NPD says 30% of iPhone 3G buyers switched carriers, Google Street View and more said to be in 2.2 firmware
By Donald Melanson 
posted October 6th 2008 1:19PM
posted October 6th 2008 1:19PM
The NPD Group offered a bit of insight into the carrier-jumping habits of original iPhone buyers way back when and, as you might expect, it's now back at it and taking a stab at determining exactly where the iPhone 3G's users are coming from. According to the group, between July and August of this year, 30 percent of iPhone 3G buyers ditched their existing carrier to buy the phone, which is a somewhat significant uptick from the 23 percent of consumers overall that switched carriers during the same time period. Of that 30 percent, 34 percent of 'em switched from Verizon, 24 percent came from T-Mobile, and 19 percent came from Sprint. That same report also pegs the BlackBerry Curve, BlackBerry Pearl, and the Palm Centro as the next best selling smartphones. In related news, the 2.2 firmware beta floating about has apparently turned up a few more hidden surprises -- namely, support for Japanese emoji icons, an off setting for the auto-correction feature and, purportedly, support for Google Street View in the Google Maps application, although there's unfortunately no screenshot evidence of the latter feature just yet.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Read - CNET News, "30 percent of iPhone 3G buyers dump existing carriers"
Read - Mac Rumors, "iPhone 2.2 Hidden Features: Google Street View, Emoji, Auto-Correction Off"
Apple is without doubt an innovative company that produces clean, simple, efficient products. That being said, more and more these days it is annoying how their focus with updates and upgrades is on gimmicky and flashy add-ons or fixes that should have occurred long ago, while still ignoring major functionality and options that they should have given consumers in the first place.
Support for Japanese emoji icons? Auto-correct off? How long did it take Apple to program this exactly? How do you even call this an update, it's not even added functionality, it's just removing something that there should have been an option to remove in the first place.
Google Street View? Seriously, is the mass public really in need of this? I can't even get Google maps to accurately find me on the street most of the time. How is Street View going to add to my life? Or is it just to wow the public and another flashy feature that they can put in their ridiculously unrealistic commercials?
Apple seems intent on pushing forward and leaving a trail of QC issues and missing BASIC features unaddressed, settling for flashy and impractical add-ons in lieu of giving us real, useful functionality like cut and paste, background notifications, email fetching that JUST WORKS, 3G and bluetooth that just works. All these issues still blowing in the wind and the big news is that Apple is adding Japanese emoji support. Incredible.
I don't have a problem with auto-correct (usually), but it would be nice to see it learn more quickly new words, forget old ones that aren't used, and enable predictive text.
Yeah, if they could add the option to add new words that would be pretty sweet.
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284735786&mt=8
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=288420566&mt=8
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=286550480&mt=8
WTF is with you spamming these links, and why do I need iTunes installed to view them?
Get off my network and STAY off.
VZW supremacy.
I'm sorry you feel that way. Really, I am.
I concur. When I use my VZW cell card, I get almost daily drops at 5pm when everyone starts using their cell phones and overcrowding the network.
Please switch to another carrier so VZW's oversubscription stops impacting my data calls.
There's no cut & paste ..so that Steve Jobs can get a huge applause when he announces it for the next gen iPhone.
Or so he can charge for the next update...
You people are seriously brainless. Apple has already said copy and paste is low on their priority list. And what are you going to do when Apple implements it? Find some other miniscule flaw with the iPhone to harp on for months?
Oh and when has Apple charged for iPhone updates? Oh that's right, never. You fail at predicting the future.
Erm, wasn't the 2.0 update 10 dollars?...
No, it was free. That was kind of the point.
No they charged for one of the iPod Touch updates. And their reason for the cost was because of some law or something that they have to be paid (bunch of BS..) and its not paid on the iPhone because of the plan you pay..
how about that push that you promised us we'd have in september stevo?
@valicore:
for the iPod touch they charge, they have never charged for an iPhone upgrade
I seem to recall Apple charging for an entire new device that was exactly like the old device except 3G (which isn't working out well for a lot of users) and GPS (which can't use Turn by Turn directions). Re-upping with ATT and paying $200 for the new device seems like a pretty pricey upgrade to me.
My whole company switched to IPhones when the 3Gs came out, I love the phone. I only hope this update would include MMS support (which I doubt) BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY the ability for my apps to update correctly.
Tell me about it. My apps never update properly.
I think Sprint defected the least due to the super sweet SERO plan that no one really wants to part with. Otherwise, they'd probably have a lot more switchers.
@UnixSystemsEngineer jfeirstein = frankie. Wrong Aol Account. (damn you AIM! lol )
That's EXACTLY right, my 500 mins and unlimited text/pics/videos/data/tethering for $35 a month is too good to let go of. Should they find someway to pry it away from me, I'd switch in a second to a world phone of some sort.
I love my iPhone, but seriously, what's with not adding things that we've asked for since day one?
1) Copy/Paste (not a HUGE hassle, but it sucks when you need to copy and address from an SMS or email to Google Maps
2) MMS (again, not a huge hassle, but it sucks to ask people to send a copy to email)
3) Contact grouping (OMG, why can't I have personal, friends, musicians, etc? Would make SMS so much better)
4) Browser stability (certainly better than before, but it still crashes every now and then)
I still use my iPhone over my Blackberry, Motorola Q9, and other smartphones, but sometimes those little quirks really bug me.
You're all retards, you all suck at life, epic fail, go kill yourself. KTHXBYE
I refuse.
..respectfully.
I'm suprised no one has picked up on one of the most interesting bits in this article, that at the core of Google Street View is Flash. I can't see how this feature could be implemented without it. Unless they went the unruly route of avoiding it as they did with YouTube.
I've learned not to trust NPD statements about Apple products. They seem to be wrong, or at the very least misleading, about most of them. Since the market share numbers for carriers remained almost the same, does that mean that ATT is shedding roughly 30% of its users, or something doesn't add up.
iPhone FTW!
10 Million and counting.........
You'd think that since RIM already developed touchscreen copy/paste, the iPhone could just copy it in 2.2...
It boggles the mind that you people think Apple is incapable of implementing copy and paste. They've already said it's lower on their priority list, which means it's coming. Not that they don't know how to do it. Apple developed copy and paste on the Newton years before RIM even existed. Try not to be so damn ignorant.
WGAF?! Where the **** is Full Flash support? You know Apple, 99% of the web uses it? I know Adobe have it ready to go for the iphone, heck I don't even own a PooPhone, sorry iPhone, but one things for sure...the moment apple implement it, the rest will follow...Baaa,baaaa. :)
99% of the web uses Flash? I'd love to see you back that up with proof. Go ahead, show me the statistics that prove that 99% of the web uses Flash.
Zak, feeling aggresive today r we? WTF do you think this is, statistics anonymous? I'm making point you OTT moron. Stop drinking so much cherryade & go write us a program so we can all see embedded flash on our mobile gadgets.
Regardless, Zak's point is correct. Implementing Flash navigation for a site is, IMO, bad design, unneeded and just adds overhead to a site that in all likelihood could provide the same functionality without it. Flash is an example of the adage that when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Personally I run Adblock to remove flash ads, and if a site is based on flash I go elsewhere, even when using firefox. Flash should be relegated to games and videos...
Rod - Sure, you're making a point by saying 99% of the web uses Flash. I'm simply telling you that you're wrong. Is that too hard for you to understand or something? And yeah, this is statistics anonymous, because you said 99% of the web uses Flash. Hello? Make the connection yet? If you don't like being called on things you say, then don't say stupid things. Pretty easy.
Ok smarty pants: what about EVERY news media site on the web and it's embedded Video content...it's always in flash. Maybe in your wibbly-wobbly internet world you don't encounter any sites with flash embedded video content or flash forms - but for me a majority of the sites I visit have some form of flash embedded. Stop being such nerds, having flash enabled can only benefit the consumer and it can also be an option to turn on or off just like 3G/2G, I would say that that is a much higher priority that cut & paste in the case of the iphone. Judging by internet forums response, there are a lot of mobile phone users who agree that not supporting flash is just stupid.
What about those of us who switched away because of the terrible quality of the 3G iPhone (at release to current date)? I switched away to Verizon, incindetally. I would be really interested to hear numbers on iPhone returners/bailers though.
Finaly auto correction off option!
Will version 2.2 finally fix the podcast blue dot problem? Can't be that hard surely?
i don't understand why everyone is so quick to criticize AT&T and the iphone for their success, i understand that many people were experiencing problems but if you look at the bigger picture, and see how many iphone 3G were sold and running on this one network its nothing short of a miracle it works fine. if your dumb enough to be a guinea pig and jumping and testing products for a company then thats your problem, i got a iphone 3G at the end of August i heard really good stuff and bad stuff but i knew it would be better a month after release i couldn't be happier with my iphone 3G and AT&T. So please don't say that verizon or sprint would've done better because just like AT&T their network would've been pushed to its limits . i think AT&T's 3G network works pretty good when im in NYC it gets a little slow but slow is about 700kbts-900kbts which is still 4x faster than EDGE and when i leave the city and go to the suburbs i constantly get 1.2Mbts-1.5Mbts with about 300ms of latency which is pretty impressive. Next year AT&T will release HSPA release 7 pushing 3G speeds upwards of 40Mbts which would probably be 4-6Mbts in real world.
awww look at widdle baby iPhone... starting to grow up to be like the real grown-up SmartPhones phones! Still no copy/paste.. it's okay. iPhone just for kids. look... you just learned how to street view. how nice.
well, here in Brazil (other than the high prices due to taxes, taxes and more taxes), Claro has some crappy plans (up to 250MB data, 40-60 minutes to landlines+160-340 minutes to Claro numbers - no minutes to other networks), Vivo has some decent calling and data plans, but until recently was selling it only to its own customer base, TIM doesn't have it, neither does Oi (the only network selling only unlocked handsets, but then the iPhone would be R$3000 BRL, or $1400), who just arrived here in São Paulo, but their 3G service will only launch next year.
I'm sorry, but you've obviously never written a website or talked to anyone that has. If you had, you'd realize that 99% of web designers loathe Flash as bad form and essentially bloat.
If Apple were smart, they'd license Silverlight - there's a future there.
God damn it! That was @ Rod.
First time I've been defeated by this comment system, definitely not the last.
Would be great if notes had a save changes function so that if a note is accidnetally deleted due to the buggy delete button on the ipod touch it can be restored to its previous version.
Would also be nice to have full-screen view for safari, coverflow for videos and for photo albums.
Caching for google maps so that a certain area eg home city can be cached down to street level so that there is no need to be online to view google maps, idealy if you can cache up to 5 different areas that would be great.
E-mail to notes would be a nice feature, or outlook notes to notes would be even nicer.
ability to have a saved items folder in e-mail program.
All these items would be very easy to implement, could you please add them to the next upgrade.
Petition for MMS on the Iphone 3G!!! http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/mms4iphone3G/sign/
Ooo, the Emoji icon support will be greatly appreciated. I live in Japan and all my J-friends use those things extensively, so half the time I don't know if I'm getting a smile, wink or stupid gif of a dancing dog.
I think the new iPhone's firmware 2.2 will be the best update for the iPhone in long time. This firmware is complete and fixes a lot of bugs, but the best part is about the new features and funtions. You will find more about this in http://applediario.com/2008/10/06/el-firmware-iphone-22-trae-nuevas-funciones/
Remember turn on english in the language selection panel.