How Long Will Your SmartPhone Loyalty Last and Where Might You Jump?

Now that Nokia have launched their new Windows Phones, and cemented their future with Microsoft (at least for the foreseeable future) we’re down to just four major players left in the smartphone space. Apple with their hugely popular iOS operating system, Google’s free open-source Android, Microsoft’s new-kid on the block Windows Phone and RIM’s could soon be in trouble BBX. In the last few months we’ve seen both Nokia’s wonderful MeeGO and HP’s equally lovely WebOS bite the dust.

I’ll start this conversation by getting all teary-eyed. It’s a huge pity that two operating systems as capable as MeeGo and WebOS both seem to be on their way out forever. We all know that the worldwide smartphone market is easily big enough to support them, but support is the issue as it costs millions for companies to develop and maintain these operating systems. This is money that Nokia simply don’t have and that HP may not be willing to pay.

But what will this mean for you in the coming years? For the moment people who have iPhones seem to want the next iPhone when their mobile contract ends, and people who are on Android seem to like it too. Windows Phone hasn’t yet been around long enough for anyone to reach the end of their first contract using it but RIM’s Blackberry’s also have a loyal following.

There are several main reasons for smartphone loyalty. These include people being resistant to change and not wanting to learn something new, just getting really comfortable with an operating system and also having paid a lot of money for all those apps you won’t be able to port to a new OS.

But loyalty and favouritism for the operating system isn’t the whole picture. There is also loyalty to the handset manufacturer. Many people love Nokia, or HTC because they’ve always had a good experience with their phones. Many more people like Sony Ericsson (soon to be just Sony) for their gaming integration and so on.

In the end though we all tire of the mundane and want a change occasionally. This could mean iPhone users jumping ship to Android or Blackberry users jumping ship to Windows Phone. In short, it could mean anything and there are a whole lot of factors to consider. There is also the question of if you have loyalty to any one manufacturer and how you feel about this? I’m very fond of HTC but I’ve owned phones by LG, Sony and others and all have been very good too.

So I’m interested ot ask here what platform you are currently loyal to, if indeed you’re loyal to one at all and what other ones you would consider in the future if you’ve even thought that far ahead? To start I’ll say I’m very loyal to Windows Phone but, as and when I get bored I’d consider either the iPhone or a BlackBerry. This would be for several reasons, I’m not happy with the malware problem that still exists on Android and while I don’t like iOS very much, you can’t easily complain about Apple’s hardware. For BlackBerry, they’d have to produce another handset similar to the Storm, a full touchscreen as I’d never want a full QWERTY keyboard.

So what are your preferences?

© Mike Halsey (MVP) for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us, digg, facebook, reddit, twitter
Post tags: android, apple, bbx, goodle, ios, loyalty, microsoft, rim, smartphone, windows phone