I stood in a Verizon store yesterday as my 16 yr old daughter was looking at “touchy” phones. It was time for an upgrade. As we looked around the store for the best phone for her, it reminded me when the camera took over the cell phone industry and those that didn’t want a camera were screwed. Mobile phone manufactures didn’t see profit in phones without cameras, so they quit making them. That is where we are with smart phones. They dominate the shelves, mostly Android devices.
The problem is that every one of them is different. My daughter was completely confused. Every time she walked up to one, she would say to herself “how do I unlock this one” or “how do I type something”. You see, almost everything is different on each of them. Some just slide up to unlock, some you have to slide a puzzle piece into another puzzle piece (Yes, really), and even some have another odd way of unlocking.
It gets more interesting once you get past the unlock screen. She would touch it, and it would be do, well, nothing. It would just sit there for a few seconds, and then finally respond. She became visibly frustrated with the Android experience. Never the less, we decided on a couple models to choose from, all with some rebate in the form of credit for Verizon.
When we finally got a chance to talk to someone, we went through the paces. This one has a $79.00 rebate, this one is free with a 2 year plan and a $50.00 rebate. Or… you can get an iPhone 4 for free. Say what? Did you just say that I can get a phone better than any phone you have on display for free? SOLD.
That’s where Apple kills it. A phone from two updates ago is still better than anything currently offered that runs Android, and it’s free. We are now a three iPhone family and Apple gets a lot of my money. Well played Apple.