As a coda to Wednesday’s story about the Apple “story line,” consider these headlines, drawn from Techmeme’s New Year’s Day front page:
- Samsung topped Apple in 2014 to become America’s most beloved cell phone brand — BGR’s Zach Epstein
- Samsung leaps ahead of Apple in customer satisfaction in the US — GSMArena Blog’s Prasad
- Here’s Proof That Samsung Owners Are Happier With Their Phones Than iPhone Owners — Business Insider’s Julie Bort
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I call BS on Epstein, Prasad, Bort and every other tech journalist who grabbed this dubious data point and ran with it.
Only 9to5Mac’s Jordan Kahn [UPDATE: and the Macalope] seem to have noticed that the same story, based on a May 2014 press release, ran in BusinessKorea last spring under the rubric “iPhone Humiliation.” Or that the only source for this runaway meme is an American Customer Satisfaction Index survey conducted in early 2014, between Jan. 13 and Mar. 11.
A lot has changed since March 11, 2014. For one thing, Samsung’s profits tanked as sales of the Galaxy S5 fell flat. Apple, meanwhile, hit new highs after the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus debuted to long lines and record sales.
Still.
I know people tend to fall in love with whatever’s in their pocket, but do you really think that Samsung’s customer satisfaction numbers were ever — even in the dark days of early 2014 — better than Apple’s?
As one of my favorite Apple commentators, writing on a private investor bulletin board, put it:
There is absolutely no way no how that Samsung, with zero effective customer service, could beat AAPL unless the surveyor climbed on the scale and jumped up and down. The fact that a 7 month old story is getting play all over the net today as ‘news’ shows what a cesspool we’re forced to wade around in.”
UPDATE: “A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.” — Charles Haddon Spurgeon
- France: Samsung prend la première place à Apple en terme de satisfaction client!
- Germany: Samsung überholt Apple bei Smartphone-Kundenzufriedenheit
- Netherlands: Samsung-telefoons vallen beter in de smaak dan iPhones
- Poland: Samsung pobił Apple. Poszło o satysfakcję klientów
- Vietnam: Người dùng Samsung hài lòng với smartphone của mình hơn người dùng Apple
- Indonesia: Samsung Kalahkan Apple Soal Kepuasan Pelanggan
- Russia: Рейтинг пользовательской удовлетворённости смартфонами за 2014 год
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Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple (AAPL) coverage at fortune.com/ped or subscribe via his RSS feed.
