Reasons I Choose to Buy an IPhone rather than Other Brands such as Blackberry - Coursework Example

THE REASONS I CHOOSE TO BUY AN IPHONE RATHER THAN OTHER BRANDS SUCH AS BLACKBERRY. Introduction The mobile phone industry is experiencing great changes in the design of mobile phones where currently we are in the age of the smart phones. The age of smart phones has been made possible and exciting by the advances in information technology where with a mobile phone you can do almost anything: from communicating with friends to ecommerce as well as working online. For example, with an iPhone it is easy for one to order a pizza and some drinks from a restaurant. As for me, I am an iPhone addict and find Blackberry quite boring and dull and only suitable for the office. My iPhone has become a part of me and without it, things cannot be normal for me. I remember this one time when I forgot my phone at home; how difficult it was for me to run my errands. The day was very slow because I did not have my music and could not chat with friends. See! This is a classic example of how we have become slaves of technology. Without mobile phones, people feel that almost everything will be at standstill. However, as for me, it is not only the issue of not having a mobile phone that bothers me, but what I would do without my smart phone. I purchased my iPhone last year and since then it has been my personal assistant that without I will practically be unproductive. For a youngster like me, I have to stay in touch with my friends especially those back at home as well as my parents. This makes it easy for me to cope with the fact that I am far from home. My family and friends keep me updated on what is happening back home and through the videos and photos that I receive regularly, I feel like we are physically close. I do also send them photos and videos from school as well as from the places that I regularly visit. In short, thanks to my iPhone that I get close to my friends and family. My perception that an iPhone is far much better than a Blackberry or an Android has been influenced by external factors such as influence from friends and the massive advertisement campaigns that have been running everywhere, both online and offline. This backs up psychologists view that self-perception is influenced by both personal as well as external attributes (Bem 1972). However, social scientists believe that both self and social perception affect a person’s attitudes and behaviour in general (Lieberman and Pfeifer n.d). Further, studies show that one’s development and behaviour is shaped by the environment they live in (Lieberman and Pfeifer n.d). From these theories, I understand that my behaviour of preferring an iPhone to a Blackberry has been influenced by my environment, which in this case is a university setting where most of the people are young. This young population prefers new and exciting technologies such as the touch screen of the iPhone. Conversely, may be I would be in possession of a Blackberry if I were part of the corporate world where most people prefer the Blackberry. sosource Source Reasons why I use an iPhone as opposed to other smart phones Most people usually argue that all smart phones are the same with only small difference in shape and colour as well as inbuilt features. I tend to disagree with this opinion because I believe that an iPhone is the best of all smart phones. Evidently, since 2008, the iPhone has been the most popular smart phone being sold in over 70 countries and dealers are facing shortage due to increased demand for the phone (Mobilekrishna 2009). Firstly, I love the ‘touch of a finger’ operation style of an iPhone, which is fast and easy to operate. This feature is quite exciting for me and I find it easy to use, as I only need to just touch with my finger in order to execute my actions. Secondly, an iPhone can simultaneously call and receive data. For example, I usually receive some of my E-mails while at the same time I am on a phone call. In addition to this, the GPS navigation and Wi-Fi service makes the iPhone my phone of choice. It is this ability of the iPhone to perform two actions at a time that attracted me to purchase it. Apart from photography, I love music and chatting online with friends and family. Thanks to iPhone, that these personal interests have been kept alive since it has the best multimedia applications. Its high screen resolution makes it easier to read information on websites since its crisper as compared to using a Blackberry whose lower screen resolution makes it harder to read information from websites and makes images to look faded. Playing of music and videos in an iPhone is quite an experience since the processor is fast and ranges from 800MHz-1GHz as compared to that of Blackberry that has 624MHz (Thompson and Cocks 2010). In fact, my passion for photography grew when I realized that I did not have to carry a separate camera in my pocket; all I need to do is to take photos with my iPhone and share them online with my friends and family. The ‘easy to view’ mode of viewing emails and messages where threads and conversations shared between individuals are grouped together so as to allow easy reading of the message contents is another feature that attracted me to buy an iPhone. This feature allows me to quickly access messages and reduces the frustration of searching for a message that was sent in the past. Conversely, a Blackberry only allows one to view messages chronologically as received. Moreover, an iPhone has a large number of downloadable applications (apps). An iPhone offers over 85,000 downloadable apps as compared to Blackberry’s 3,000 (Mobilekrishna 2009). I must confess that this is another feature that pulled towards choosing an iPhone over other smart phones. When I am bored, I play exciting iPhone games such as Tilt Monster, Tweet jump and Stockfish Chess. Through the application ‘Travel Advice UK’ I get some travelling tips since am usually interested in travelling and sightseeing. The most exciting fact is these apps are downloaded free of charge. Most people can not comprehend the fact that one can order a pizza, beer or a cup of coffee online from the mobile phone. Well, it is time that people become aware that through iPhone apps that are downloaded free of charge, one can order foods and beverages from restaurants. My friends and I prefer ordering pizzas online especially after a long day of lecturers where we are too tired to go out to the nearest pizza place. Additionally, research has shown that the iPhone has brought a revolution in ecommerce since through its free downloadable apps most people are turning into online purchasing of goods (Mobilekrishna 2009). When purchasing a phone, one thing I look at is the memory capacity and I must say that I was really attracted by the iPhone’s large internal memory that ranges from 8 GB to 32GB. This means that I do not need an external memory card, which in most cases is easily damaged, something that I have experienced in the past. Now that I have my iPhone, the worry of damage or loss of external is all gone since I store all my information in the phone memory. Another reason as to why I prefer an iPhone is due to its physical design, which is quite attractive. As a young person, I prefer mobile phones that are small and slim with an attractive colour. iPhones satisfy this want since they have an attractive design and are made of a glass-like material that is shiny unlike Blackberries that I find too big and dull. Statistics show that 21 percent of iPhone users confess that they like the physical design of the phone (Mobilekrishna 2009). A good phone has among other qualities a good battery function. This seems to be the case for the iPhone whose battery life is quite impressive. Despite running massive tasks like emailing and web browsing, the power utilization of an iPhone is quite economical. According to Mobilekrrishna (2009), 11 percent of iPhone users attest to the fact that this phone has a good battery function. Moreover, I was attracted to buying an iPhone after doing an extensive research on its hardware capabilities where I found out that it is not easy for iPhone to encounter hardware problems. Like I said earlier, I am addicted to my phone and therefore any hardware malfunction is really frustrating for me. However, after purchasing my iPhone my worries about hardware malfunctions were cleared and I can stay at ease knowing that my ‘personal assistant’ will not disappoint me. To prove its efficiency, Sands and Tseng (2008) carried out a study that showed that iPhones are not plagued by hardware problems as earlier suggested by previous studies. Conclusion The mobile technology industry has seen a great revolution especially after the introduction of the smart phones that execute almost similar functions as those of personal computers. Smart phones can be used to browse the internet, receive and send emails as well as perform other functions such as sharing of videos and music among others. There are several brands of smart phones but much competition has been experienced between Apple’s iPhone and Blackberry brands, which are the most dominant in the smart phone industry due to their unique features. However, these two brands have similar applications and features there are big differences that make them attractive to their various customers. As an iPhone customer, I was attracted by several unique features of this phone that give me satisfaction that I cannot get from using other smart phones. Firstly is the easy operation mode of the phone with a touch screen. It is fun and exciting for me to operate my phone simply by touching with a finger. Secondly, I like the wide range of free applications and especially the games that I can run in my phone. Thirdly, I ma also intrigued by the ability of the phone to simultaneously perform call and data service; I can receive an email while on a phone call. In addition, the phone has a good battery function and an attractive physical design. Furthermore, the internal phone memory capacity is big and hence I do not require an external memory slot. It also has good screen resolution that produces good image quality and enables a clear view of web texts. Finally, an iPhone does not have hardware problems that are characteristic of other phones. References A J. Gold Assosiates. 2009. 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