If you're here, probably you're an Apple fan...or not. That doesn't really matter to me, or to the purpose of this article. After all, both the iPhone and Nokia's N-Gage are both great (more than just) phones, but I won't get into the "which one is better" tornado. Speaking about raw numbers, Nokia should win, since it has more alternatives to the iPhone than any other mobile manufacturer, if I think well, but the reality seems to be a bit different...
Leaving aside the features, design, and battery life wars, there's the market share war, and this is the most important part of it all, along with the customer satisfaction rate, since a higher customer satisfaction rate will lead to a higher market share, too, in time. After all, there's no glory to be had with a great device that doesn't sell as it should, right?
According to J.D. Power's satisfaction ranks, Apple ranked first in the US, with a score of 778 out of 800, well above Research in Motion's 703 for its BlackBerry phones, and way ahead of the industry average of 681.
Even more, those who got into this study claimed that Apple's strength and Internet access as the primary reasons for picking up the iPhone, followed as email capabilities, design, Bluetooth support and keyboard layouts(this is only available for other smartphones, if you ask me...).
Although still behind Nokia in terms of market share, Apple is slowly gaining ground, and while it managed to surpass RIM's BlackBerry, the one who really lost ground because of this move was Nokia. From a comfortable 51.4 percent of the worldwide smartphone market, Nokia went all the way down to 38.9 percent in the wake of iPhone 3G's launch, and I think this should say it all.
Any thoughts? Speaking for myself, I think Apple can really take on Nokia in a few years, especially if the next-gen iPhone will learn from the mistakes of the past.
