(unpaywalled version on archive.today: https://archive.ph/03cwZ)
Interesting figure that comes out of the article: 87% of US teens prefer iPhones. Also the explanations given aren’t quite surprising, I guess it’s mostly because of iMessage. Teens will feel like outcasts if they get an Android phone while their friends still use iMessage because of the green bubbles.
It’s actually hilarious how we allowed consumerism to take us this far and that we have now peer pressure over smartphones.
“You’re telling me in 2023, you still have a ’Droid? […] You gotta be at least 50 years old.”
ouch 😔
another thing with the iPhone/Apple ecosystem is everyone having roughly the same experience for a given generation… the android platform is a wild west of varying degrees of hardware performance and capabilities. take a cheap ass carrier branded phone vs. an S23 ultra… both are running the same underlying android OS, but the carrier phone is going to be a barebones platform barely capable of running anything other than the OS… and then you factor in how well the manufacturer integrated their crapware on top of android, people willingly pay the Apple tax for a reason. personally, i’d never give up my s23u for an iPhone, but i’m also not Apple’s target demographic.
I think that is mostly a US thing, as I see way more Androids in Europe than iPhones. But I could be wrong
Yep. Primary chat protocol is still SMS. The general population hasn’t latched on to WhatsApp or others like many countries have.
I really struggle with switching stuff to WhatsApp just because it’s Facebook. But yeah, every time I go to another country I end up having to download it for something.
We like to think that but if you want to reach people who are on Whatsapp you’re gonna have to install Whatsapp. And the other way around, if people have a group for whatever (plan a group outing, kids’ soccer team, tenants’ association etc.) on Whatsapp and one person is not on Whatsapp, tough luck buddy, they get left out.
Apple framed it as an “iPhone vs Android” issue for their own reasons but the larger issue (social network peer pressure) is very much a thing in Europe too.
And it’s so outdated too. The iPhone was a “cool” status symbol in like 2010 and 2014. Not so much when everyone has them.
I thought that time period was more a Blackberry thing, and to a lesser extent the Sony Xperia and Galaxy series was taking off
Nah, since 2007 when the iPhone came out everyone had to have one. Then the 2nd model had GPS and apps in 2008 and blew the doors wide open. By 2010 HTC was releasing phones like the incredible and the “droid” moniker was in full swing - with Apple consistently mopping the floor.
I’d say iPhone fervor kind of died down around 2010 actually.
Definitely not in Germany, I think. People here are obsessed with apple. But im not native German, so maybe im wrong.
Idk, I see plenty of both, and most people I know are capable of having objective discussions about it.
It seems we’ve come full circle. I remember early adverts for Android phones showing a line outside an Apple store waiting for the latest iPhone. An older couple ask the youngsters in front of them if they’re excited and they reply “oh no, it’s not for us … it’s for our parents. We use Android”.
My little brother has an Android (like the rest of my family) and he hates it. For the longest time he has been begging for an iPhone.
Mostly because it’s a cheap phone, but I also think it’s because Android is percieved as “uncool” by his peers.
Sometimes his old phone would glitch out occasionally and he’d say stuff like “This wouldn’t have happened if I had an iPhone!”
You can get a cheap android (but don’t have to). You can’t get a cheap iPhone.
And are you really going to get your 12 year old the latest flagship android when there are cheaper options?
If every android kid got the latest Pixel, I bet they wouldn’t be seen as “the cheap phone”.
Plus Apple’s been pushing nearly every anticompeitive angle they can. The iMessage thing is 100% intentional. It’s not that the android phones aren’t capable of working with iMessage. It’s that Apple wants to make your experience worse when something happens that doesn’t involve giving them money. Because they want you to push your friends into an iPhone, and people are dumb enough to fall for it.
Which Android does he have? I do see this happen a bunch, a kid will have a bottom of the barrel cheap Android phone (you don’t have cheap options of iphones) and hate Android, not the fact that it’s a budget $100 phone. Get him a note 23 ultra and he won’t have those issues. Then he can show off the spen features iphones will never have
My little brother didn’t like android because it was too complicated. I think some people just aren’t interested in having to go figure android out is all. I like the extra options but not everyone wants that.
My entire life I’ve been reading news that only iPhones are cool, yet my social circles don’t care and have never said anything like this. I feel like this is a ‘Hello fellow kids’ type of investigative journalism, that is a secret apple ad.
I have, in my dating life, gotten lightening charging cables to have around the house.
It’s never fun to have someone ask you for a charger, you saying “Sure, use the fast charger right there”, and not have the lightening cable for their phone. But it’s also a catch-22, if you DO have the cable they need then its “Why do you have this cable, you don’t have a iphone”.
“Why do you have this cable, you don’t have a iphone”
It’s like having some spare toothbrushes and women’s hygiene stuff just in case someone stays over. You’ll score points for being thoughtful, but on the other hand they’ll be like: waaait a minute …
Top iphone tip, heh -
When guests leave little reminders around the house, keep them in labeled zip loc bags, not in a general lost and found bin.
Far less awkward when they ask where their stuff is and you pull out a huge box of jewelry and clothing - “Can you describe your earrings for me?” - never goes down well.
!android@lemmy.world, now also the best place for dating tips.
Personally, I would appreciate the thoughtfulness of it.
I’m also convinced these are really just paid for by Apple ads. I’ve never seen anyone care about such a thing.
Eh, that was my highschool experience at least. It was never super serious or anything, like it’s not like I was being bullied lol, but I was regularly teased about it in my friend group.
When I was in highschool, the phone was attached to the wall in the kitchen. Simpler times.
How often are you around teens though? My dad is a high school teacher and his students are always surprised and ask him why he has an Android and not an iPhone.
I’ve heard this is an American thing. I’m Canadian, and my kids are teenagers and only one friend they have has an iPhone, the rest are on Android (as are all of my friends now, the last one went over to Android last year)
Nah. That’s North America. iPhones in North America have become a status symbol, you have to be available on iMessage, otherwise they’ll contact you by SMS. I know a lot of people in Canada who have no other messaging app (WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc.). They only communicate via iMessage.
Unless you care about privacy (signal), why even have a second messaging app? I have the phone to make calls and send texts. The default shit works well on iphone and android.
I’ve never run into that, but I feel like it’s a good pivotable moment:
"Yeah Bob, this closed source walled garden isn’t playing nice with the group chat… good point, let’s move to Signal where everyone can have a good experience. "
Going from one app (iMessage) to two isn’t an unambiguous win though. All the iPhone users’ experience got worse.
To be clear, this is such minor shit that the real answer is, “ok, I guess we’ll live with it because that’s how we communicate with our friends now”, but it is certainly nicer for them if everyone is on an iPhone and they don’t have to solve that problem.
I’m 36, have had windows mobile pocket PCs thru HTCs and eventually Samsung Galaxies, and have absolutely been shamed several times by different friend groups over the last decade plus lfor not having iMessage. It def ramped up in the later 2010s
Who the fuck calls Android devices “'Droids” unironically? This couldn’t have been real teenagers. Not ones from the past decade at the very least.
What you are referring to as droids is in fact Android/Linux, or as I’ve recently started calling it, Android+Linux.
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