Apple’s new iOS 7 platform may have garnered a few complaints in the design department, especially as long-time users are still adjusting to Jony Ive’s design overhaul – but according to the latest data from Pfeiffer Consulting, iOS 7 dominates the competition in an even more critical area: The user experience.
The report compares iOS 7 to its major competition: Android, Windows Phone, and Blackberry. Notably, the detailed analysis does a great job of eliminating “fan bias” by ditching the customary user surveys in favor of a deep look into difficulty of use, learning curve, efficiency, and so forth – the aspects which, according to the report, “have a direct impact on the day-to-day user experience of an average, non-technical user.”
From The Pfeiffer Report:
This research project compares the five major mobile operating systems in use today … and rates them in terms of user experience. […] The benchmarks are based on the Pfeiffer Consulting Methodology for User Experience Quantification. You can find detailed information on the subject by following this link.
Key Results
The combined results of the four different benchmarks and evaluations give iOS 7 a clear advantage in terms of of overall user experience, taking into account the context defined for these benchmarks: day-to-day user experience of an average, non-technical user. For details and methodology please refer to the complete report.
Notably, the report doesn’t look at “technical” details such as features and benchmarks, which have little effect on the overall user experience: “we only look at aspects that have a direct impact on the day-to-day user experience of an average, non-technical user.”
It’s also worth noting that, while iOS absolutely dominated Windows Phone and BlackBerry, it overtook Android by a significantly slighter margin. Also interesting is that the study ranked BlackBerry 10 significantly higher than Windows Phone 8, which (unsurprisingly, in my opinion) came in dead last. The fact that iOS 7 also exceeded the previous version of iOS is great news for the long-term success of the update.
For more information, including detailed accounts of how the conclusions were reached, check out the full report over at Pfeiffer Consulting.
