A happy-making phone from Samsung.
Happiness is never far from the human mind.
Oddly, it often seems further away from the human experience.
We’re so mercurial that we can travel from happy to angry quicker than any Elon Musk mode of transport will travel anywhere.
But we always have our phones perched ready to bring our moods back to the joyful end of the spectrum.
This subject reared itself upon me when I received an excitable email from a PR person. It read: “ACSI smartphone report spells trouble for iPhone.”
Oh, no. The iPhone is in trouble? But I thought the Reverend Timothy Cook recently said it’s never been better. Perhaps he’s been too busy talking to politicians and not hearing the thoughts of, well, actual Americans.
Thankfully, we have the American Customer Satisfaction Index — surely more accurate, I hear you snort, than any sounding presented by Steve Kornacki.
And the ACSI believes the iPhone is in trouble. So let me tell you about this trouble.
The 21,189 Americans who expressed themselves to this index declared that Samsung phones make them happiest, while Apple phones make them two points less happy.
I can feel your disturbance, so let me offer context. Last year, Apple’s phones made Americans the happiest.
Now, the top five happy-making phones are the Samsung Galaxy Note10+, the Galaxy S10+, the Galaxy S20+, the Galaxy S20 and the Galaxy A20.
A sweep as clean as Apple’s morals, you might muse.
Talking of which, those iPhones really did lag a little. Scoring three points below Samsung’s top three — at a mere 82 points — were Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max, iPhone X, and iPhone XS Max.
To add spittle to the shame, the Galaxy S10 made Americans as happy as all these iPhones.
Now you see the trouble that’s being spelled out for Apple, don’t you?
Unless, that is, you muse that this is a comparison of iPhones that aren’t entirely spring cluckers.
But let me add some more shame-making for Apple, just for the bits and giggles. Apple’s overall smartphone satisfaction rating is now merely on a par with, oh, Google. And oh, oh, Motorola.
I can just imagine the windows of the Cupertino spaceship being shattered by screams of horror.
Still, these surveys come, then they go and then another 21,000 people come along to say something different. As they did last year.
Who can wait for next year’s ACSI results? Perhaps I’ll get an email roaring: “ACSI smartphone report spells trouble for Samsung.”
