iPhone X early adopters aren't satisfied with Siri (AAPL)

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Early adopters of the iPhone X are very satisfied with the device, according to a new survey of iPhone X owners by Creative Strategies.

ipohone x customer satisfaction

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The firm analyzed satisfaction levels with the iPhone X's design, speed, camera, OLED display, FaceID, battery life, handling, portrait-mode pictures and selfies, and Siri.

iPhone X owners reported an overall 97% satisfaction rate with the device, with 85% reporting being very satisfied, which is among the highest satisfaction rate of all tech products the firm has seen.

For instance, although the original Apple Watch garnered a 97% satisfaction rate, only 66% of owners reported being very satisfied with the device. This is important to note, considering early adopters tend to be more critical and less satisfied overall than mainstream consumers.

Early iPhone X adopters are raving over the new device, but there’s one major weak spot: Siri. The iPhone X saw high satisfaction rates across its major features with the sole exception being Siri, which scored a satisfaction rate of just 20%. All other iPhone X features were rated over 60%, with the majority garnering a rating over 90% (see chart,below).

Disproportionately low ratings for Siri is a bad sign for Apple, though the findings aren't new or surprising. Siri has become a major problem for Apple over the years, as its accuracy and capabilities are severely limited compared with competitors. For instance, Siri significantly lags behind Alexa and Google in terms of answering questions accurately across various categories on the HomePod, Loup Ventures reports. This underperformance is likely the primary reason the HomePod has struggled to make significant gains on Amazon and Google in the smart speaker market.

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Apple will need to step up its improvements to Siri to avoid falling behind competitors.Apple doesn't have the same access to the troves of data that Amazon and Google do, inhibiting it from fine-tuning its voice assistant, but the tech titan claims this isn't an impediment to it making continuous improvements to Siri. 

Apple has integrated Siri into the iPhone, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Mac, AirPods, and HomePod — until Apple develops Siri's abilities, it could limit the voice assistant's usefulness across all of Apple’s hardware and, in turn, impact sales. However, it appears Apple is making moves to do so — the company hired John Giannandrea, Google's former chief of AI and search, earlier this month, to oversee the development of Siri.

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has written a detailed report on voice apps that explores the two major viable voice app stores. It identifies the three big issues voice apps are facing — discoverability, monetization, and retention — and presents possible short-term solutions ahead of industry-wide fixes.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• The market for smart speakers and voice platforms is expanding rapidly. The installed base of smart speakers and the volume of voice apps that can be accessed on them each saw significant gains in 2017. But the new format and the emerging voice ecosystems that are making their way into smart speaker-equipped homes is so far failing to align with consumer needs. 

• Voice app development is a virtuous cycle with several broken components. The addressable consumer market is expanding, which is prompting more brands and developers to developer voice apps, but the ability to monetize and iterate those voice apps is limited, which could inhibit voice app growth. 

• Monetization is only one broken component of the voice app ecosystem. Discoverability and user retention are equally problematic for voice app development. 

• While the two major voice app ecosystems — Amazon's and Google's — have some Band-Aid solutions and workarounds, their options for improving monetization, discoverability, and retention for voice apps are currently limited.

• There are some strategies that developers and brands can employ in the near term ahead of more robust tools and solutions.

 In full, the report:

• Sizes the current voice app ecosystem. 

• Outlines the most pressing problems in voice app development and evolution in the space by examining the three most damning shortcoming: monetization, discoverability, and retention. 

• Discusses the solutions being offered up by today's biggest voice platforms. 

• Presents workaround solutions and alternative approaches that could catalyze development and evolution ahead of wider industry-wide fixes from the platforms.

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Subscribe to an All-Access pass to Business Insider Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >> Learn More Now

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See Also:

• Here's how Amazon's and Apple's new smart speakers stack up with consumers

• Siri underperforms on Apple's HomePod

• THE INTERNET OF THINGS 2018 REPORT: How the IoT is evolving to reach the mainstream with businesses and consumers