Submitted by “A Customer Experience Index report from Forrester Research came to the conclusion after studying almost 4600 computer users’ experiences from 2008 and asking them to score the ease of use of their computers, how enjoyable the experience is and whether or not the systems fulfill their owners’ needs. Apple’s overall score reached 80 and was not only enough to give it the lead but also leave it as the only company to earn a ‘good’ ranking in Forrester’s view. Every other manufacturer in the list scored significantly lower, with Acer’s American label Gateway being closest with a score of just 66; the standing is only ‘okay’ in the research group’s chart.”
Doesn’t Apple claim they do Mac, but not PC?
SJ should be angry for that!
I can still remember in the 90’s when Apple fanboys claim that:
it’s not PC unless it’s Mac
A Lamborghini in car industry may give the best satisfaction. The satisfaction index do not match anyway the solving of the problem. As it was presented previously: a 2800 dollars laptop from Apple is way better than a 700 dollars HP. The problem is that scaling the prices down was always a problem for Apple. In some countries a PC is an issue to buy, or a laptop, and the price for a student is really way too high. Why it matters for someone if it feels great if he/she has a Mac, if it cannot afford it. Also, if you compare satisfaction in the same price products between <1000$ PCs and laptops you will see one thing: Apple have no response, so is not first, not the last, it does not exist!
The machine itself is beside the point. It’s about the OS. I write Windows business software for a living, and Microsoft has awesome tools for that stuff. I would never write business software with Cocoa. Conversely, I spent years running that piece-of-crap Windows on my desktop. When I switched to the Mac, I decided I’d never look back.
Now I use OS X on my desktop, and I still make my living writing Windows business software. But I do it with virtual machines.
Bottom line: OS X is a vastly superior desktop OS, but I think it’s a deeply inferior business OS.
Could you elaborate on why you find OSX to be unsatisfactory for writing business apps?
Microsoft just has so many more tools for writing business applications, talking to databases, etc. By “tools,” I generally mean libraries and APIs.
Of course one can write business applications on the Mac. Sure. But depending upon the app, it might take quite a bit more effort.
I readily admit that this is just my own opinion, having worked a great deal with Microsoft’s tools and a good deal with Apple’s.
(The irony is that I’m typing all of this on my 17″ MacBook Pro running Safari Beta 4, taking a break from debugging an iPhone application I’ve been contracted to write.)
Pardon my ignorance, which is why I am asking — can you give some specific examples of the kind of tools which exist on Windows but not on OSX that are needed for business apps?
I come from the scientific world, so I have very little idea what kind of tools are needed in the business world and where one platform or another may fall short …
This is what I was saying yesterday. Apple tops customer satisfaction because they make better products and provide better service.
In the ACSI survey Apple had a 85% customer satisfaction rating.
Hewlett-Packard (73), Gateway (72), and Compaq (70) each sink 4%. The exception is Dell ^aEUR“ up 1% to 75.
Apple has a 10% lead on Dell which is the top for Windows PC’s in customer satisfaction.
http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18…
Like I said Apple is different because of:
1. Fit and finish.
2. Look and feel.
3. Resale value.
Apple has never had competitive prices on any of their products. Only thing close is the iPhone 3G cause it’s subsidized. Yet iPhones and iPods sell great and Macs are doing well. That goes to the cool factor and quality factor.
Oh one last thing is people saying parts being the same.
If you look at a Mac Laptop the things that are the same are:
Ram
CPU
Video
Hard drive.
But:
Case
Screen
Battery
Mother board
Power Cord
Are different. And that makes a difference.
Your assertion is that Apple computers are higher quality. But this is a customer satisfaction study, a survey of which computers are best-liked by their owners. That’s two completely different things.
I would expect that the operating system / ease of use is the primary reason that Apple scored higher. You have to pay $750 to read the full report and find out, but it’s borne out in this comment in the article:
the report’s chief architect Bruce Temkin explains that Apple’s lead only widened when focused on these two criteria: although its overall lead was 14 percent, it garnered a 17 percent edge in terms of ease of use and 15 percent for contentment with respective systems.
No mention of quality/reliability.
The same effect is witnessed also when looking at automobile rankings. The more exclusive and more expensive brands are frequently the favorites among owners (APEAL study), despite being low quality or average quality (IQS survey).
More succinctly, expensive products often have fanboy communities. And you heard it first on OSAlert.
Edited 2009-04-19 15:10 UTC
Which survey are you looking at the Forrester Research survey or the ACSI survey?
Ether way I am sure we can look up some quality survey’s other then the 2 sited. And I am sure that some of that raiing is quality related. What took it over the top might not be 100% quality related though.
But I will look deeper.
The screen in the macbook isn’t special. It’s the cheapest one you can also find in a lowend pc laptops.
One of the big differences I noticed when dealing with Apple support vs Dell is that with Apple, they try to make sure you think it is not there fault but rather is yours, so you shouldn’t be angry with them. Another thing there agents are trained to do is to not make any attempt to fix a problem, but rather either bring it in to get fixed or just to replace your product with a new Apple product, at your own expense of course. In my job, I’ve had to deal with tons of calls for various problems to tons of manufacturers, and the best of the PC makers is definitely Dell. They built their products to help you help them, with in-BIOS diagnostics, well trained technicians, and very fast service.
Wow, I want whatever Dell support number you’re using.
I’ve actually had nothing but success with Apple support, and a god awful time with Dell’s. I call up Apple and I get someone who speaks my language (English), who can understand me and whom I can understand, and who has usually been helpful in getting me to the right person to take care of my issue.
Dell, on the other hand… well, I’m lucky if I get through in a reasonable amount of time. When I do, I more often than not get someone who either can’t understand me or refuses to understand me, who claims repeatedly that I have a bad phone connection to them, and who sometimes cannot even speak English with a reasonable proficiency. It’s obviously an outsourced call center somewhere, probably in India from the sound of their accents. They’ve never been helpful to me in the slightest, shuffling me from rep to rep to rep, none of them ever anymore helpful than the last. It reminds me of when I did customer service for one of the major airlines… only worse.
That’s one of the reasons I don’t by Dell products anymore, the other is quality. They shove crap components together in their consumer-level machines, and it shows when something goes wrong. About the only thing they do right are their computer cases, I wish I could just by the cases.
Now, I know I could fix the Dell myself but if the thing’s under warranty I want them to fix it… but dealing with their support is typically more exhausting than just fixing the damn thing.
What’s been disappointing about recent Dell computers, cheap plastic cases and proprietary non-replaceable components.
If someone spends a couple thousand dollars on a high-end XPS, they ~deserve~ something better than a plastic case with crummy doors falling off. The low-end plastic Inspiron cases are actually more durable…
Yep, I’ve gotta say, that’s probably a major reason people are more satisfied with Apple – they’re one of the few companies left that attempts to accommodate it’s customers in a language and dialect they understand. I expect I’m going to eventually have problems with anyone’s kit. That’s a given. But when I have problems, how quickly and comfortably I get them resolved is going to have a lot to do with how satisfied I am. Having to repeat myself or tell the support guy, “Pardon me, could you repeat that?” half a dozen times doesn’t do a lot to increase my satisfaction.
Unfortunately Dell’s support is usually “dirka dirka dirka…recovery partition.”
I’d rather the condescending Apple Helpdesk because at least he/she is of english speaking descent.
I guess Dell is really an US only phenomenon.
At least in Europe, the only ones that buy Dell are companies. I don’t know anyone that bought a Dell as personal computer.
We tend to buy more country specific brands, at least for desktops. And for laptops you will mostly see people using Asus, Fujitsu or Toshiba,besides the white brands.
I only wish that Apple products would be a bit more cheaper in Europe, that way for sure they would get more users.
In the United States Dells are very common. They previously were only available through online/catalog ordering, but now you can buy them anywhere including at large discount department stores. They’re also frequently used by schools – I believe that’s the only brand used by the local school district here.
Used to be, back in the 80’s and 90’s, all classroom computers where i live at were Macs, or some form of an Apple machine.
I even know the lady that convinced my elementary school to go over to PCs, and they have so many problems with them (yet again, Dells), she insists to this day that she wishes that the suggestion of moving to PCs had never been said.
I guess Lenovo was too small to make their cut, but I wonder how they would fare …
Apple only has to support the OS and the hardware that they make. Small lineup in the end.
PC makers, however, have to hear about how the PC they are using went awry when they started using brand XXYYZZ or some such new hardware / software, and the average PC user will believe that who ever made the machine, be it Dell, HP, whoever, HAS to give the support, even though they are using something that they bought that might, and normally is, the culprit to whatever is the problem to the PC woes they are experiencing.
So yes, in the end, less parts, more official support = better. Plus, go up to a Genius bar once. The Apple support people generally know what they are doing, and know it to.
Edited 2009-04-19 15:31 UTC
I think the prices are okey.
If everybody could afford a mac there wouldn’t be that kind of “myth” anymore.
Here in Germany a Mac is something “high class”. Most people got a cheaper PC, so it’s a special pleasure to have a mac.
It’s like buying a rolls royce. The car just take you from A to B. But you buy it for other reasons.