I talk to a lot of people about phones, I’ve always got a stable of the things around and there is a marked interest in them. They are all smartphones, that’s the kind of user I am. I use my phones for so many different purposes that I sometimes forget they are phones. To me the smartphone has become a pocket computer, email machine, Twitter box, e-book reader, web appliance, well you get the picture. I even sometimes make phone calls with them, although even that has been Google-powered for me. I find one common theme to the conversations I have with “regular” people about the phones I use, and that is that regular consumers do not care about smartphones.
How can that be? We read all the time that smartphones are selling like hotcakes, they even may be selling more than feature phones. If consumers don’t care about smartphones then why are they hot items? It has to do with perception. Consumers are buying phones for the features, maybe a good promotion sucks them in first, but they are buying a phone, not a smartphone. They delight that their new phone can tap the web, let them email their friends, but at the base of it all they are simply buying a phone.
I keep getting this drilled into me regularly, while talking to consumers about the phones. They may like the way a particular phone looks, or they like how easily they can call and text their friends, but that is as deep as the understanding goes. Bear in mind I am not talking about tech-savvy consumers, like most of you readers. I am talking about my neighbors, friends and my kids’ friends. Not tech-savvy at all, just regular consumers.
I find this true even among those who already own smartphones. Most of these owners aren’t even aware what platform is powering their phone, because they simply do not care. It’s a phone. It does some cool things, but it’s a phone. The only platform I find awareness of in consumers is the BlackBerry, and that awareness is not really of the platform but of the type of phone. It’s a BlackBerry, that’s as far as it goes. I see the same thing about the iPhone among owners. They aren’t aware of what platform is under the hood, it’s just an iPhone.
This is important to understand because those of us heavily involved in the tech world are often insulated from what regular consumers think about smartphones. My experience shows me that mainstream consumers simply don’t care about them. They buy a phone, and if it’s more capable than phones they have purchased in the past, that’s just gravy. This means that the handset makers, perhaps the carriers too, must be sure and follow up the phone sale with information about how to best use it.
I have run into several consumers who have bought smartphones and yet passed on any data plan. That means they can’t even tap into many of the capabilities of the phone, and carriers are missing out on revenue. Similarly, I have run into BlackBerry owners who have never set up email on the phone. That makes little sense, as BlackBerries are first and foremost email machines. It is clear to me that there needs to be consumer education about smartphones, and some organization needs to step up and provide it. There is a lot of wasted opportunity in the smartphone market.
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