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Android has about 40% market share in the US [0], are you claiming that 40% of the us are unable to identify social cues? I have a hard time believing that this isn't just classism. Most of my friends from poorer areas, especially the ones who grew up without access to the internet, have an Android. And my group chats with them work pretty well since android supports the open standard RCS

[0]: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta...




I don't think it is a social cues thing either. I switched back and forth between Droid and Apple for awhile until I read some fairly disturbing predictions on how all these personal data warehouses could be used to digitally enslave us. I am not sure it is a social cues things, although I will concede frothing at the mouth Android and Apple fans are not people I like to be around.

TBH the biggest driver towards Apple for me (aside from privacy) is now that I am older and have kids and more responsibilities at work and don't have time to tinker I don't want to have to figure out what the best messaging app for my phone is. (I gave up using Linux in favor of MacOS as well for similar reasons).

(Cue all the neckbeard Linux/Droid guys without a family or kids saying "its not hard you just need to...<vaporize 30 minutes of your Saturday or evening>")


> (Cue all the neckbeard Linux/Droid guys without a family or kids saying "its not hard you just need to...<vaporize 30 minutes of your Saturday or evening>")

Now we're talking, and this is a social cues thing.

For example, a discussion about airdrop - which many android users don't know they are missing - often has an android user rationalizing their existence about some other convoluted way to share images maybe offline that is still worse.


I do know that type of person and yes it is not fun. Or they recite all the specs of a new Android vs iPhone and how you are such an "idiot" for being an Apple sheep. When really you don't care that much and the price difference isn't significant. Not to mention side by side your iPhone is noticeably faster in a real world test of launching the same app, browsing etc.

Convincing those people that specs are mere indicators and do not matter in the face of objective UX...impossible.

Really comes down to what you are optimizing for.


This, along with classism, along with a now worse user experience in mixed company, is what leads to people to just isolating themselves from people with "green bubbles".

And to top it off, the "green bubble" person is mostly oblivious to that happening too.


For context, I'm not a huge fan of either, I've used both. On iOS, Airdrop is very useful, especially if you also use Macos. On the Android side, I use Google Assistant all the time and find it to be much smarter and more convenient than Siri. I use Windows and the default messaging app on my Pixel, and being able to text from my computer is really convenient (you can do this if you have an iPhone and a mac, too). Honestly it doesn't make that much of a difference which you buy, 99% of what you'll be doing will be the same on either phone. The main thing pulling me back to iPhones is the fact that they stay updated for much longer, but I'm stuck on Android for now because of how easy it is to find pirated movies and cast them to my TV.


> disturbing predictions on how all these personal data warehouses could be used to digitally enslave us

When I read about trends like the one discussed in this thread, I feel that those who exclude based on technology preferences are more "enslaved" than I could ever be by giving Google my data. Their social behavior is directly controlled by the whims of a large corporation. I understand that it's a product issue but I have a hard time imagining that Apple will do anything to make the whole ecosystem better without benefiting themselves first. Only reason to help Android fit in better is to compete with Facebook, and Messenger probably isn't a big enough competitor right now to trigger a response. So until competition becomes an issue, Apple will continue promoting social exclusion to the detriment of society and likely the mental health of teens, who are already experiencing more depression than prior generations. How is that better than data collection?


When you say 40% market share, you mean by count of handsets?

Headcount is not “market”, market is dollars to spend.

When comparing Android and iPhone in the US, you need to compare % of wealth, or of disposable income, or some closer indicator of ‘market’ than head count.

Wallet count, not head count.


> I have a hard time believing that this isn't just classism.

It is also classism, but not just.

> Android has about 40% market share in the US [0], are you claiming that 40% of the us are unable to identify social cues?

No, but they are getting weeded out all the same along with the privileged enthusiasts that do miss social cues.

> Most of my friends from poorer areas, especially the ones who grew up without access to the internet, have an Android.

Yes, android use, and continued aversion to switching, will more often tell you a lot about someone's price sensitivities and not just their preferences. Its usually the HTC Obsolete, not the sexy flagship device. We all know people have payment plans or some other kind of multi-year lockin for a lot of their phones or got them for free in the bad part of town from some group trying to provide basic opportunities, so its not a cheap decision to get an older cheap iphone (assuming they actually wanted that). So its always a mixture of price sensitivity and preference which people weed out from their social circle since the beginning of time, with few exceptions. Throw in a worse user experience for mixed company on top of that and its the perfect storm.




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