Okay, this is not an iPhone vs Android Phone debate. I respect your right to choose whichever platform that you want.
I mean, iPhone seems so antithetical with the idea of freedom. You have to connect it to a server to even use it, all apps have to go through a centralized server, no option to install whatever apps you want, which means, you literally cannot have any third-party apps without an online account.
Most of my fellow americans seems to love the idea of freedom so much, yet just buy into a closed ecosystem with no freedom? 🤔
Like almost 60% of Americans use iPhone, kinda weird to preach freedom when you cant even have an app without a corporation’s approval. If it were any other country, I wouldn’t find it weird, but for a country that’s obsessed with the idea of freedom (so much so that they disobeyed mask mandates), it’s really weird to be using a device with zero freedom.
Marketing.
Convincing stupid people that their self-worth is based on how much they spend.
Not a thing that is exclusive to Apple, of course. It’s how society has been since the 80s and Reaganomics, with Nike and other running shoes being the first really noticeable marketing push in that regard.
Where Apple paved the way is that, even back then, a company would make a product, assign a profit margin to it (traditionally about 30-40%), and sell it at that price…
Apple came along and said, “the only limit to a profit margin is how much you can convince stupid people to pay. We’ll use billions of dollars in advertising to convince people that they’re sub-human if they don’t agree with it. If the consumer is dumb enough to pay 250% profit margin for a phone device that costs us literally a couple hundred bucks to make…than that’s on them and their own stupidity.”
So in short, profit margin is no longer a relatively stable number dictated by market forces and the relative strength of the economy, and (thanks to Apple) instead has become a function of marketing. How much can you convince suckers to spend.
Blue ticks and group chats.
Cos they never made it away from the pre-installed apps.
The Blue/Green tick thing has winded down in my own personal sphere. My wife’s family has a group chat where I was the only android user and would get dunked on when I replied. I just asked to be removed so they wouldn’t have to deal with SMS/MMS bullshit. Now that RCS is on everything it doesn’t matter. Ive been trying to get them to use Signal for the last few years but no one wants another app that isn’t their default messaging app.
On the second part, yeah thats true. If Apple does anything right it’s making “things work” for the average user, and I am sure we all know what the average user can do now. Any concerns I bring up with iOS is met with “but you work in IT and understand that stuff” which is hard to argue with when people just want something to work without troubleshooting and exploring options.
I’ve used an IPhone since 4s. I have a 13 Plus Max. However. I used to have android devices. I always enjoy the UI/UX on the iPhone over the Android os. Even after working for the Android team. I still preferred iOS. I know I’m missing out to some awesome android features. But I can always jailbreak and add those features like I have on my iPad mini cellular. Which worked with Google Fi somehow. After jailbreaking. And my iPhone 6.
Fuck iPhones.
It’s status. Apple is regarded as more expensive and high quality.
Except the most expensive phones on the market are android devices.
It’s actually incredibly difficult to tell if someone has the latest iPhone or one that is five years old.
Exactly.
The short answer is capitalism. Wasting money is a status symbol.
• American company
• Secure
• Little to no bloatware
• Isn’t a google product
• Isn’t a google product
• Isn’t a google product
• same version of the OS in all devices
• customer support that actually answers the phone within a few rings and supports your device over the phone.
• isn’t a google product.That’s a few off the top of my head.
The customer support one is literal leaps and bounds above the competition.
I can call Apple and have someone answer very quickly, but you can’t really call Google. I can get Apple to call me if I don’t want to wait or I can take it to a store and have anything non-physical fixed for free.
Edit: Further to this. All Apple Stores offer free education on how to use their products. Got a new MacBook but don’t know what I’m doing? Book in to take a Mac class. Want to learn to draw an Emoji using an iPad or make beats with a musician then sign me up or sign your kids up. Same for photo walks and other creative tasks.
Yep. Exactly. I’ve never had an issue with any apple decide that lasted over just a few hours before it was resolved. That’s enough to win me over.
Google can keep their whistles and bells.
Americans don’t really value freedom. Not really. Americans pretend they like freedom, but they will give up all their freedoms for the slightest bit of convenience, and because social media told them so.
Am I talking about consumer electronics, or politics? Impossible to say.
I understand the sentiment you are going for, but I think it is a little cheap regarding the opinion of 300 million+ people.
In my horribly narrow opinion, the American freedom is simply the freedom to choose. Nothing more, nothing less. The freedom to own a tiger, buy a tank or be “Florida man” for a day.
It is not “free” from manipulation and sometimes it really feels like a 5 year old choosing to do the opposite of the right thing just “because”.
Sidenote: I ABSOLUTELY do not think it is the best way to build a nurturing society, but I get why it has such a passionate supporter base.
It was a nurturing society when most were in communities that interacted with each other. We have lost that for many reasons
it is a little cheap regarding the opinion of 300 million+ people
Actually iPhones are generally a little expensive, and mostly talking about around 150 million of those 300 million people 😜:
In the United States, there were over 150 million active iPhones in 2023
https://www.statista.com/topics/4753/apple-products-in-the-us/#topicOverview
Tbh. It’s the same in the UK. Our governments, of both sides, are killing any perception of privacy we had and no-one is doing/saying anything.
Having said that people are mostly dealing with the terrorist inspired killings here that the are allied to the immigration issue.
The people have had enough, the governments of the last twenty years have been obvious or more likely not looking (at the disquiet).
There isn’t enough room to think of the loss of privacy/security yet. We are in a hell of a mess.
The answer is marketing by Apple and mobile carriers, which lean on peer pressure via iMessage. Plus the iPhone built on the success of the iPod, which led the market for mp3 players.
through significant promotion and advertisement by APPLE, the mackbook, is used by tons of programmers though, and i have used the desktops at university library.
when you cant even have an app without a corporation’s approval
Apple has successfully positioned themselves as “the good guy”.
- Apple broke the monopoly of phone provider locks, and still prohibits phone provider bloatware.
- Apple seems like the only provider with any care for privacy, and many of their features and policies are privacy focussed
- Apple puts more effort than most software providers into usability
- you might think Apples constraints on the App Store blocks legitimate opensource and personal projects, but it mostly blocks commercial exploitation. It blocks behaviors that abuse customers or their privacy, that will give users a bad experience. I’ve read the requirement for a fee with a real credit card is actually the most effective strategy against malware
- every major app is available in the App Store
- its just a phone. My phone needs to just work, unlike my computer which needs to do whatever I want it to.
So maybe the root cause is lack of consumer protection in the US, but my experience with iPhone is much better than with Android phones. I’m not blind to corporate shenanigans but I do feel better protected in the Apple ecosystem. I do have freedom to choose almost any legitimate app, and I’m not particularly interested n futzing around with my phone anyway
Not an American, but as an iPhone user who has had Android phones since cupcake before: iPhones „just work“, they are a lot less janky than Android, the ecosystem is smooth (although admittedly and intentionally less so when leaving it), they get updated for longer (and at the same time!) and apple has a much better privacy track record than the competition (a low bar).
Yes, I would prefer to install my apps from anywhere I want on the device I should own. An open source phone from top to bottom would be my dream, but Android is about as far removed from that as an iphone. Google took Linux and made it into a Frankenstein nightmare that is wholly dependent on them.
Just try to stick to open source and make your phone respect your privacy and see how far you get. Start at the usually locked bootloader, install a rom without google and see how few apps are left that do not require google services. And even then you are most likely dependent on binary blobs for the drivers, meaning the manufacturers can (and will) pull the rug from under your efforts as soon as they no longer feel like updating their shitty built of Android for the device in time.
I do not have time for that. What I have is enough money to buy a phone that comes as close as possible to my idea of safety, freedom and privacy without constantly jumping through burning hoops. If I am to be in a cage, it better be golden.
they are a lot less janky than Android
What did you find so problematic and unsolvable?
An open source phone from top to bottom would be my dream, but Android is about as far removed from that as an iphone. Google took Linux and made it into a Frankenstein nightmare that is wholly dependent on them.
have you considered flashing custom roms on it? e/OS, LineageOS and GrapheneOS (restricted to google pixel for hardware+privacy/security reasons) are all opensource.
As soon as you start flashing custom firmware the “just works” goes right out of the window.
Graphene. Don’t try the others if you aren’t prepared for an uphill battle. Graphene just works.
I agree that graphene is the hands down best. But for people who have a device and want to switch, and that device is not a google pixel, well that severely limits your options.
Just to say. I recently jumped from Android and the iPhone didn’t just work like I remember they did. Two bugs I had were adding comments on Reddit using Firefox. The keyboard would come up but my text would be off screen so I couldn’t see what I was typing. This could be a Firefox bug but it was still very weird and not one I’d seen on Android.
One bug that used to get annoying is I’d unlock the phone and when going to type, the volume would be at max briefly before going back to the volume the phone was set at. This caught me out a few times in the middle of the night.
I couldn’t get on with iOS and felt that after not using it since the iPhone 4S that nothing had really improved. Also the lack of being able to use uBlock Origin on Firefox was awful. It’s been a while since I browsed the web without an adblocker and I really hated having to do something every day. Eventually I sold the 16 Pro I had and went back to my Pixel 8.
The one thing I remember being great about the iPhone was when you upgrade you restore the backup and the phone just works. With Android you typically have to go around and login to all the apps again. Again a developer issue but certainly easier on iOS.
This could be a Firefox bug but it was still very weird and not one I’d seen on Android.
This is likely directly related to the fact that Apple blocks use of any other web renderer than Webkit based on App store guidelines.
This means neither Chrome nor Firefox on iOS are actually the normal versions. Normally Chrome uses Blink and Firefox uses Gecko, but they both use Webkit on iOS.
(Yeah, I know this thread was meant to be about Americans specifically, but this proves they can be forced to allow it!)
Americans have been propagandized by Apple advertising into thinking Apple products are “high class.”
Ask yourself: Why does anyone wear a Rolex?
It boils down to the same thing, showing people your wealth and thus “social value” (barf) via conspicuous consumption.
If it wasn’t conspicuous consumption, why would US people literally judge potential dating partners on what kind of phone they use?
Its function is exactly what the name implies: to alert people that you have money in the bank. I Am Rich was available for purchase from the phone’s App Store for, get this, $999.99 – the highest amount a developer can charge through the digital retailer, said Armin Heinrich, the program’s developer. Once downloaded, it doesn’t do much – a red icon sits on the iPhone home screen like any other application, with the subtext ‘I Am Rich.’ Once activated, it treats the user to a large, glowing gem (pictured above). That’s about it. For a thousand dollars.
This was barely a year after the original iPhone’s release. The attitude toward Apple products has persisted ever since.
Conspicuous consumption doesn’t really hold in this case because the alternative is around the same price.
I’d also question any claim about the dating partner. Maybe a study said it has an impact, but I doubt it’s a strong impact on evaluation of a potential partner. By all means, I’d love to see the source for that
You also cite an example of what was basically a meme. Literally nobody bought that app (and iirc those who were tricked got their money back)
The different colored texts in iMessage and forced downgrade of any MMS sent via an Android is part of that perception by iPhone users that Android’s are inferior devices, even if they cost similarly.
Apple refused to implement RCS until very recently. Not saying Google is better in terms of RCS, they have their own issues, this is just about how Apple has leveraged iMessage to the end of people viewing it as a "higher class’ device than Android.
All the sleek white design was a part of that too. People thought it looked futuristic/costly and the rest of the industry tried to copy their design philosophy due to that. You can’t deny that Apple devices look classy. Apple didn’t pay Jony Ive an absolute fuckton of money per year for nothing.
the alternative is around the same price
You know that’s not true.
There are stupidly expensive Android flagships, but there are also a lot of phones for a fraction of the price.
Usually people speak of this as an advantage but I also think it is a disadvantage, one of the reasons for wider usage of iPhones ……
- there are crappy android phones
- historically android was crappy (even if it is much better now)
- most android phones are loaded with bloatware.
- most android phones are poorly supported or for only a short period
- privacy and security can be a challenge for regular users
- inconsistent usability
Meanwhile, iPhones
- are always “good”, even the lower end
- historically held leads in usability, features, even if not true anymore
- no bloatware from vendors
- full support for 6 years
- claim privacy and security by default
- good usability
And the phones that cost a fraction of the price are significantly slower, have a much worse screen, barely get any software updates, and overall just kinda suck.
Sure low and mid range phones are “good enough” but if it’s a device you use for hours every day do you really only want “good enough” for right now?
But those inexpensive phones most often don’t deliver a comparable device experience to the flagship devices. Honestly, this is the crux of things. Comparing iPhone to “Android” is a fool’s errand. Apple often only has one more budget conscious model available explicitly. But OS support tends to last longer on Apple devices, so multiple model years are viable at once.
I hate to say it, the reason people choose dating partners on phone use is because of blue texts on iMessage. that’s the only reason. Apple was brilliant pitching that as an Android problem instead of playing fair and working on an open standard since day 1. Dragged their feet for years.
I still find this hard to believe. It’s just a visual indicator whether the conversation is encrypted or not, but who would actually judge partners with this.
When I checked with my kids, since we know teenagers can be very shallow bullies, they said there is some light teasing but it was really started by online crap like this. Not even teenagers care. I mean, they don’t usually use iMessages anyway, so many probably never noticed.
“Blue texts” is a fake issue. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was started as a prank, or by Google, and no one cared until it was all over the internet
It’s not just a visual indication of if it’s encrypted. SMS sucks, truly, compared to apps like iMessage, WhatsApp, etc. so it’s actually annoying to message people with green text. Now that Apple does RCS it’s not a big deal, but in the USA there’s no default internet messaging app like WhatsApp, and to the extent that there is one it’s iMessage.
SMS is default texting for all phones of all types all providers in the US. Its main advantage is ubiquity and it is the only ubiquitous text protocol. SMS was always owned by cell providers.
While I also am disappointed that ubiquitous text protocol owned by cell providers never progressed, can’t blame Apple for that. They could have used their influence to push harder but bottom line is the change needed to be at cell providers. They may also have seen that even Google with all its influence wasn’t able to make it happen (without taking it proprietary, owning it, centralizing it).
But let me ask this: what other texting provider includes a fallback to incorporate texters outside their network? At all? Does WhatsApp include users of iMessage? SMS? RCS?
You can literally blame Apple for that, because that standard did progress, and they did not incorporate it into their default messaging app for years due to anticompetitive marketing practices. To compare the responsibilities of a default and only (since you can’t sidecar on iPhone) text messaging app on a phone with 50% market share with a third party app is bad faith. Even then, WhatsApp and others were cross platform, not hardware dependent.
Did you just reverse your position? I’m confused. Do you think the blue bubbles are more than encryption or not? Do you think people care about them or not? Do you think Apple is a bad faith participant in that issue or not?
Different bubbles are a visual indicator whether the messages are encrypted.
Apple is a good faith participant in that they support a fallback to the texting standard supported by every mobile vendor.
It’s not bad faith on my part when you brought up WhatsApp. Sure they don’t have blue but bubbles, but that’s because they don’t support an open standard at all, they don’t have an inclusive mode at all, they only support their own users on their own proprietary protocol.
Most importantly I don’t see how it’s Apple’s responsibility to push mobile vendors to modernize. Blame them if vendors were modernizing and they pushed back, however, no, there was no progress. It’s irrelevant if the standard is evolving but no one supports it and this whole thing on,y works if mobile vendors support it
Different bubbles indicate more than encryption
WhatsApp is not a default app or an attempt at implementing a standard, a default text messaging app is.
The vendors were modernizing and they pushed back.
I’m glad you could set up a way to falsify your beliefs so that they could, indeed, be proven false
It about not beeimg sold as the product. Its about using the browser that dont rat you out
That means Apple’s advertising is working if you actually believe they care about your privacy.
But iphones can’t use Firefox with uBlockOrigin and NoScript
True. I run this on an android tablet, but firefox misses my usability needs. So i end up on safari more often than not
- iphones are the first recognized “smartphone”.
- apple is an american company.
- apple has a massive fanbase that is completely dedicated to apple and all their products.
i’m not sure what the global usage of apple products is, but i think here it’s probably a lot higher than in other places. throw in the fact that there’s only one device capable of (legally) running apple’s mobile software, and there you have it.
also, their advertising didn’t hurt either. no one on the android side had the kind of advertising they did until maybe 6 or 7 years later and by that time you were probably already well established in the iphone ecosystem.
They used to innovate, no doubt. But their products provide absolutely terrible value now. Great resale, sure. But you’re overpaying 20% for the hardware you’re getting which is not the case on the Android side. The only thing iPhone universally does better is 1) video and 2) ecosystem (if all your products are Apple). The rest is a tomaeto vs tomahto situation.
Not relevant to most basic users but I could not use a phone where I did not have the freedom to sideload apps, especially if I’m overpaying for the hardware.
I have no need for third party apps.
For anything beyond texting or scrolling, I have a desktop.
Defying mask mandates wasn’t due to a ‘love for freedom’ but due to delusions and selfishness.
Freedom is not one thing. The choice between iOS and Android is not a choice between zero freedom and unlimited freedom. You’re simply choosing which freedoms you want to prioritize.
I’m planning to switch to an Android device running an alternative OS with my next purchase after using iPhone exclusively since the 3g. That’s driven by a change in priorities: I want the freedom that comes from using a phone that isn’t a surveillance and advertising vehicle. For years now though, I’ve been enjoying the freedom of knowing my phone will continue to receive updates for a minimum of 5 years after I buy it new while some of my Android friends will be lucky if they get two.
People confuse freedom with variety
Your definition of freedom is an interesting one
Yep! Like I said, freedom is more than one thing. The way this questions is framed tries to put the blinders on and obscure that fact, creating a false equivalency between the freedom to sideload software and some abstract notion of “absolute freedom” which doesn’t actually exist. We’re rarely choosing between absolute freedom and zero freedom, certainly not in this case.
