Here’s hoping that Steve Jobs has room in his bookcase for another award, because J.D. Power and Associates has just crowned the iPhone winner of its 2010 smartphone customer satisfaction survey.
Apple came first in every one of the survey’s categories, beating out competitors like HTC, Nokia, RIM, Palm, and Samsung. The only exception was the “battery function” category (which, we assume, refers either to battery life or to the availability of a user-replaceable battery), in which the iPhone was topped by several others.
Apple’s dominance in the survey is almost total: in four categories out of five, respondents rated the iPhone as being “among the best,” whereas every one of its competitors got, at best, an “average” mark—and, more often, a “below-average” rating. In fact, Apple scored an average of 810 points out of 1000—essentially the same as in last year’s survey—well ahead of RIM, which sits in second place with 741 points.
The survey results also contain a number of interesting tidbits about what makes smartphone customers tick; in particular, users of devices that sport a touchscreen are, on average, more satisfied than their key-tapping counterparts. This is a clear nod to the trend set by the iPhone of foregoing traditional input methods in favour of on-screen keyboards that allow for bigger screens and simpler operation.
At the same time, the survey indicates that more and more customers consider mobile applications as an important feature of their phone—which should come as welcome news to Apple, given the rich software ecosystem that calls the App Store home.
32GB iPhone 3GS