iPhone 3G to lure pre-payers to contracts - survey

Only 750... Population of the UK is ???

750 is hardley a representitive sample of the uk... what is the population 50 million ? lies damn lies and statistics...

PS My wife has a statistics degree... what does that tell you...

stats lies and more stats

750 people extrapolated to represent a population of 60 million even if it is 'weighted' can hardly be accurate.

1 in 5 people ??? I can find at least 10 people around me who don't even know there is another version of the iphone, or what the first one was all about.. most think it was some kind of iPod.

This lack of basic scientific method is what allows the government to day most poeple are in favour of ID cards.

Umm, right

"O2 and Apple have addressed most of the barriers which held back mass-market take-up of the original iPhone, so we expect the iPhone 3G to sell well," said GfK director Anders Nielsen.

Yes, except supply it would seem. Which is rather critical.

What's wrong with stats?

@ Mike and Jeremy

GfK NOP is a top 5 global market research company. I'm sure they've been in the business long enough to have reliable data weighting models for the UK. You must have skipped your statistics classes, or maybe its just not your forte. Sample size 1000 is typical for most market research projects, and for populations the size of the UK you're looking at around 3% margin of error only, which is acceptable in cases like this.

The British Polling council summarise it pretty well on their website :

"How can you possibly tell what millions of people think by asking just 1,000 or 2,000 respondents?

In much the same way that a chef can judge a large vat of soup by tasting just one spoonful. Providing that the soup has been well stirred, so that the spoonful is properly "representative", one spoonful is sufficient. Polls operate on the same principle: achieving representative samples is broadly akin to stirring the soup. A non-scientific survey is like an unstirred vat of soup. A chef could drink a large amount from the top of the vat, and still obtain a misleading view if some of the ingredients have sunk to the bottom. Just as the trick in checking soup is to stir well, rather than to drink lots, so the essence of a scientific poll is to secure a representative sample, rather than a vast one "

A title is required.

"what is the population 50 million ?"

More like 64 million.

Anyway, I investigated the PAYG iPhone deal when it was announced and any ideas regarding getting one were taken out behind the bins and shot when I found out the cost. And this is before taking into account the O2 angle (bunch of charlatans)

Maybe I should book myself a long weekend in Ghent or Bruges and take advantage of the apparently-sane Belgian legal system which prevents vendor locking :-) On the other hand, do I want an iPhone that badly? Nah.

Statistics

Based on my survey (sample of 1 = Mike Sullivan) I can now reveal that 100% of men have a wife with a statistics degree.

Which is about as useful\accurate as this reprint of marketing propoganda is.

<-- get's 66% of coat and leaves

Still @ Jeremy

Still amused by the sheer arrogance of your clueless statement "This lack of basic scientific method ...."

Classic, what's next.....

You know what...

Sometimes, just sometimes, it would be nice if, on receipt of these press releases filled with meaningless guff statistics, El Reg would just press the Delete button rather than feeling the urge to stick it up here as a news story.

I was in the market for a PAYG iPhone.....

...but now I cant be arsed.

I'm sure O2 don't need a marketing company to tell them this (and I bet I'm fairly representative of a fair few people).

This user wont be getting an iPhone from them until somebody pulls their head out of their arse and offers realistic pricing and time frames for the PAYG iPhone.

If I get bored (and the chances are I will) I'll be perusing ebay for a phone from countries without rip off pricing models.

Not for me

I'm on Pay As You Go, and I use about £8 a month. I'm usually near a landline, at work or home, to make calls, so it's mostly texts.

I'd never use 750 minutes a month or 125 texts on contract. If it was £99 for a phone and £10 a month for 120 minutes / 50 texts it would be great.

That's why I bought an iPod Touch. The iPhone but without the phone bit!

Where's the Linux angle on this?

Usually we should have two or three freetards chipping in and being totally OT and irrelevant by now....?

re: I was in the market for a PAYG iPhone.....

Unfortunately, due to the very low level of stock that Apple is supplying O2, O2 had to postpone plans for PAYG.

The company makes far more profit on contracts and with the pitifully small stock (believe me the 'few dozen units per store' that O2 claims is balderdash – it’s a lot worse than that), it doesn’t make financial sense for it to offer PAYG when so many (more profitable) customers want iPhones.

If Apple had supplied O2 and CW with the amount of units each company wanted, PAYG would be on offer – you’re blaming the wrong company.

Sucks for would-be PAYG customers – but it’s amazed me how many disgruntled would-be PAYG owners on forums, are acting like they’re premier customers and that their £10 per month could make or break O2.

Part of the 84% that doesn't want one...

I'm on PAYG, with O2. I top up (usually) £30 a month, from which I have up to £10 change at the end of the month. I regularly use 600+ mins, and in the region of 800-1k SMS (I send long text messages that count as 2+ each. I refuse to use "gr8 m8 cu l8r" etc as these are abominations in the eyes of Me.)

So, as a reasonable user that O2 make profit from, I'm probably the type they would like to switch to contract. But no.

* the Shininess Factor is not something I care about. Currently using a Nokia 6111 that's about 2 years old.

* don't care about the free internets, I stare at screens enough through the day without doing the same whilst on the move.

* it would work out costing me more. £35/month base, plus the additional for the volume of texts I send over 125 - at least £6 - so that's a tenner a month more than I spend at present.

* 18-month lock-in to a contract? I think not.

I think "84% of PAYG Users Don't Want An iPhone on O2 Contract" would have made a better headline...!

I thought competition was supposed to work in our favor...

Come on, Microsoft. Where's Aero Mobile? Windows CE 5 is proven and more than capable. Just give us a graphics accelerated thumb friendly front end and a web browser that shames Safari already.

I swear, I miss when companies went overkill to outdo their competition. I'm just so sick of this "the least we can do" approach that most are taking now (see Nintendo and their slightly-faster-Gamecube-with-accelerometers).

Mine's the depressed looking one saddened by the lack of willingness to compete.

@Muzchap - that made me laugh!!

Muzchap, you need to CALM DOWN a bit, fella... and while you're there, how about we start dealing in some real evidence here rather than your own bizarre rhetoric....

Fact: GfK NOP did this study off their own backs (for PR purposes you might say). The results would not have been published by the agency if they had done the research on behalf of either O2 or Apple as it wouldn't be GfK's intellectual property. And before you ask, I work in O2's marketing department, so I'm pretty confident in this statement.

Fact: 750 is a perfectly respectable sample size, regardless of the entire population 'universe'. Your own logic on this might sound right to you, but it's cobblers. There comes a point where surveying more and more people has no discernable impact on the outcome. You'd need to understand stats to appreciate what I'm talking about here. A sample of 750 out of 64 million is infinitely more reliable than a sample of 30 out of 100.

Fact: The soup analogy is absolutely spot on. You my friend are not.

Fact: No corporate 'big cheese' as you put it would stay in his/her job long if (s)he just employed agencies to tell him/her what he wants to hear. The research agency wouldn't last long either, nor would they put their name to research that was fudged to tell the right story.

Market research / polling is a totally respectable industry - it's the (ab)users of the data that give it a bad rep.