Apple tops smartphone competitors in customer satisfaction

Apple continues to dominate in the smartphone market, especially thanks to customer satisfaction according to a new report.

Apple has yet another piece of news to be happy about. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company has once again garnered the top spot among smartphone manufacturers in when it comes to customer satisfaction, according to the latest survey from J.D. Power and Associates.

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This is Apple’s sixth consecutive win in the J.D. Power and Associates survey.

The 2011 U.S. Wireless Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study—Volume 2 comprises responses from 6,898 smartphone owners fielded between January and June 2011.

Key factors for measuring smartphone satisfaction were performance, ease of operation, features and physical design.

Based on a 1,000-point scale, Apple scored 838, while HTC came in a close second with a score of 801. The divide was even closer between Samsung and Motorola, which scored 777 and 775 respectively.

However, Samsung still did quite well for itself in the feature phone category by claiming the top spot with a score of 718. LG, Sanyo, and Sony Ericsson all came in behind by incredibly close numbers at 717, 716 and 709 respectively.

Strikingly, the survey found that customers who own 4G-capable devices are happy with them for the most part. Maybe the rapid speed and performance really does outweigh poor battery life concerns?

That would appear to be the case as satisfaction among customers using 4G-capable phones averaged 819, compared with 786 among customers using 3G phones.

Another survey from London-based brand valuation consultancy firm Brand Finance named Apple as the second most valuable brand on the planet after its value rose by 33 percent — overtaking Microsoft for the first time.

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Cisco, Plantronics team on SMB communications bundle

First joint solution in a new program from Plantronics pairs a Cisco IP phone with a unified communications-capable headset.

Plantronics is trying to build up its credentials with SMB customers through a series of technology alliances. One of the relationships within that program, an alliance with networking and unified communications company Cisco, has resulted in a joint solution from the two companies.

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The bundled solution includes a Cisco SPA525G2 five-line IP phone with a Plantronics Voyager PRO UC Bluetooth headset. The headset can be used with IP softphone applications and it supports multidevice connectivity. What that means is this: if you are on your mobile phone, you arrive at your office and you want to switch the call over to the “office” phone, you should be able to do that. Alternatively, you should be able to wear a single headset that lets you take incoming calls from either a mobile phone, a computer or an IP phone that supports Bluetooth connections. That’s useful for those trying to pare down the gadgets in their life.

The bundle is so new that I wasn’t able to find pricing on it yet. However, the suggested pricing for the headset alone is just under $200 and this phone lists for about $550 on the CDW online site.

Based on my past experience with “bundled” solutions that have a specific market focus — people tend to feel boxed in by them — I need some proof that smaller companies really want this approach. But I appreciate the fact that Cisco is realizing that hands-free talking will be an important component of unified communications and collaboration solutions.

Google+ Tips: 4 Tools to Boost Your Social Networking Experience

Getting the hang of Google+ and looking for more? Check out these four Google+ tools that let you easily upload photos in bulk, find new people to follow, translate posts and more.

CIO — While rumors continue to swirl about when the Google+ API will be released to developers, that's not stopping some people from getting in on the Google+ action.

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Whether you're just starting out on Google+ or consider yourself an advanced user, more and more Google+ enhancements and add-ons are popping up across the Web.

Here's a look at four new ones that do everything from streamlining bulk photo-uploading to helping you increase your network reach.

1. Google+ Photo Importer for iPhone
If you store your photos on multiple sites such as Facebook, Flickr, Instagram or Photobucket, there's a new download available in the Apple App Store that lets you upload 100 photos in less than a minute to your Google+ account. This tool is especially handy if you plan on shifting your social networking focus to Google+.

The Google Plus Photo Importer by Dropico costs 99 cents, and while uploads I tested generally took longer than the advertised 60 seconds, it was still impressively fast.

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2. Find People on Google+
Looking for more connections on Google+? While its own search feature only lets you find people by name, you can dig a bit deeper to find groups of people with certain characteristics at FindPeopleOnPlus.

Here, you can not only search for people by name, but you can also search by profession, location, relationship status, gender, education, employer, occupation and more, which makes growing your network and tailoring it to your needs a lot easier.

You can also choose to add yourself to its directory. This will keep your FindPeopleOnPlus profile updated and in-synch with your Google+ profile.

3. PlusClout
Akin to Klout.com, a site that measures your social media influence, PlusClout measures the influence a user has on Google+ and rates it from 0 to 100.

When you visit the site, PlusClout will ask you to insert your Google+ ID in order to generate your score. Your ID is the string of numbers that appear in the URL of your profile page.

PlusClout says that while its formula is still evolving, right now it calculates your number based on 15 million public Google+ profiles and items shared, such as posts, comments, +1s, the number of followers you have and the frequency and volume of information sharing.

You can also browse people with the highest PlusClout in categories such as bloggers, designers, entrepreneurs and the most-followed users on Google+. Click on any of these names and you will see their current PlusClout score, a graph of their score over the last five days, and websites associated with that person.
4. Google Translate for Google+

If you want to connect with people from around the world but find that language is a barrier, this is a must-download Google Chrome extension.

Google Translate for Google+ is a powerful tool that inserts a button into your Google+ streams, letting you quickly interpret a chunk of foreign text.