Apple’s Steve Jobs famously didn’t like or use focus groups. He was quoted in a BusinessWeek interview saying, “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
But this is a new era at Apple and the Watch is Tim Cook’s baby. Despite all the reviews and extensive public discussion of the Watch, its features and shortcomings, the company is seeking more intimate feedback from owners.
Many new Apple Watch owners (I’m not among them) received an email this weekend asking them to fill out an extensive online survey, containing roughly 34 online screens of questions. Among them were the following:
Other questions included:
Where do you typically charge your Apple Watch?
Which of these built-in apps do you use?
Do you use third-party apps built for Apple Watch?
How often do you change watch faces and Complications?
What other smartwatch brands have you owned and used?
There were also questions specific to the individual watch purchased and about the buying experience overall.
From one point of view these and the other questions are just standard operating procedure for a company seeking user feedback on a new product. But there’s a way in which the survey is a cultural departure for Apple and suggests Cupertino is uncharacteristically uncertain about its user’s motivations, usage behavior and even the strongest aspects of the product’s appeal.
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