The iPhone didn’t prove the survey wrong. As author Derek Thompson explains, the survey accurately measured the participants’ “indifference to a product they had never seen and did not understand.” In other words, the survey had failed to follow the test-as-you-fly rule. Hypothetically thinking about the iPhone was nothing like seeing it in person. Once consumers saw the iPhone in an Apple Store—once they stepped into the brand and held the revolutionary new device in their hands—they couldn’t let it go. Their indifference quickly morphed into desire.
