Say what you want, iPhones and Apple have been "fashionable" in a way that Android has not been.
Which is due in no small part to branding, all the way back to the iconic iPod dancing silhouette commercials. Apple portrays a brand image of authenticity, fashion, and self-expression. (Whether or not you think that's deserved, it's definitely the vibe.)
While Android branding is... well it barely exists. It's just kind of generic. It used to be a bunch of funny-looking cylindrical figurines juxtaposed with the names of candies... now I'm not sure it's anything at all?
I will never understand why Google has never come up with a viable marketing strategy for Android, to be fashionable in its own different way.
I agree, and I think there's another aspect too: the fragmentation of Android.
The "true Google" phones (Pixel) with their "true Android OS" are great. But there's so many other manufacturers, and so many other flavors of Android, that it can't help but feel like an ocean of knockoffs.
Imo the knockoffs from Samsung, oneplus, xiaomi etc are better than pixel phones. Latest model 7,has some serious hardware issues (falling volume control buttons, exploding camera lens cover, mediocre battery life) and its considerably less premium looking than the android competition. It has a clean android but that is not without problems e.g occasionally dialed numbers in dialer history appear as private numbers, an issue that existed in pixel 6 and still exists on 7. And finally its ironic that google offers updates for shorter than competition.
Branding definitely plays a big role. But I think it’s one part of many that makes Apple popular. Overall, Apple has great attention to detail. This shows up in the marketing, which you mentioned. But it also shows up other places. The iPod felt amazing. I used other MP3 players before and after the iPod, and nothing came close to how good it felt. The weight in your hand. The shape. The satisfying clicking sounds. And the same thing applies to three iPhone. Apple’s features have a level of polish not found on Android.
That's why the only Tech-Co. in the US for which I always thought it's possible to build a car would be Apple.
They give me the same vibes as all the German luxury OEMs I worked with - the 3 sound engineers per car just to dial in the sound of closing doors and stuff like that. Attention to detail - with better software in Apples case.
But I do want them to make the software in my car. Preferably so that the car is just a wireless dock for my iPhone. So every time I upgrade my phone, my car gets a hardware update too.
I don't know, I remember that robotic DROID noise from someones android ad. I think what hurts android with this fundamentally is that android is an os, not a product. Companies like samsung want to advertise their phone, not the os that also runs on their competitors phones and therefore isn't a differentiator.
>I will never understand why Google has never come up with a viable marketing strategy for Android, to be fashionable in its own different way.
Since Google traditionally never sold phones, the Android branding was left to OEMs like Samsung et al, who went with disjointed, masculine, and edgy themes.
Google finally decided to take the brand into their own hands by releasing Nexus, and now Pixel lines, with the "it's for everyone" approach to counter Apple's traditional "it's for the elite" brand. Goog is catching up to Apple, albeit slowly.
"Traditionally"? There was less than a two year period from Android's release to the first Nexus phone being released. They started selling their Nexus phones in January 2010, and the first release of Android was September 2008. It's been 13 years now since Google started selling phones and less than 15 since Android was actually available. It's not like Google started selling devices a decade after Android was out.
The nexus phone line were joint developments with OEMs. Pixel is the line that Google solely developed and marketed as its own as it pivoted to trying to influence the Android brand.
> with the "it's for everyone" approach to counter Apple's traditional "it's for the elite" brand
This is exactly why Apple succeeds with Gen Z. Gen Z doesn't want to be in the "everyone" box, but in the "elite" box. Gen Z is massively buying designer clothing and accessories. And Apple is the only "designer tech" on the market.
That’s because Apple markets it to sell hardware and spends tons of money to market everything around it. To these insanely costly devices, add to that their insanely costly accessories, if the device has a problem — add insanely costly services, not to mention the insanely costly warranty extensions.
Google and Android on the other hand.. you see the difference? Google invests in Android to sell ads. That’s literally it. Other OEMs also do all this to sell ads and get as much of private customer data as much possible along with selling devices.
These are two worlds.
As for being fashionable. These two OSs do not really complete with each other. This is a very comfortable duopoly for both the companies and the customer pays the price in one way or the other.
Hell even the people who buy Android don’t look at it from fashion point of view. Someone has to record calls, someone wants to do something else, someone wants it easily repairable, somnolent simply doesn’t want to sell one or two kidneys to buy an Apple device. Etc.
In the end - everything considered, when it’s about value for money — Apple devices just don’t stand a chance.
(And just in case you are planning to jump on “no, I think Apple prices are just a d they ‘just work’”. Trust me they are not and there is a whole rest of the world out there beyond the USoA borders).
It's because owning an android phone will never be fashionable because most don't really care about what's on the phone, they care about the phone itself. The question you should be asking, is why did google never have a viable branding strategy for their pixel phones.
The closest anyone has gotten to the iphone, in my opinion, was a period of time when samsung was competing with features and camera quality with their phones. It seems, though, that apple has completely caught up and the race for features doesn't seem to be as important as it was in the past. Now it's down to status, and you just can't compare with an iphone. Especially in the US when you get those green bubbles popping up in text messages, screaming that someone is not part of the club.
Nor does it help that one of the largest Android vendors (Samsung) is, at best, indifferent to the Android brand. They're much more intent on promoting their own brand (Galaxy), rather than the ecosystem as a whole.
It could be they didn't want to step on OEMs' toes, some of whom really try to establish their own brand/flavor. But either way, yeah, I'm not sure it worked out well
I use apple products despite their marketing, certainly not because of it. They have better products and support, and reasonable lower cost devices like se phones and Mac minis. Their appeal for some may be the marketing, but it’s certainly not limited to that.
Off-topic, but I'm genuinely curious. I see "orders of magnitude" misused all the time, and I never know what the person actually meant.
Two orders of magnitude means 100x more expensive, but obviously you didn't mean Android is $10 while Apple is $1000.
So as long as you're here... what did you mean by order of magnitude? Did you intend 2x so two orders of magnitude would be 4x? Or did two orders of magnitude just mean 2x? Or two orders of magnitude more means 3x then?
(I'm seriously wondering if "order of magnitude" is starting to change meaning for some people the way "decimate" did a long time ago, it originally meant to reduce by 10% but now it means to reduce drastically.)
iPhone is 10x the price of Android? Are you comparing the top of the line apple with the cheapest possible android? That’s not a fair comparison. Android has flagship phones too
I mean, you can get an Android phone for $40 new that will run Android Go, that's the point, it's ultra cheap and has all the same apps. I would not spend $400 on an Android phone, personally, let alone $1700, the price of a gaming laptop, for what? You don't even get the clout like iPhone users...
Pricing is an illusion, buying a galaxy S23 ultra costs as much as a top iPhone. The difference is that android phones cover a much larger price range similar to PC laptops.
Because with Android you pay with your privacy (to Google) whereas with Apple you pay more to pay off your privacy debt which also renders Apple iPhone toward a status symbol. Google Android is mobile touch UI computers ('smartphones') for the poor.
> As a result, Apple's ecosystem is shaping social decision-making, with particular emphasis on the importance of iMessage as a social signal, necessitated by inferior experiences messaging and using group chats via SMS.
This really hits the nail on the head and is the absolute key factor in the US. And it's not because of the "blue/green" bubble that the media often likes to play up. It's because if you're in a group chat, everything works great for everyone if all the participants are on iOS in iMessage. The minute you get an Android user (and I'm speaking as the Android user in this situation), it sucks for everyone, NOT just the Android user: photos and videos get degraded, messages randomly get dropped, emoji reactions don't work as well, etc. I'm well into middle age and have been told by friends "Just get an iPhone" when I join group chats on vacation.
iMessage really is the moat that is impossible to breach without government regulation. Folks in other countries don't notice it as much because they tend to use other platforms like WhatsApp or something else for group chats.
People can say what they want about facebook. WhatsApp as a messenger is just 10000% better than the stock SMS apps on iphone and android.
The number of annoying conversations I've had about converting people to using it make 0 sense.
Group SMS as a problem is just SOLVED by using whatsapp. There are some minor sticking points when traveling and having multiple sims with multiple numbers, but those problems are even worse when using stock SMS anyway.
Whatsapp even has POLLS ... POLLS PEOPLE what an incredible feature for group messaging.
Edit: I am not oblivious to network effects. I am bemoaning the consequences of them really. Just like I f*cking hate venmo as a user experience, yet I have to use this POS app because everyone else does. I've given up on that fight though.
> The number of annoying conversations I've had about converting people to using it make 0 sense.
It's network effects. It's not about convincing one person, it's that they need to convince all their friends. Who need to convince all their friends. Who need to convince the entire country.
Because what's even more annoying than missing the features from WhatsApp, is having to remember which app to use with which person and with which groups of people.
> Group SMS as a problem is just SOLVED by using whatsapp.
I tried using WhatsApp once and there’s essentially no way to use it unless you give it access to your entire address book. You have to give it every single bit of metadata about every contact on your phone (which they will surely use to place you on a social graph to build a profile of you) in order to use it.
My parents went to Costa Rica recently and were told in advance that basically the entire country used WhatsApp as their VoIP/messaging system. So I took it upon myself to get it going on their phones and mine as a result. And you know what? It's pretty good. It solved the Android vs iOS interoperability issues and I was able to tell my parents that no matter where they are, as long as they can connect to wifi, they can send messages.
I'm not thrilled that it's a Meta product, but I'm inclined to believe them when they tell me it's end-to-end encrypted, so I've more or less adopted it as the neutral messaging app I'd recommend.
It's the definition of network effects and the power of defaults. I've had this same discussion before a few times, and when you're the lone one out of a large group, people just roll their eyes. And I don't really blame them, as iMessage does work great for the most part, so switching is primarily added hassle.
If it's this painful as an old guy, I can't imagine what it's like for teenagers.
I hate this part of cross platform messaging sooo much. Apple has “improved” it somewhat by making it so iOS users now don’t see the “[x] had liked a message” text, but of course this doesn’t happen on the android side, making iOS users equally annoying participants in the chat without visibility into how annoying it is!! They’ve made iOS users worse citizens. And I say this as an iOS user! I want it to be very clear when reacting to a text is going to pollute the chat. Grr.
Honestly complaining about groupchats is such a nitpick. I'd rather get this message in the chat log like that, versus what happens on the iphone where your phone buzzes all day from people liking some message way up in the chatlog, that you'd have no sense of that activity until you scrolled back and counted up the hearts.
> Folks in other countries don't notice it as much because they tend to use other platforms like WhatsApp or something else for group chats.
It's the same in many European countries - I'd assume it also is in every other country where people can afford iPhones. Few people nowadays want to use 3+ different apps for messaging when iMessage "just works".
Or the never ending annoying 'upsells' or 'USPs' where they do things slightly different from vendor to vendor so you can't really rely on android just being android, you have to play a game of ((hardware * android version)/telco)+(features*lifetime) every time because you have a good chance of ending up with a piece of crap that either won't fully work out of the box, or gets less useful after only a year of usage if you don't play that game.
Anecdotal evidence, I'm just about Gen Z and I know a lot of people in that generation who buy rep sneakers and designer clothes via reddit from China. Reps have gotten very, very good if you're willing to pay a little more than fast fashion prices. Grain of salt / YMMV but that's what I've seen in my circles.
I was there was an alternative to iPhone that just works, the UI is consistent and "shallow" and the defaults are sane. I keep an Android phone around for the lolz. Sometimes I can do what I would like when there is no interruption from random weird software components and the weather app does not want to have access to the microphone.
I have a Pixel phone and I love it. I honestly get super frustrated when I use an iPhone. There are so many hidden gestures and swipes that you just have to know, and if you're not a frequent user it's a painful experience.
Of course, I totally understand that it's just a matter of what you're used to, but Pixels have some fantastic features like their handling of spam calls and on-hold features, not to mention that Google Assistant is leaps and bounds better than Siri.
I have a iPhone SE II and a Huawei P30 and I refuse to buy newer / more expensive phones. All of needs were met when iPhone 5s came out and 99% of new features are just pointless. Unfortunately we live in a world partially thanks to Google where version 1.0 is grossly underrated.
Btw. what are those gestures you are talking about? I am pretty much a boomer when it comes to using software and my 2 year old son could show me new features of Youtube for example but I was not aware of any hidden gestures...
Android used to have a niche. It did stuff that Apple didn't.
Now all that stuff, minus only sideloading, has been eroded to nothing. You get subpar software. Subpar apps. Subpar privacy. Subpar hardware. For what? For nothing.
Unless you're a software or control nerd (see: me) there is zero reason to even think about Android.
IOS doesn't support emulators. The photo functions on the latest pixel phones are pretty slick (e.g. deleting unwanted objects in the scene). Nightsight is better on Android. File management makes sense on Android where as on IOS, it can be difficult or impossible to get access to files without going through the app. Local backups to file storage are basically impossible on IOS.
I could go on, but IOS is an appliance where as android feel more like a PC. IOS is what happens when apple is allowed to take the "mice only need one button" idea to it's most extreme.
My wife has been iPhone only and is now going to switch to Android for her next phone. The reason: she doesn't like Airpods, and any other Bluetooth headset is unreliable. (Apple just works only as long as they control all the hardware.) She wants to go back to a regular headphone jack because Bluetooth is horrible across the board. As the Android in the house I'm happy to see her defect. Mostly I like having raw access to the file system, it'll make handling her backups much simpler.
I don't like AirPods either, that's why I use Beats Flex. They're super comfortable, they come with multiple silicone cups to fit perfectly inside your ear, and they connect to your phone without any hassle.
I have never had an Android phone last more than 3 years. Most of them were sluggish or degrading after only 18 months. I'm 23 months in on my first iPhone and it feels as fast as the day I got it. I can't recall ever experiencing battery life anxiety either. I have friends that have used their iPhones for 5-6 years with no problems.
The upfront cost is higher but you can expect a much longer service life and the resale value is higher if you still feel the need the newest model on shorter timeframes.
Yeah, you can get an android phone that will take pictures, send messages, play, music, run Uber/maps, and take calls for under $50. Those phones aren’t great, but they are usable. They can do everything that you “need” a smart phone to do.
It’s been a bit since I was in the cheap android phone market, but those phones don’t work as well as you say. Calling texting probably work fine, but I doubt Uber or maps will work great or at all. Anything internet heavy like that and you’re gonna be crazy frustrated
I would rather buy a used iphone for slightly more then. Less need to manufacture shit that will barely make it a year, better support and better hardware.
An older, once premium model can be a good middle ground. I usually buy used and had a Note4 for several years, then my SO used it, then I used it again, then we resold it in working condition. It also had a swappable battery and card slot. Both likely helped extend its life.
How are they not usable? I use a Nokia 7.2 and I think it's a perfect phone. Good screen. Pure Android. Fast. Nice camera (though I really don't care about this). It has 64GB of internal storage, but adding an SD card was straightforward.
Just upgraded to the iPhone 14 Plus, got it for "free" by extending my contract for another 3 years. Works for me, I was already paying the monthly fee anyway and had no plans of leaving my carrier.
Since apple fought hard to destroy the concept of files when it first introduced iOS (some might argue it started with the iPod), iTunes never allowed drag/drop or copy/paste foles onto your iDevice.
Until you try to copy & paste across multiple devices. Apart from certain OEM-specific solutions, there's still no reliable equivalent of AirDrop on Android. Bluetooth file transfer is awfully behind (both speed and UX-wise).
"Film me skate & airdrop me the clip" isn't that straightforward on Android (and no, I'm not going to email it to you & use up my and your mobile plan).
I don't care for AirPods, HomePod or all the other accessoires. However I do want a smooth and consistent OS. Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile after that was that for me. Usually very smooth, clear design language, very consistent. Until Microsoft killed it.
Then you have Android which isn't Android. Samsung desperately trying to establish its own identity, by including own versions of apps on their devices - so you have Android Browser/Google Chrome and Samsung Internet. Gmail and Samsung Mail and Android mail. The list goes on.
Then let's talk about security patches and updates. Improvements have been made over time, but it is still nowhere near Apple. Partially this is due to the way Linux kernel and build process works, but as a user I don't care about that.
Even on flagship devices Android is not truly smooth. Sure, some animations are added here and there, but it is not truly smooth - and often there is some stuttering here and there. That completely ruins it for me. Let's not talk about how lower-end devices work.
Apple asks too much for their devices, the apps can be incredibly expensive, and I don't like how they've handled repairability until now. Accessories are too expensive. AirPods shouldn't even exist. But what they offer does work and it works mostly well.
Why is that? I recently switched to AirPods Pro because I wanted to see what the fuss was about and I don't regret it one bit.
- Pairing works seamlessly, including switching device, including non Apple devices
- The controls on the buds are amazing and well thought of (I had Jabra before and the controls were different on the left and right earbud, so if I wanted to wear only the right one I couldn't skip a song because the control was on the left one)
- Active noise control works great
- The microphone is good enough that I can actually use them for calls, even in the street near cars
- Integration with FindMy, not only for the case but also for each earbud individually is soooo useful.
- Even the feeling of closing the case is amazing.
They're easily the best earbuds (and headphones too) I've ever had.
It's sad to see the growing monopoly of iOS in the US. I use an Android because it simply does what iOS doesn't, such as sideloading very important apps for me. I will literally not use a phone without an adblocker on the browser, on YouTube, on Twitter, on Instagram, for example. Android has the ability to load these (modded or otherwise) apps, iOS simply doesn't. Maybe the DMA in Europe will but I doubt it will be at the same level of functionality.
While I am sure ublock origin or whatever is more powerful, I see no ads while browsing Safari in iOS or macOS using a content blocker like Wipr. Youtube ads sometime get through though as of late last year.
Of course, I do not use websites like Instagram or Twitter, so maybe I am not affected by the less comprehensive ad blocking.
I don’t care for instagram and twitter, but the rest can have adblockers. Especially the web, you can choose from a litany of options without any hacking.
I have been on android since very early on. I am pretty much fed up with it at this point. The majority of the phones are just junk. I have paid more at each new iteration of the OS and gotten worse performance.
I'm way too old to answer but anyway... I regularly come back to Android to see how it evolves, it's some kind of masochistic behavior that I have, or maybe because I'm a developer and I like comparison.
My last Android (2 years ago, a Pixel phone, the real deal) was full of annoyances, the official "apps" were incoherent (every app has its own hidden settings' page with a different look, and there a hundred of those pages), and the worst was that I found DEBUG_STRINGS_WITH_UNDERSCORES in one page.
iOS is a walled garden, but at least it doesn't entice me to throw my phone outside the window.
Edit: last but not least, since I had to buy a brand new Google phone (to get an up to date OS), I remember that it was twice as expensive as my current iPhone...
My conclusion after being an Android user for quite a while, then switching to iOS but continuing to be an Android developer for years after that, is that Google is simply a terrible steward of important software. It was beyond obvious that important things were being neglected or fucked-around with for purely portfolio-building reasons (and often badly half-assed—OMG, the Material UI stuff was shit at the programming level despite the huge marketing campaign for it, looked like the designers just spitballed some stuff then dumped it on the summer interns to handle the details), despite Android being their premier platform and probably in their top-5 most-prominent consumer software products (ChromeOS is important in some niches, but not much outside those).
I got an android when it was on version 2.3. It was a Huawei P1 and blew everyone's mind. 1080p video recording, OLED display etc. I had various other androids that beat Apple on some feature; wireless charging, 4K video whatever. But the problem was they never lasted more than 2 years tops. My last android was an LG G7 and it got 18 months of OS updates from release. I didn't buy it immediately so I got even less.
Enough of that. I bought an iPhone 12 Pro and it's as good today as it was out of the box if not better. The one single gripe I have is that the apple keyboard is utter trash. It's so bad I'll reconsider android when it's time to replace even if it costs me more over time.
It's funny to see. The same thing that's happening with iMessage happened with Blackberry messenger over a decade ago.
The major difference is that we now have huge data plans and a handful of great messaging apps to choose from. I don't understand why this hasn't reached the US market.
I can't imagine communicating on an app that's not compatible with my friends' devices when there are so many alternatives out there.
I'd argue that iMessage is one of the most monopolistic elements of the iPhone. With their market share as large as it is, and with only one remotely viable competitor, they should be forced to open up an API allowing other people to create clients.
(Anyone remember the glory days of GAIM/Pidgin and multi-account messengers?)
OTOH I bet the majority of users have no idea that imessage and sms are different things. Iphones show up blue but thats about all the average end users notice about the protocol.
I've got to hand it to Apple for implementing it that way; the seamless UX works so well. The fact that Google never built a competitor that functioned similarly is utterly baffling.
I think part of the reason was also to put messages on data. when the iphone came out you could get unlimited data from att, but I think you still might end up with a plan with finite text messages. Being able to text over wifi or 3g would save you from running up sms. blackberry had something similar too.
It’s vastly more complicated than “apple opens an api”. iMessage does a lot more than just messaging, and key components of apples spam and fraud story are tied to individual devices.
For Apple to open iMessage, would require that android manufacturers enroll the devices.
I use an iPhone, and I try to get all my friends to use signal
By her own admission she was on an unimportant part of the project when she joined in 1965. She was recorded working on completely unrelated stuff in 63. When she was actually promoted to leadership the work was already done
I like that Signal is open source, but I dislike their insistence on shutting down third party clients, because I believe third party clients are almost universally better than first-party ones.
In addition, their continued reluctance to add an export or any kind of meaningful history backup is also a negative.
I think telegram is a great tradeoff. Not as secure (by default it is not even e2e), but their clients on every platform are just slick and very great.
That's a stretch. To begin with, you can't even see the blue/green difference until you actually send a message to someone. All received messages are gray. And even without the color, you instantly know the difference between the two -- one tells you it was delivered, the other one is a shot into the void.
I recently snagged a nice apartment in another city thanks in part to being an iPhone user. I don't drive, so there wasn't any way for me to do the viewing in person, and the owner doesn't understand Zoom or Teams but they do understand FaceTime. Say what you will about "lock-in", but I'd rather be "locked in" with everyone else than "locked out" of good opportunities.
Sad that social signals have become so important. In this case it also reduces competition and freedom of choice. I like having a custom launcher, side loading, many options for manufacturer, and even alternative ROMs.
> Sad that social signals have become so important.
That implies there was a time they weren't. They always have. If anything, in most cases the signals have been more diverse and therefore weaker over time.
Perhaps I should have qualified with "and so costly". When I was coming up Air Jordan shoes were the thing to have. Yet even the most expensive pair was considerably cheaper, and there were some less expensive versions too. The shoes were also a weak signal because few thought less of me for not having them, even fewer cared when I got a less expensive pair.
I would come up with the opposite example. When I was growing up, Air Jordan shoes were double or triple the price (~$60 to $100+) of other shoes with no extra utility, just branding. As opposed to an iPhone, which might be double the cost of the cheapest Android, but it will last twice or thrice as long making the amortized cost much lower.
Amortized cost is a great counterpoint. Though I wonder if it's true in practice when kids and teens are so likely to break their phones long before the break even point. (Moreso with the no-case trend.) And Apple repairs are rarely user serviceable and with fewer repair vendors equiped to do them.
That's probably an exaggeration, but in some circles people call me out for having an Android in group texts. I'm on the border between Gen Z and Millenial
> As Gen Z gets older, this trend is likely to grow and further entrench Apple's market share, making it increasingly difficult for rival companies to capture new customers and make inroads.
This is the closing statement in the article, but doesn't seem to be supported by the data and arguments provided.
Why would a generation entering the workforce and establishing their careers necessarily cause entrenchment of an existing trend? If anything, as the biggest reasons for Apple's popularity in that generation seems to be driven by social factors, their advantage could very well fade as they leave behind their childhood social circles and build new ones.
I don't miss cord noise at all. Not even a little, tiny bit. Or having it catch on things, or pull the earphone out of my ear. I'll take the miniscule risk of losing an wireless earphone (haven't yet...).
Having hard numbers in a report makes sense to nail it home, but it's instantly obvious if you interact with people that age. (And I say that as a millennial that's used to a lighter version of the same shit from my peers.)
As tempting as it is to criticize Apple for being some evil empire, another highly plausible explanation is simply that their products are quite good, and people are willing to join the ecosystem for some inconveniences / loss of freedom. And the side point that not everyone (though it might seem here) is a 20 year old hacker demanding that they be allowed to jailbreak their phone, or insisting that all WhatsApp chats be able to integrate with iMessage as a matter of moral principle.
I would argue that most people don't actually give a shit about 'better hardware', 'software ecosystem' or any other technicality beyond 'pictures look good'. I have friends that buy the latest maxed out iPhone version by version and they truly don't do a single more expensive action than take photos of their food and upload it to Instagram.
That said, it is easy to extend to other developed market. Even in developing markets like India and China, apple products are positioned as status symbols. Even if you disagree with that, it is difficult to argue against apple’s vertical integration of software, hardware and supply chains.
the android market has no equivalent and there is no “android” brand. for a good source of anecdotal data, look to the used device market. apple products retain value well.
Outside the US everyone uses WhatsApp which doesn't discriminate in the same way. I've never felt any social pressure to use an iPhone and have no idea what phones my friends use. It's weird seeing this be such a big factor in the US.
As a mobile developer, the US being the big tech influence it is and the iPhone commanding 50-ish% of all phones there, when working with clients, we always end up designing for iPhone first.
Then when we move on to testing, the clients have a hard time finding someone to test on Android on their end. That leads to a lot more polish on the iOS side and Android being treated as an afterthought.
I imagine kids these days don’t “choose” between Apple and Android. By the time my kids buy their first smartphone with their own money, they will have use my old ones handed down over a decade.
At that point, it’s too late to Switch. New Apple users are born every day by old Apple users.
My son and I prefer Android, but he switched to iPhone so he could better communicate with his gf and peers and eventually I switched to better communicate with him. It's like a social virus. iMessage is a real barrier to Android adoption.
Feature by feature, and doing a cost comparison, shows that iPhones are very good value. But they don’t have a phone under $400. And even in the developed world that’s a lot of money.
And every time one of our coworkers from India comes to visit the US, they return home with two or three iPhones. I'm guessing there's a big demographic correlation with phone OS choice in India.
Nothing unless they abuse that position in some way that crosses certain legal limits. Same thing with MS. Their monopoly with Windows was not, strictly, the problem. The problem was their behavior with respect to obtaining, maintaining, and then abusing their monopoly position.
Which is due in no small part to branding, all the way back to the iconic iPod dancing silhouette commercials. Apple portrays a brand image of authenticity, fashion, and self-expression. (Whether or not you think that's deserved, it's definitely the vibe.)
While Android branding is... well it barely exists. It's just kind of generic. It used to be a bunch of funny-looking cylindrical figurines juxtaposed with the names of candies... now I'm not sure it's anything at all?
I will never understand why Google has never come up with a viable marketing strategy for Android, to be fashionable in its own different way.