A new survey of Palm Pre and iPhone 3Gs owners found that Pre owners like their phones, though not as much as iPhone owners like theirs. It’s no surprise that Apple has its fans, but if you’ve been thinking about getting a Pre – maybe you should.
The survey was performed last week by RBC Capital and ChangeWave Research and first reported on by Philip Elmer-DeWitt at Fortune. While 99% of iPhone owners surveyed said they were satisfied and 82% said they were “very satisfied” – those numbers were 87% and 45% respectively for the Pre.
The biggest complaint about the Pre was a shortage of apps (24% of people said that was a problem) and the biggest complaint about the iPhone was…AT&T. Shocking! The sample size for the survey was small – only 40 Pre owners were talked to – but who among us gets to casually ask 40 owners of a Pre how they feel about their phones?
There’s lots of reasons to consider a phone other than an iPhone, but if you were hoping that a Pre wouldn’t suffer from the battery life issues Apple’s phones do – this survey says you’re out of luck. So far Palm hasn’t been in the news for a heavy-handed app policy like Apple has, but the control Apple exercises over the software you can run on your own phone is pretty maddening.
Meanwhile, at least one study last week argued that more and more developers are building apps for Android handsets. Palm Pre developer events are going on all around the world, though, so expect to see more apps for that platform quickly.
Happy customers and more app developers on other platforms is great news. Effective competition is one factor that could contribute to Apple’s getting over itself and of course to mobile innovation in general.
