Nearly 9 in 10 US teenagers use an iPhone, spelling disaster for Google’s mobile future
When looking at worldwide market share Android leads with 80+ percent.
Yes - right now. If 87% of teens in the US have iPhones, what do you think will happen to that stat in the US and then the world, where people copy-paste US trends to feel wealthy or cool (even adults)?
Looking at the world I see 69% to 29% share in favour to android. There is no problem for android at all.
How much of that split is among the 3rd world and over 25s? Demographics matter, and paint a very different picture.
I don’t know a single person of any age that uses an iPhone. I live in a medium-to-high income country.
A news program yesterday used a QR code to provide a link to a political document that is newsworthy. The anchor instructed people to “point your Android at the screen” to download the document.
Americans are vast outliers in this.
As an American, it seems we will go all in on the most expensive and most milquetoastly adequate option every time.
Hey, you taught me a new word. Milquetoast. Thanks!
In the Army we had a saying, America does not solve its problems - it overwhelms then.
Do you mind sharing where you live? I’m interested in what traits the countries that skew one way or another may have. It’s worth noting that Japan is another outlier in this regard. They are something like 60-70% iOS over there.
And the UK is pretty evenly split, is my understanding. I have no idea how the demographic breakdown of the stats in the article compare in those territories, though.
I don’t broadcast where I am or other personal info on social media. You can probably reverse engineer it from context cues if you try, it’s not like I go to huge lengths to obscure it… but maybe please don’t? It’d feel weird and stalkerish.
That’s their point though
americans just love the golden cage, also apple puts more into ads than lobbyists during a presidential election campain
Yeah they did a very clever thing for the past decade or so, by slapping their illuminated logo onto their laptops, then aggressively contracting TV studios to have the actors use Macs
Iphone is the superior phone for people that really dont want to know how a operating system works and dont want to learn either. Always when i talk about something i do on my phone that Apple has locked its users out of doing my iPhone-friends go “That sounds complicated” when its mostly basic af. I would not even dare call myself a power-user, because i am not. Its just that iphone is perfect for the tech illiterate.
Apple’s whole shtick for a long time now is ease of use. In that way, one could argue that they played a part in the current level of tech illiteracy (though if people wanted to learn tech in the first place, they wouldn’t have succeeded, but I disgress). So, they’re just harvesting the fruits of their labor. Pun absolutely intended.
Why are iPhones so popular in the US compared to Europe? Is it a peer pressure kind of thing? Or simply status? The difference seems to be pretty substantial and I don’t think it can be explained by user experience alone.
iPhones have a 58% (US) vs 26% (EU) market share.
I think it has to do with the messagin app. For some reason in the us it’s still common to use plain sms messages, which on an iPhone get translated to the blue bubble, but when sent to an android become the infamous green bubble.
This is however not the case in the EU bc sms messages were still expensive enoughfuring that time that when whatsapp released, everyone did the switch so as to not to pay the sms fees, and now, even if sms are basically free, everyone uses whatsapp as the default messaging app.
And as we know on whatsapp there’s no differentiation of anything regarding the device you are sending messages to, so no constant reminder of “this guy had an android”.
Just my 2 cents on why this could be.
which on an iPhone get translated to the blue bubble but when sent to an android become the infamous green bubble.
The interesting thing is that the green/blue bubble thing is only infamous in the US.
As you say, outside the US, people use messaging apps like whatsapp or wechat.
The blue bubbles mean you’re using iMessage, which is encrypted. You don’t have to download a separate app owned by Facebook which makes texting iPhone to iPhone so much better.
In the US most carriers (and certainly the big 3) support end-to-end encryption via RCS. Though of course, Apple won’t support the Diffie-Helman exchange outside of iMessage or anything RCS at all.
…which you need to install Google or Samsung messages to take advantage of, so it’s the same thing.
Until all phones use the same protocols in their stock messages app, SMS will still be used to send between the different platforms.
RCS is a standard and is application and even operating system agnostic. Anyone, including applications outside of Android can support it.
iMessage is not a standard and certainly not agnostic.
Ok, well I still don’t want to install another app to use it so I guess we’re stuck.
What really needs to happen is for all the phone makers agree to use the same protocols (and I really don’t care which) so we can all have end-to-end encryption by default.
That’s the thing. Essentially everyone has agreed, except for Apple. This includes 12 phone manufacturers and at least 55 operators world-wide.
Even Microsoft since Windows 10 supports RCS in the Your Phone app, so if you’re using a Windows desktop or laptop, even it supports RCS.
No, which Apple would have to integrate into iMessage.
Until all phones use the same protocols in their stock messages app
Literally the point. Everyone is waiting for Apple, EU is considering forcing them (again.)
Stupid question, but does imessage allow you to record messages, post videos, pictures, gifs, attach files, hold polls, start groups, etc?
Or is it still mainly an sms based thing?
Yes it does
While other commenters are correct about the marketing in some aspects. As a parent of teenagers I will say if they don’t have an iPhone they will be mocked relentlessly. The whole bubble color thing is real. They think androids are for poor people even though androids have a much larger range of price. This isn’t a “my kids” thing. This is a “everyone in school thinks” thing.
God help me when they get their next upgrade and suddenly my chargers start going missing because “someone stole” theirs…
this is the same excuse i hear for people circumcising their kids.
are us people so weak to peer pressure?
What’s the carrier situation like in the EU? Do they market the iPhone aggressively in Europe? I’d suspect both of those may have some influence on the difference, but I’m as interested as you in what’s affecting the differences in adoption between both regions.
RCS has failed to take over the market, creating a strong preference for iMessage. Additionally, iPhones just work. The curated App Store means far less malware and buggy crap apps. Pile on the social aspects and few people under 25 are going for iPhones.
I don’t know what RCS even is.
We all just use Whatsapp here, both on iPhone and Android. If you bought an iPhone for some reason and tried to text people through iMessage you’d get laughed out of the room.
Also, holy crap, how long has it been since you looked at the Play Store? Is that narrative about Android still running in the US? I legitimately hadn’t heard that one in years.
It’s gotten better over the years, but the stats don’t lie. Play Store has higher incidence of shady apps or outright malware. Some of this is due to their policies, some of it because of how Android apps work. And I work in information security, so I’m quite familiar with the state of things. RCS was proposed as a replacement for SMS, to correct some deficiencies and modernize it overall. In the US, it ended up getting fragmented due to carrier differences and Google tacking on patents and licensing encumbrances that harmed adoption. In the EU yeah, everyone just uses 3rd party platforms, so it’s not a problem there.
The ecosystem is very different and there’s definitely a more open platform on Google’s side still, but the perception that Play is catching up to the iPhone App Store has not been a thing around here for ages. I mean, discovery is borked across the board on both at this point, and breaking out with new content through placement is a nonstarter.
And hell no, nobody uses “third party platforms”. They use the Play Store. Nobody is in Samsung or Amazon’s weirdo alternatives. Those are not a thing, except for the five apps Samsung insists on making you update that way for some reason. It’s Play or nothing. If you’re developing phone apps and you’re not on the Play Store you’re dead. I haven’t spoken to a mobile developer that was targeting anything but the App Story and the Play Store… ever.
I thought I knew how that worked in the US, but maybe you’re talking about something different here.
3rd party platforms as in messaging services, not apps stores.
Ah, got it. I thought you were still talking about the Play Store there. It’s telling that I didn’t even categorize Whatsapp that way instinctively, though.
I think maybe because I also don’t think of SMS as a “first party” thing, since it’s a pre-existing standard, not an Apple or Google thing at all. In my mind SMS is a public service thing, like AM radio, and messaging is a completely different application.
It probably shows how successfully Apple appropriated it in the US, which I admit I keep forgetting.
A natural consequence of more flexibility and openness is the potential for abuse. That’s not a bad thing mind you. Imagine if Android was as locked down as iOS, it’d be horrible for everyone. As for which is better, eh, opinions and preferences. If the world’s largest search provider could fix the searchability (lol) of their app store it would be great. Apple has a similar issue. If you’re in their App Spotlight you’ve going to see huge amounts of traffic to your app, but for everyone else it’s chopped liver. On the topic of third party, I wonder if more repos in the style of F-Droid would help. Apple is getting force fed third-party apps next year in the EU, and I’m looking forward to the benefits.
Yeah, for sure. I was thinking less of the existence of abuse and more on the narrative of abuse. Apple had some success early on presenting itself as the only place to do serious business on mobile development because the Android alternative was a wild west of malware where you couldn’t monetize or discover at all.
That narrative faded and now the perception of Android is probably closer to Windows on PC than to old Android. Yes, you can run wild, but by and large the commercial ecosystem is safe, secure and as business-friendly as the postapocalyptic tardocapitalist wasteland of mobile development gets these days, I suppose.
I am very curious to see what happens with sideloading on Apple, too. I’m guessing as little as possible, if Apple can get away with it.
You sound like every cringe teenager worried about the status of blue or green messages. Cringe bro. Just absolutely cringe.
Frankly I don’t care. I use a mixture of both ecosystems. I’m not going to deny reality either and pretend that the average American in their target demographics doesn’t. I find it disappointing that as soon as anyone points out something someone else doesn’t like others go straight to attacking the person and not the point. The real cringe is taking the sides of companies that don’t care about you beyond the revenue you bring them.
ecosystem
.,_.
but no revanced
That doesn’t explain the difference in market share. Seems like there are cultural differences.
It might be, and given the States’ rather unique culture I have a feeling it’s a big contributor other factors notwithstanding.
Additionally, iPhones just work.
just like any android phone…
A lot of it is due to peer pressure, marketing, and such.
I’m not from the US, but I knew people, who berated Android for having lower-end models (which meant even their flagship models are lower-end), some models still having headphone jacks (one of them screamed at me for buying a wired mouse, thus not insentivizing manufacturers to develop even better wireless technologies, thus enabling him to have a wireless audio interface and a portless Macbook (would be super elegant)), etc.
There’s also Apple’s massive foothold in the education market. I guess kids using iPads are more likely to stay with other Apple devices in the future.
Apple may have a monopoly on teens in the US, but the fact that most android phones are cheaper, more powerful, more customisable and look better, will keep Google in the top spot with android.
Also, and I realise this is anecdotal, but where I’m from in the UK, having an iPhone stands you out as a bit of a dullard. Wasted money and all that.
They think if they text a person whos on android, their iphone will get AIDS or something.
If the US had a functioning FCC that wasn’t toothless aka their own Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition, and Digital Markets Act, iMessage wouldn’t even be a special.
When Jobs kicked the bucket, RMS rightfully said that this mf’n evil genius has figured out a way of making people run to their stores with their arms stretched forward, asking them to handcuff them.
RMS saying something true yet completely tasteless, truly iconic
Here’s the original wording, if anyone’s interested interested
- shiveyarbles ( @shiveyarbles@beehaw.org ) 5•8 months ago
My son is jelly because he has a hand me down iPhone, and I showed him my wallpaper engine on android.
I’m assuming that stat is for the US because here Apple’s stuff is very much in the minority with every group.
Around 90% sounds like absolute bullshit numbers.
am u.s. teenager ._.
I honestly think that is only a thing in the USA. Nowhere else in the world thinks like this. Also the type of bullying and even school shootings that we see and hear are mostly only-USA issues so I think there is something really wrong with teens over there.