Majority of consumers prefer Apple iOS, want iPhone 5

A recent survey of about 3,000 people discovered that a majority of consumers will purchase the next-generation iPhone, no questions asked, compared to other smartphones being released or currently available.

Anonymous consumers in the Experian PriceGrabber survey were asked if they would purchase the iPhone 5 and a whopping thirty-five percent surveyed said they definitely would, no matter what. This same survey also discovered that forty-eight percent choose Apple iOS as their favorite mobile operating system compared to nineteen percent for Google's Android and a dismal six percent for Research In Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry. However, despite the "smart" factor of these smartphones the survey also found out that eighty-eight percent of consumers still use their phones generally for calls and seventy-seven percent said they used their smartphones mostly for email--regardless of what brand they use. Wired tries to explain this cult behavior with Apple products, which saw a surge in popularity when the first generation iPhone was released. As Christina Bonnington of Wired explains, "Apple's well-curated, well-populated App Store presents consumers with a wide variety of quality apps to choose from. Other app stores still just don't stack up..." Bonnington also brought up the fact of the "easy convenience" of Apple's actual stores, which can offer guidance and troubleshooting appointments for customers. Meanwhile, RIM is slashing 2,000 jobs, San Francisco Chronicle reports, in response to the growing market for the iPhone and dwindling popularity for the BlackBerry, which initially held the majority of the smartphone market. Comparing market share in the United States, however, ComScore discovered Android was the top mobile operating system during the first quarter of 2011 and the iPhone was third. Now, the iPhone continues to grow at a steady pace. Apple's record breaking profits for the recent quarter also reinforce the fact that the iPhone is eating away at Android and BlackBerry's share.