(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 😔
It’s not about them being dumb, it’s them not caring about the particulars of their platform. Can it play some mobile games? Can it keep them connected to their friends through text and social media? Once it meets those criteria, that’s enough.
Then comes the next challenge: social status. Particularly during the teen years, social status is a keen focus and every little thing is part of the equation. iMessage versus SMS and RCS means that an Android user can’t tell their peer is an iPhone, but iPhones highlight Android users very obviously. So if either platform might align with social groups, Apple is the one that makes it easy to identify “outsiders” and ostracize them.
So knowing that, fundamentally, both platforms will give them what basic stuff they want in a handheld computer, so they just care about the ability to use the differences to identify “in” versus “out” in every possible way that presents itself. Apple does that most obviously.