Survey finds 21% of iOS users wouldn’t change platforms for any price

For those of you wondering if Apple still has a strong cult following, here you go: a new survey from Goldman Sachs finds that 21% of iOS users wouldn’t switch to another platform, for any price.

The securities firm recently surveyed over 1000 smartphone users, in an effort to better understand the costs that consumers face when switching ecosystems. And this is what they found…

Out of the 1000+ participants, a whopping 62% of iOS users said that it was “highly likely” that their next smartphone or tablet purchase would be from Apple. And that number soared to 75% for users who currently own two or more Apple products.
 

And apparently, price doesn’t have anything to do with their brand loyalty. When asked how much of a discount it would take for them to switch to another platform, 23% of those polled said that the cost reduction would have to be between 21% and 30%. And an astounding 21% said that no discount would make it worthwhile for them to switch.

Obviously, this is just a small poll. But these numbers are probably fairly indicative of the actual market. And it says a lot about Apple, as a brand, that 1/5th of its users would switch to Android, Windows 8, etc., even if you gave them free devices.

Are these just fanboys here? Or does Apple still offer the best all-around mobile platform?



How to open Home screen shortcuts with Google Chrome

Earlier in the day we covered BrowserChooser, a jailbreak tweak developed by Ryan Petrich, which allows you to assign Google Chrome as your default web browser.

It’s a great tweak, and works exactly as expected; it was even recently updated with a few new additions such as the ability to have a dialogue to select your browser of choice when opening a link, and the ability to make the dialogue sheets say “Open with Chrome” instead of “Open with Safari”.

One thing BrowserChooser doesn’t do, however, (at least for the time being that is) is allow you to open Home screen shortcuts/bookmarks created via Safari with Google Chrome. Browser Changer is a tweak that’s been around for a very long time, and it was recently updated to allow you to do just that.
Browser Changer is a free jailbreak tweak that’s available for download on Cydia’s BigBoss repo. The tweak will also, like BrowserChooser, allow you to set Chrome as the default web browser for links, and it includes a handy kill-switch for moments when you want to quickly disable the tweak. Along with that, it retains support for many other browsers that you may choose to use as well.

Which tweak do you prefer? BrowserChooser, or Browser Changer? Both retain the same basic functionality, but there are enough differences that you may want to try each one separately, or maybe even combined. I found that using a combination of both gave me the best of both worlds. You gain the Home screen shortcut Chrome compatibility, and you also update the dialogue sheets with “Open With Chrome”.

What do you think?



Google+ SDK for iOS now available, Google confirms

Google’s social thing, Google+, may be lagging behind Facebook (250 million users versus Facebook’s nearly one billion globally), but the search Goliath has no intention of sitting on the sidelines.

Earlier this week, it announced that the official Google+ client would hit the iPad very soon and today the company took to the blogs to announce the official software development kit for iOS and Android.

Francis Ma, product manager with Google+, wrote in a blog post that Google+ platform for mobile is available beginning today in early developer preview…

A set of tools and social plugins will let iOS and Android developers write programs that are deeply integrated with Google+.

Earlier this month, the popular social network aggregator Flipboard became the first mobile app to offer Google+ integration by way of official APIs.

The Google+ SDK supports features to facilitate the creation of iOS and Android apps that can integrate Google+ identity, sharing and history. Full documentation for developers is available here.

The news came hot off the heels of Facebook’s announcement that it would “soon” provide an iOS SDK to make it easier to add Facebook to iOS apps, along with support for the Facebook integration in iOS 6.

Google said at Google I/O yesterday that its social network now commands a 250 million strong army of users around the world, 150 million of them active at least once a month and fifty percent signing in daily and spending approximately twelve minutes on average in the Google+ stream.

The search firm also showed off a native Google+ app for iPad that will launch “very, very soon”. It’ll support Hangouts and sport a “playful” and really responsive user interface.

Just hours before Google kicked off its Google I/O show at San Francisco’s Moscone West, Facebook suddenly announced in a blog post that it would completely rebuild its sluggish iOS app, re-writing it for “blazing fast” performance.

Who says competition isn’t a good thing?


Thoughts on the rumored 7-inch iPad

It was inevitable that after Google’s Nexus 7 announcement, the “iPad Mini” rumors would start surfacing again. The 7-inch Asus-branded tablet has garnered quite a bit of attention this week.

Apple has long been believed to be working on its own 7-inch slate, with reports coming from both Apple-insiders and news outlets alike that such a product exists. But will we ever see it?

The latest report comes from Pacific Crest‘s Andy Hargreaves. The analyst told investors that his firm believes that Apple is planning to unveil a 7.85-inch iPad this fall.
 

“We anticipate an entry-level 7.85″ iPad with 8GB of NAND capacity to price at $299 with an initial gross margin of 31%. We estimate Apple will sell 10.0 million 7.85″ iPads in FQ1 (Dec. 2012) and 35.2 million in all F2013. Based on estimated component order volume, we believe our iPad mini unit estimates are well within Apple’s production capacity.”

Rumor or not, releasing an “iPad Mini” right before the holidays would probably do wonders for Apple’s bottom line. Not to mention what it would do for its already-dominant tablet marketshare.

We have a bit of a problem with the $299 price point though. Google is selling its Nexus 7 at just $199, so it seems like Apple would be pricing itself out of the market at $300. Although to be fair, word is that Google is currently losing money on every tablet sold. And that’s just simply not Apple’s style.

But even if we took the competition out of it, would $299 be worth it for a 7-inch tablet? That’s just $200 cheaper than Apple’s 10-inch Retina-display slate. And just $100 cheaper than the iPad 2.

More importantly, where would the iPod touch fit into all of this? The device hasn’t seen an upgrade in almost two years. And last we heard, it was going to be getting the same 4-inch screen upgrade that the iPhone is rumored to receive this fall.

In all reality, Apple wouldn’t need a larger iPod touch and a smaller iPad. You would think that it would either a) make an iPod touch with a larger display (4, maybe 5-inches), or b) scrap the Touch line altogether and make a smaller tablet.

The odds are actually pretty good that Apple has at least one of these products in the oven, and will unveil it alongside the new iPhone in the fall. The question is, which one is it? And which one would you be more likely to buy?