Apple's Mac, iPad top PC & tablet satisfaction, but Amazon & Samsung close behind

AppleInsider · September 25, 2018 2:48PM

While Apple is leading in the American Customer Satisfaction Index's PC and tablet category, the company is just barely ahead of Amazon and Samsung, which tied for second in the Index's latest update.

Apple scored 83 in an ACSI report published on Tuesday, just as it did in 2017. Amazon and Samsung each managed 82. The figures were based on interviews with 6,062 customers.

Samsung's score was also flat year-over-year, but Amazon's was up from 79. The latter vendor of course doesn't make any PCs, but it has been steadily improving its Android-based Fire tablets, its next offering set to be the Fire HD 8 with Alexa voice controls and an optional "Show Mode" charging dock.

Apple often markets the iPad as a potential laptop replacement, especially when it comes to Pro models. Amazon's tablets are less powerful and intended mostly for media consumption, but have the distinct advantage of price: the Fire HD 8 will cost just $79.99, whereas even the cheapest new iPad is $329. An iPad Pro is at least $649.

Apple has yet to update the Pro this year, and is expected to deliver a significant overhaul with the addition of Face ID -- possibly in landscape mode -- and an edge-to-edge display. It may even offer some form of USB-C, given apparent support for 4K external displays.

The MacBook Pro was updated earlier in 2018, but other Macs have yet to see upgrades. Rumors have suggested that the Mac mini and MacBook Air could see long-awaited revamps.

lkrupp · September 25, 2018 3:00PM

Let’s watch the spin on this from the usual suspects. Are Amazon and Samsung just behind Apple because their products are improving or is it because Apple’s products are declining in satisfaction? Make sure you have plenty of popcorn and beer for this one. Bias confirmation is a powerful motivator.

gatorguy · September 25, 2018 3:05PM

lkrupp said:

Let’s watch the spin on this from the usual suspects. Are Amazon and Samsung just behind Apple because their products are improving or is it because Apple’s products are declining in satisfaction? Make sure you have plenty of popcorn and beer for this one. Bias confirmation is a powerful motivator.

Apple's ACS-computed satisfaction rate didn't go down YOY (neither did Samsung's) so IMO the answer is fairly obvious.

edited September 2018

king editor the grate · September 25, 2018 3:25PM

Some people are satisfied with filet mignon; others are satisfied eating from the Dumpster.

lkrupp · September 25, 2018 3:37PM

king editor the grate said:

Some people are satisfied with filet mignon; others are satisfied eating from the Dumpster.

I like my filet mignon wrapped in bacon. It’s my compromise with elitism.

foggyhill · September 25, 2018 3:55PM

Satisfaction is related to price pad for value expected, so it's only really useful as a gauge if its low.

If you pay $10 bucks for something, you're easier yo please and require less R&D and support infrastructure to please.

Good thing since the company made so little money off you; they better have made sure the product is low complexity with a decent QA.

jurassic · September 25, 2018 3:59PM

lkrupp said:

Let’s watch the spin on this from the usual suspects. Are Amazon and Samsung just behind Apple because their products are improving or is it because Apple’s products are declining in satisfaction? Make sure you have plenty of popcorn and beer for this one. Bias confirmation is a powerful motivator.

"Apple scored 83 in an ACSI report published on Tuesday, just as it did in 2017"

That should answer your question.

daalseth · September 25, 2018 4:33PM

lkrupp said:

Let’s watch the spin on this from the usual suspects. Are Amazon and Samsung just behind Apple because their products are improving or is it because Apple’s products are declining in satisfaction? Make sure you have plenty of popcorn and beer for this one. Bias confirmation is a powerful motivator.

Another factor to consider: when you have lower expectations, it's easier to be satisfied. An amazon tablet is just a glorified digital book reader. The iPad is approaching a laptop replacement.

chasm · September 25, 2018 10:37PM

What this tells me is that people still don't place any value on privacy and security. I would lay down serious money that if you made people aware that the Amazon and Samsung offerings (the latter through Android rather than directly as with Amazon) gather, personalize, and sell a tremendous amount of very personal data about you -- those satisfaction ratings might be a wee bit different.

richfromindy · September 26, 2018 2:55PM

All these little jabs at Amazon ("just a glorified book reader," "eating from the dumpster") show that half a decade later and the tech nerds still fail to get Amazon's tablet business. You're comparing how the New England Patriots play football with how the Cleveland Cavaliers play basketball. They're two different things. A person buys an Amazon tablet for something different than why they buy an iPad. In fact, I would venture to say that many, many Fire tablets are owned by people who also own another tablet. The Fire tablet is a super easy terminal / window into Amazon products . It's one of the most user-friendly ways to consume Kindle books, Audible audiobooks, Prime videos, Kindle magazines....and one of the most affordable "smart displays" on the market, utilizing Alexa and the "Echo Show" UI owned by Amazon. A person would not expect to pay $600 for a metal or glass Amazon terminal. And of course, Amazon makes a ton of money, not directly but indirectly because of the tablets. It's a different sort of device altogether that, when it's taken off it's Alexa Show Mode Dock, just happens to also look like a tablet. Fire tablets are not competing with iPads any more than your TV is.

edited September 2018

richfromindy · September 26, 2018 3:02PM

foggyhill said:

Satisfaction is related to price pad for value expected, so it's only really useful as a gauge if its low.

If you pay $10 bucks for something, you're easier yo please and require less R&D and support infrastructure to please.
Good thing since the company made so little money off you; they better have made sure the product is low complexity with a decent QA.

You're hopelessly deluded if you think Amazon has not made a lot of money off their tablet owners.

claire1 · September 26, 2018 8:09PM

What would Amazon and Samsung customers think if they knew their knockoff devices were selling their personal data?

RichFromIndy said:

All these little jabs at Amazon ("just a glorified book reader," "eating from the dumpster") show that half a decade later and the tech nerds still fail to get Amazon's tablet business. You're comparing how the New England Patriots play football with how the Cleveland Cavaliers play basketball. They're two different things. A person buys an Amazon tablet for something different than why they buy an iPad. In fact, I would venture to say that many, many Fire tablets are owned by people who also own another tablet. The Fire tablet is a super easy terminal / window into Amazon products . It's one of the most user-friendly ways to consume Kindle books, Audible audiobooks, Prime videos, Kindle magazines....and one of the most affordable "smart displays" on the market, utilizing Alexa and the "Echo Show" UI owned by Amazon. A person would not expect to pay $600 for a metal or glass Amazon terminal. And of course, Amazon makes a ton of money, not directly but indirectly because of the tablets. It's a different sort of device altogether that, when it's taken off it's Alexa Show Mode Dock, just happens to also look like a tablet. Fire tablets are not competing with iPads any more than your TV is.

Fire tablets are just iPad knockoffs.

Stop trying to be deep about it.

richfromindy · September 26, 2018 8:51PM

claire1 said:

What would Amazon and Samsung customers think if they knew their knockoff devices were selling their personal data?

RichFromIndy said:

All these little jabs at Amazon ("just a glorified book reader," "eating from the dumpster") show that half a decade later and the tech nerds still fail to get Amazon's tablet business. You're comparing how the New England Patriots play football with how the Cleveland Cavaliers play basketball. They're two different things. A person buys an Amazon tablet for something different than why they buy an iPad. In fact, I would venture to say that many, many Fire tablets are owned by people who also own another tablet. The Fire tablet is a super easy terminal / window into Amazon products . It's one of the most user-friendly ways to consume Kindle books, Audible audiobooks, Prime videos, Kindle magazines....and one of the most affordable "smart displays" on the market, utilizing Alexa and the "Echo Show" UI owned by Amazon. A person would not expect to pay $600 for a metal or glass Amazon terminal. And of course, Amazon makes a ton of money, not directly but indirectly because of the tablets. It's a different sort of device altogether that, when it's taken off it's Alexa Show Mode Dock, just happens to also look like a tablet. Fire tablets are not competing with iPads any more than your TV is.

Fire tablets are just iPad knockoffs.

Stop trying to be deep about it.

So you think Fire tablets are that similar to iPads huh? Somehow I think even your fellow Applebots would disagree.

richfromindy · September 26, 2018 9:00PM

claire1 said:

What would Amazon and Samsung customers think if they knew their knockoff devices were selling their personal data?

RichFromIndy said:

All these little jabs at Amazon ("just a glorified book reader," "eating from the dumpster") show that half a decade later and the tech nerds still fail to get Amazon's tablet business. You're comparing how the New England Patriots play football with how the Cleveland Cavaliers play basketball. They're two different things. A person buys an Amazon tablet for something different than why they buy an iPad. In fact, I would venture to say that many, many Fire tablets are owned by people who also own another tablet. The Fire tablet is a super easy terminal / window into Amazon products . It's one of the most user-friendly ways to consume Kindle books, Audible audiobooks, Prime videos, Kindle magazines....and one of the most affordable "smart displays" on the market, utilizing Alexa and the "Echo Show" UI owned by Amazon. A person would not expect to pay $600 for a metal or glass Amazon terminal. And of course, Amazon makes a ton of money, not directly but indirectly because of the tablets. It's a different sort of device altogether that, when it's taken off it's Alexa Show Mode Dock, just happens to also look like a tablet. Fire tablets are not competing with iPads any more than your TV is.

Fire tablets are just iPad knockoffs.

Stop trying to be deep about it.

I suppose the Apple Homepod is an Echo knockoff...but with a far inferior AI at its core? Let's look at the ways the Fire tablet is unique from an iPad: 1) Widescreen format for widescreen video, 2) SD card slot, 3) It becomes a "smart display" when you ask it to "turn on show mode," it reads books and magazine articles out loud to you, even if you don't have an audio-book version of it, just by a simple click within the Kindle app, it displays thumbnails of your magazines on your home screen and lets you know immediately if you have a new issue by showing a picture of the new magazine's cover, it shows you related content to the books or videos or magazines you've already downloaded, right on the home screens. All of these things that are unique to the Fire tablet are related to what I said about it being basically a window into Amazon services and content.

king editor the grate · September 27, 2018 2:25PM

RichFromIndy said:

All these little jabs at Amazon ("just a glorified book reader," "eating from the dumpster") show that half a decade later and the tech nerds still fail to get Amazon's tablet business.

O, I "get" their tablet business; that's what makes me compare it to eating from a Dumpster.

sracer · September 27, 2018 11:39PM

RichFromIndy said:

All these little jabs at Amazon ("just a glorified book reader," "eating from the dumpster") show that half a decade later and the tech nerds still fail to get Amazon's tablet business. You're comparing how the New England Patriots play football with how the Cleveland Cavaliers play basketball. They're two different things. A person buys an Amazon tablet for something different than why they buy an iPad. In fact, I would venture to say that many, many Fire tablets are owned by people who also own another tablet. The Fire tablet is a super easy terminal / window into Amazon products . It's one of the most user-friendly ways to consume Kindle books, Audible audiobooks, Prime videos, Kindle magazines....and one of the most affordable "smart displays" on the market, utilizing Alexa and the "Echo Show" UI owned by Amazon. A person would not expect to pay $600 for a metal or glass Amazon terminal. And of course, Amazon makes a ton of money, not directly but indirectly because of the tablets. It's a different sort of device altogether that, when it's taken off it's Alexa Show Mode Dock, just happens to also look like a tablet. Fire tablets are not competing with iPads any more than your TV is.

I agree. It's easy to lump all slabs of touchscreens in a single category, but that is a gross oversimplification of what the differences are.

I own a variety of tablets. Each serve a purpose. A few things that I appreciate about the Amazon Fire HD 10 result from it being Android-based... optional support for mice/trackpads, removable storage, strong support for USB peripherals, system-wide accessible file system, "open" enough to install apps like game emulators and such. Performance is adequate, durability is quite surprising. All of that for $100 or less (when on sale).

Although it can do things that my 12.9 iPad Pro and 2018 iPad can't do, there are things that they do that it can't.

I don't find these customer sat numbers controversial. I think it says more about how each company is marketing their products... they are doing a decent job of accurately representing their products to customers in a way that helps them to make the correct purchase. If they were engaging in hyperbole or bait-n-switch, customer sat would be much lower.

Apple's Mac, iPad top PC & tablet satisfaction, but Amazon & Samsung close behind

Comments