Apple's claim about how satisfied iPhone 14 owners are is "statistically impossible"
The iPhone 14 might be a great phone, but consumers are probably not as happy with it as the company likes to claim, per product recommendation site PerfectRec.
Every year for the last seven years, Apple has been saying that its lineup for that year has had a customer satisfaction rate of 98 to 99 percent. But this is statistically impossible.
If you use a traditional survey method and a sample that is representative of the customer base, you are highly unlikely to get a rating of 99 percent. That's because not all survey respondents understand the question and answer accordingly and some like to give weird and contrarian answers.
Even if every single person actually loved their iPhone it would still be nearly impossible to find near unanimous satisfaction using traditional survey methods. A few percent of people just won’t understand the question, or will give the wrong response by mistake," - PerfectRec founder Joe Golden
If Apple's claim about the iPhone 14 having a satisfaction rating of 99 percent was actually true, it would mean that the iPhone 14 is the greatest and most popular product of all time, which isn't exactly the case.
For context, even though Trade Joe's customers stand in line for house, the store has a satisfaction rating of just 84 percent. Donald Trump's party members gave him an approval rating of 86 percent. Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad got 95 percent of the votes in an election that lacked international monitoring and was considered unfair.
In short, even if people actually love your product and things are rigged in your favor, a satisfaction rating of 99 percent is pretty much impossible.
So, did Apple lie?
Not exactly. Even though the company probably has its own numbers, it likes to cite those compiled by third-party research firm 451 Research. So if the authorities ever decide to ask Apple where it got the numbers from, it won't get in trouble.
Does that mean 451 Research lied? Not really. PerfectRec thinks the company only questioned an unrepresentative sample comprising early adopters and tech enthusiasts.
PerfectRec emailed Apple's press team to explain how they got the figure. The email was opened 73 times but never replied to.
According to the American Consumer Satisfaction Institute, the satisfaction rate is 81 percent for 5G iPhones and 78 percent for 4G models. While these results may sound lackluster when compared to what Apple said, this is the highest combined satisfaction rate ever achieved by a smartphone maker.
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