(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 😔
My kids both have android phones (cheap ones) and if they demanded iPhones I’d tell them to gtfo. But my kids aren’t brats and are content with their phones they have - cheap Samsungs - that are capable of running all the crap they’re into - Tiktok, Snapchat, Whatsapp etc. Why would they even need anything more powerful?
Maybe there are private schools where phone snobbery is a thing and rich parents indulge their brats every desire. Maybe in that environment an iPhone holds an allure that an Android cannot match. But there are plenty of weird premium Android phones - flip phones, folding phones etc. so maybe that is nonsense too. If I were a spoiled brat with rich parents I might be demanding mommy & daddy buy me a Z Fold to show off. If my parents were super rich I might be demanding they get me a designer phone like a Vertu.
Funny thing id imagine those cheap Samsungs are more powerful than the expensive iPhones as you can just inherently do more and you by default have a better charging port it’s a idk if I’d call it a miracle miracle that apple isn’t considered a scam
I’ve certainly run emulators, p2p software and other things on my android that Apple would never allow in their store but Google does, plus of course easy sideloading. I don’t know if that would matter to kids but honestly when I run an iPhone or an Android phone these days the functionality is so similar that the choice just boils down to price and variety - Android phones sell at lots of price points and in a variety of form factors and iPhones don’t. That means when I’m buying a kid a phone I can spend €100 on a PAYG device with a 6" screen that runs all their apps rather than the very cheapest iPhone for €549. Same functionality for less that 1/5th the price. I’m sure some kids don’t see it in those terms but I do and I imagine most parents do.