Apple: Chapt. 6 Consumer Decision Making

For the highly anticipated iPhone 5, there has been a lot of disappointed consumers to say the least. That is actually an understatement. Apple has reported lackluster sales in the U.S. One reason may due to the many minor updates in features, the addition of a half-inch does nothing for Apple's faithful consumers. Also, Apple did away with Google Maps and replaced it with a premature version of their own Apple Maps. With anything new of course it will have glitches. Consumers where not happy with that one bit. I used it to locate my office in the Financial District, and the software took me to somewhere in Upper Manhattan.

 

In order to even upgrade to the iPhone 5, existing will have to take a new data plan. No more "free-bees". Consumers would have to make the choice to either keep their current data plan which is fairly affordable or switch to the LTE network which all iPhone 5's run on. That will without a doubt influence the new customer's decision. Many people can not afford their phone bills now, the iPhone 5 will run them dry.

To sum it up though, some people do have the capital to purchase the new iPhone and some already have. Apple has already gained that loyalty. To maintain it though, they might have to give us consumers more bang for the buck.