Do most people view their phones as portable computers? According to a recent international survey conducted by Zogby and Skype that looks at how people perceive their mobile phones, the answer seems to be a resounding “no”. But it’s clear that many of the features now associated with smartphones, like custom app stores, are now desired by the huge number of people who use more traditional ‘dumb phones’.
Looking at the results from the United States, many of the datapoints in the survey are not particularly surprising. Of 1,800 people surveyed, 18.9% owned smartphones, which strongly correlated with the 19.3% of participants who viewed their phones as a device used for both computing and making phone calls (said another way, most people with ‘dumb phones’ just use their phones to talk). Given a choice, 66.4% of the participants would rather lose their cell phone over their computer, while only 19.1% would sacrifice their computer (again, given the probable price difference, not surprising).
But there are a few points worth paying attention to. When asked if they thought that phone manufacturers and carriers would do a better job at picking out applications than they could, the vast majority of participants (80.5%), even those with ‘dumb phones’, either disagreed or strongly disagreed – people want to be able to customize their phones.
Despite that desire, only 26.2% of them have actually installed applications on their phones, which seems to indicate that for the most part, most phones and carriers have simply done a bad job at making it easy for users to download applications (I suspect Apple and more recently Google would be the exceptions in this department). Finally, when asked if they’d be willing to pay extra for a device that let them customize their phone’s applications, 51.8% said that they wouldn’t.
The same study conducted in the UK and Japan exhibited similar trends, but the results from Spain are significantly different. 48% of Spanish participants have installed apps on their phones, and 50% would be willing to pay extra for a device capable of downloading customized applications. Perhaps this is one case where seeing is believing: unlike in the United States, many Spaniards have actually experienced having a customized phone – perhaps they’ve found the associated benefits justify a cost increase.
US Results
zogbyus2
Aggregate International Results
zoggbyag2
We don’t even need apps. I think you should be able to customize your phone. You shouldn’t have to pay for a song you already bought on itunes, again because you have a phone that doesn’t let you change your ringtones (sidekick?).
Or companies like virgin mobile make you pay for your songs again if you need to change phones.
I think this is why the iPhone is doing so well, I can download the different apps to my phone and “customize” the way it functions.
Darin
Mobiles are far more personal than PC or even laptop. Customization is a must..
The reason why it might be so popular to “pimp” your phone in Spain might be similar to the reasons in Italy – where they simply want to “show off”, and the car is not always handy – but the phone is…
I still don’t have a cell phone. Too many models to choose from.
I still use an old fashioned phone. It works like a champ.
Sorry folks. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
Kiki
GossipMojo.com
I think its dumb to call non-smart phones dumb. A phone shouldn’t be a computer. You don’t save time by having a smart phone or so many apps at your fingertips…it simply makes you develop ADD
‘let me check that, let me check this’
use your brain
Wait… are you actually telling me they needed a ’study’ for this???
Nobody wants to pay extra, just what it is worth to them.
unfortunately we have a middleman called money which determines worth
apparently we are too dumb to decide the value of things on our own
Just for a comparison: there was another study – 80% of users don’t use the phonebook on their phones; around 30% DIDN’T KNOW IT EXISTS !
I’m not kidding.
I use a pre-paid phone (I use the cell phone so little that pre-paid comes out to about $6/month). I’d be happy if they’d only let me download contacts to the phonebook! Why that function should be shut off – manufacturer has it, MVNO (Virgin Moble) makes them shut it down – is beyond me!
I’m looking forward to the Palm Pre just so I can customize the hell out of it. Mobiles are personal, you shouldn’t have to uniform to someone else’s interface choices.
I thought everyone on the planet would want that at no extra cost
At least with HTC-developed devices is never was a problem. With one of my favorites, AT&T Tilt, you can customize pretty much everything, including the very software that runs all cell phone’s communications. I was so amazed at the prospective, I wrote a whole series about customizing HTC phone, largely based on xda-developers forum (link to last part: http://www.istu...t-4-2009-03-05/)