Andrew Chen

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Why the iPod Touch is more strategic than the iPhone for Apple

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Found this link and wanted to share it – thought it was an interesting argument. Quoted from Flurry, an iPhone analytics provider’s newsletter:

As all industry eyes look to the iPhone, the iPod Touch is quietly building a loyal base among the next generation of iPhone users, positioning Apple to corner the smartphone market not only today, but also tomorrow. In terms of Life Stage Marketing, the practice of appealing to different age-based segments, Apple is using the iPod Touch to build loyalty with pre-teens and teens, even before they have their own phones (think: McDonalds’ Happy Meal marketing strategy).

When today’s young iPod Touch users age by five years, they will already have iTunes accounts, saved personal contacts to their iPod Touch devices, purchased hundreds of apps and songs, and mastered the iPhone OS user interface. This translates into loyalty and switching costs, allowing Apple to seamlessly “graduate” young users from the iPod Touch to the iPhone.

An interesting thought, for sure.

Read more here.

Written by Andrew Chen

December 6th, 2009 at 7:20 pm

Posted in Uncategorized

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  • Daniel Bent
    I've actually been using the touch to browse the web at home, because it's just more fun to use then a full computer interface, of which I'm sick of since I work in a small business IT support. In fact the only detractor from the web browsing is the screen size, but they handle that elegantly with the zooming.
  • Cameron
    I'm not so sure this will work as brilliantly as you think. You'll recall they tried this with the Macintosh in the 1980's by focussing on getting it into schools so kids would learn to use the computer on a Mac creating the same loyalty and preference. Well, we all know what happened with Microsoft Windows after that (love it or hate it). So while it's possible this is their strategy and it could work, it's not exactly fool proof and they know that better than anyone.
  • Facebook User
    You forgot to mention how Wi-Fi Direct (recently blessed by the WiFi Alliance) will affect the iPod Touch. Since these devices do not have a cellular connection and rely on WiFi alone, it is perceived to be somehow "less" than the iPhone. Yet, I traveled to Bali on holiday and took only my iPod Touch. I was able to find free WiFi almost everywhere and do Skype calls. With Wi-Fi Direct in the iPod Touch, people can simply directly connect (without having to go through a WiFi access point) to one another and communicate or . . . play games!
  • David
    Here in europe most kids of age ten have their own mobile phones it seems. Is USA that far behind still?
  • Facebook User
    Well, when you travel you don't want to incur roaming charges so having a cell phone does not help. Having an iPod Touch with Skype saves a lot of money. You also don't understand how awful AT&T's network is. iPhone users complain endlessly about the dropped calls, the lack of coverage (even in San Francisco). It's not like Europe at all where you get a good cellular connection even in the hills of the Cabo de Gata-Nijar national park in Spain (quite remote) or in the basement of a stone castle.
  • Interesting... however, I think the iPhone/iPod Touch needs more openness if Apple really wants it to succeed. Very few people I know have non-jailbroken devices, because they like to use whatever they want.
  • You hang out with nerds :-)
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