An annual study conducted by Strategy Analytics has found that customer loyalty to technology superpower Apple has been found lacking, with the research highlighting a definite drop in the percentage of consumers likely to opt for a new model of the iPhone in the future.

Out of all iPhone users surveyed, 88% said they would likely opt for another Apple smartphone in the future, down from a frightening 93% last year. Western Europe's iPhone owners are purportedly only 75% loyal to Apple, a quite significant decrease from this point last year when 88% said they would choose the next-generation iPhone as their next phone. Slim margins, or a fraction of the bigger picture?

Because yes, we're talking incremental percentage decreases from previous years. But still, this year more than any other seems to be one in which opinion on the Big Apple seems to be taking a turn for the worse. Refreshes of its major product lines might still get a lot of the glitz familiar to fans of the tech giant, but for many, that excitement is for nought. Innovation, they say, is missing in Steve Jobs' absence.

A lot of the so-called disinterest founded in the study, then, is likely to be put down to the negative press the company has received recently on the back of Samsung-gate and the somewhat muted reception of the iPhone 5, with many in the tech world left unhappy with the lack of innovation compared to the iPhone 4S. And while the announcement and subsequent launches for the iPad 4 and iPad Mini have followed, there's more than a nagging feeling that we're beginning to get a little tired of often pointless hardware updates. Perhaps we're all wondering whether Apple is spending more time in the courtroom than in R&D?

Harvey McDaniel