown and are just confined to a very small sliver of the user base. But, for them, there complaints are real and it sucks, but it's just a few people with a loud voice.

AT&T is working on this problem as it just purchased a lower frequency spectrum that is much more conducive to areas with lots of structures and ground cover.

If AT&T network was as bad as everyone thinks it may be, then there wouldn't be 80M customers, it wouldn't be continually adding new subs, and its churn rate wouldn't be that low. If AT&T's network were so much worse than Verizon's, then subs would defect, and AT&T couldn't charge the same prices Verizon charges.

T-Mobile generally has cheaper rates than T & VZ, and Sprint has the cheapest. Sprint has also been losing customers hand over fist. If Sprint's network were so much better than AT&T's, then how could it be even at dirt cheap pricing it still losing subs? Sprint's coverage area isn't as broad, so for some mobile users its not an option.

You realize the iPhone is 3 years and Pre is 6 months old?

That fact they are even being compared is saying the Pre is a real player.

I guess this is payback for Colligan's note that "Computer companies aren't just going to walk in here and make a good phone." Spotting a 2 year head start because of posturing and blubberbusting... it'll cost ya!

@Mark "If I remember, Iphone version 1 was not so great."

Actually, the original iPhone ranked first in a 2007 ChangeWave survey, although with "only" 77% very satisfied. http://idek.net/P8k

@Dan "Maybe the iPhone owners constantly carping about "AT&T's network" should take a closer look at the device they so love and it's RF reception shortcomings."

So 99% of users of this device say they're satisfied with it, but they would change their minds if only they realized that it has bad reception? Seriously?

It wasn't a survey of just 40 Pre users. It was a survey of ALL 40 Pre users .

I am a Palm Pre owner, since first of July/09. From the very first day I been having problms with it. When I keep calling Sprint about my problms, they do not know what to said to me anymore. I keep asking them to replace from the first day, with No luck to this day.

Dave S. in Greensboro, NC said:

"As a Pre owner, I think the main point being missed here is that the iPhone 3GS is a third generation product. It has had how many years to mature?"

Thing is Dave, as a me-too product with no cash, Palm doesn't have the luxury that aapl had/has. Palm leveraged the farm on the pre. For whatever reason, it's not selling very well. Where are they going to get the money to see Pre through a third generation? Two ways to do this: 1. Sell the company 2. Float some shares. Either way, I don't see a great future for palm as it exists now, let alone a pre three.

Maybe the iPhone owners constantly carping about "AT&T's network" should take a closer look at the device they so love and it's RF reception shortcomings. Certain phone manufacturers (Nokia and Motorola for example) are known for great reception and others aren't. The iPhone has been notorious for lousy reception since the first version came out. Maybe the fault lies not in the network, but in the lousy radio Apple chose to include.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is Apple version 3 and Pre version 1. If I remember, Iphone version 1 was not so great. I have a Pre and admit, it is not perfect, however it meets or exceeds Iphone version 3 on many fronts and at much less the cost. And pre has the benefit of not shattering the glass if dropped, an expensive iphone repair.

I'll tell you want we want. ITS A HALF WAY DECENT PHONE ON VERIZON!

I guess it's been a while since anyone here took math. A sample size of 40 is large enough from which to make "statistically significant" assumptions...i.e. there's enough data to separate noise from actual trends.

Early stage clinical trials can use patient sets of <20 to determine whether outcomes are statistically significant. Since these trials are far more important than "Apple vs. Palm" you can save the vitriol.

Regardless of whether you like it or not, the comparisons and assumptions based on the data are reasonable even if the sample size is different.

You may resume your oversimplified deification of Mr. Jobs. And I say this as a evangelical iPhone owner.

I agree with the people who don't understand the hatred of ATT. Of course some people have problems with it, because no network is perfect. But hate? I live in a metropolitan area and so I have few problems with ATT. Many of my friends have Verizon and love it. But none of those same friends can get a call out of my house because it's a Verizon dead zone. So really, is Verizon so perfect?

We upgraded from BB's to iPhone's, Apple saw fit to include cisco VPN clients in their products and for those of us who keep our corporate mail behind firewalls that was the main reason I pushed it, it actually works whether our road warriors are in central America buying product or in the corp headquarters. The palm pre I had for 2 weeks never even came close, not to mention trying to get an answer from Palms customer non support if a cisco client is even in the works and whether they ever filled those two job openings they had advertised for cisco engineers )))

If wasn't for Apple all the smart phones would still be in the dark ages. I have never had any problem with AT&T so I don't understand why they are so hated. The only thing I come up with Is everyone hates a winner.

I agree that the survey sample is too small for both phones.

Well, now it's statistically proven. Nothing matches the smug self-satisfaction of apple users.

Marrow, you're confusing two separate questions. Consider if I asked you (1) do you like cheese and (2) what don't you like about cheese. You might say to (1) yes, I like cheese. But you still might have things that you don't like about it. They're independent questions. Among the dislikes, they add up to 100% in the population (unless you only list the top 5), whether cheese was popular or not.... Yes?

AT&T Sucks

Yep. AT&T is definitely a barrier to purchase for some of us. I'll be ordering an iPhone about ten minutes after I hear the news that Verizon supports it.

200 IPhone users & 40 Palm Pre users??
What kind of one sided poll is this?
No one asked this Palm Pre user, my answers are quite different from the ones presented.
Again..40 vs 200?!!..what a pile of crap!

I know it's not a direct correlation, but look at the top 5 areas of "dislike" for the iPhone and Pre. Those percentages are about the same. Same thing with the top 5 areas of "likes" for both. Same thing. Then how does that come back to only 50% of the Pre owners like their device and 82% of the iPhone owners like their device. I would expect them to be very close since the areas of "likes" and "dislikes" are fairly close.

Very odd results.

If the question is "what do you like best?", doesn't that imply you have to pick one thing, in which case the percentages should add up to 100% (which they don't)?

Not a surprise here. Most iphone owners are fanatics about there phone and Apple products. Pre owners are those who either A) dislike Apple or B) dislike ATT or C) want real multi tasking D) probably are not fanatics about palm.

I am surprised more ppl didn't complain about multi tasking. It's the one thing it doesn't have that I wish it did. I do have to agree with the complaint about ATT, they suck!

How in the world is this statistically significant enough to be published on CNNMoney's homepage? A survey of 40 Pre users? Really?

"In a matching survey of 40 Pre owners..."

Seriously? What is the statistical accuracy of a 40 user suvey? Any margin of error calculated?

For than matter, only surveying 200 iPhone users isn't any better (and statistically may be considerably worse).

Even a marketing guy would get kicked out of a meeting if he brought this level of research. But we are supposed to accept it from "market researchers"??

As a Pre owner, I think the main point being missed here is that the iPhone 3GS is a third generation product. It has had how many years to mature? The Pre is brand new, and like any new product, it has it's shares of bugs, missing features, and needed improvements. However, I love my Pre, and feel that they did a great job with the release. As I recall, the first iPhone had it's share of complaints.

And still people will post, "I have no problems with AT&T." Well, that might be true. But as long as lots of us DO have problems with AT&T it's a problem.

Good info.

You also have to consider that the Pre just came out while the iPhone has had the opportunity to make several revisions. The network piece is funny as AT&T makes bold network claims while Sprint generally gets a bad rap. I think 55% citing the AT&T network as a negative versus 11% citing the Sprint network as a negative says a lot.

I agree, love my iphone but hate AT&T network. There are too many places that I don't get service.

Every derivative of the iPhone is playing catchup, while Apple is laughing all the way to the bank. If other manufacturers would innovate instead of try to imitate, then the story would have a chance of being different. Nothing comes close to the offerings and apps available on the iPhone.

I agree with the survey. I was with US Cellular for 11 years and the change to ATT is hard. Love the phone but have found more dead spots in 2 months than in 11 years with US Cell.

I have an iPod Touch and love it, but I will not buy an iPhone until there is another service carrier.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/08/14/jason-calcacanis-the-case-for-seizing-apples-technology/

Great info. The clear loser here is AT&T who come out as the biggest dislike for iphone users... --Greg