[HN Gopher] 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an i...
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87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be
their next phone
Author : nudpiedo
Score : 194 points
Date : 2022-10-12 20:50 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pipersandler.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pipersandler.com)
| rsync wrote:
| My two oldest children - 13 and 15 - have _loudly_ proclaimed
| that having a "green bubble" would be _worse than death_.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| I had hoped the younger generations would move away from being
| complicit in manufactured corporate status schemes, as a kind
| of rebellion against the terminally online & connected older
| generations. Sad to hear they're more compliant with these
| schemes than any other generation. Hopefully the next
| generation will rebel.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Let's not forget that on the original iPhone, all the bubbles
| were green because it only had sms. When iMessage came to the
| iPhone, Apple didn't intend to rule the world with blue
| bubbles, blue was just an indication that you were talking to
| one of the few other iPhone users.
| unicornmama wrote:
| Or an indication that I wasn't being f*cked by insane SMS
| fees.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| I definitely think part of it was to make those iMessages
| more visually appealing. I don't think they knew how well it
| was going to work, but to some degree I do think this is what
| they were going for.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| I mean it's possible, but the messages icon on the iPhone
| is a green bubble itself. So are the phone and Facetime
| icons. I think Apple actually liked Green! They uses it on
| the most important apps on the phone.
| flutas wrote:
| > When iMessage came to the iPhone, Apple didn't intend to
| rule the world with blue bubbles, blue was just an indication
| that you were talking to one of the few other iPhone users.
|
| While I want to agree with that statement, Apple really makes
| it obvious that they try to make SMS suck compared to
| iMessage.
|
| The biggest glaring example is the green and blue shown in
| their messaging app.
|
| Their design guidelines _literally_ for iMessage for
| businesses say contrast of text to background should be 4.5:1
| or higher[0], but to target 7:1. Now what do their text
| bubbles comes out to?
|
| iMessage(#FFFFFF/#4389F7): 3.4:1
|
| SMS (#FFF/#68CD68): 1.99:1
|
| [0]: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-
| guideline...
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Someone did a blog post about that, but it was actually
| misinformation (literally).
|
| The Contrast between Green and Blue is actually _roughly
| identical_ , it's just that both colors fade upward as time
| passes. So, the author picked a green bubble from higher up
| (which had faded), and a blue bubble from the bottom (which
| was fresh and dark), thereby comparing Apples and Oranges.
| Both have similar contrast when freshly sent and arrived,
| and similar faded contrast.
| flutas wrote:
| > Someone did a blog post about that, but it was actually
| misinformation (literally).
|
| > The Contrast between Green and Blue is actually roughly
| identical, it's just that both colors fade upward as time
| passes. So, the author picked a green bubble from higher
| up (which had faded), and a blue bubble from the bottom
| (which was fresh and dark), thereby comparing Apples and
| Oranges. Both have similar contrast when freshly sent and
| arrived, and similar faded contrast.
|
| You wanna check yourself? Because I pulled screenshots
| from my phone and tested this myself before I even posted
| that first comment.
|
| I'll even go back and verify with the _best case_
| scenario that you stated of the color the very bottom
| pixel of a bubble at the very bottom of the screen (not
| counting the border).
|
| SMS: #64C265 (100, 194, 101) or 2.2:1
|
| iMessage: #377CEE (57, 128, 245) or 3.97:1
|
| Heres the screenshots as well if you want to check:
| https://imgur.com/a/5nYhBSw
|
| Why not even do the simplest thing of verifying before
| you try to claim "mIsInFoRmAtIoN".
|
| EDIT: Re-reading this it has hostility in it, which I'm
| sorry for and apologize for. I am simply tired of people
| claiming "misinformation" on a topic while not even
| bothering to check the claim or to even try to backup
| what they claim themselves. I specifically went out of my
| way to check this, and include the exact color values.
| Only to be replied to with "well someone said XYZ" with
| no links, supporting information, or even an attempt at
| proving what they claimed.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| I would be so much ashamed by the education I would have
| provided to such kids, I would never tell this in public.
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| Is this a new thing? And if so, given that iPhone have been
| around so long why is this new?
| lemcoe9 wrote:
| It is definitely not new, at all.
|
| Source: I am in my mid-20's.
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| Do people on androids in the US actually use SMS?
|
| My experience in the UK and France is WhatsApp/telegram have
| basically 100% penetration and SMS is only used by businesses
| and 2fa
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Same here in Spain. I have not communicated over SMS with a
| real person for 5 years or so. Only thing I get is MFA and
| spam crap.
| recursive wrote:
| Yes. I've never used whatsapp or telegram. I use SMS weekly
| or daily.
| dariosalvi78 wrote:
| iMessage is a very US thing
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| ... a very US thing for people with iPhones. Which exist in
| a ratio of about 9:1 vs Android users, apparently.
| kornhole wrote:
| Everybody should just install Signal and be done with this
| nonsense. Teach children that when they use Imessages, Apple
| can intercept them. This is not a complete endorsement for
| Signal as decentralized E2EE protocols are better for other
| reasons, but Signal is the easiest for people to adopt.
| danielodievich wrote:
| My two high scoolers are produ members of Android generation
| and apparently dong give a damn as long as they get to play
| games and chat on discord and text with girls. I am going to
| count that as a win against the industrial marketing complex.
| smcleod wrote:
| You think giving them phones from an Ad company is a win
| /against/ the marketing industry?
| danielodievich wrote:
| Ahhh I see what you did there. No, totally, it is either
| succumb to apples marketing or support Google ad monopoly.
| I did try to give them the HTC windows phones that I had in
| reserve but there was a limit to their understanding...
| digitallyfree wrote:
| I'd call it a win if you get them into rooting and custom
| distros like Lineage (which might give them a better
| overall appreciation of how tech works, encourage them to
| tinker, etc.)
| smcleod wrote:
| Maybe... It's better than using Google/Samsung/whatever
| build of Android sure - but it's still feeding the google
| machine which is not a good thing. We need completely
| 'de-enterprised' Linux/BSD options.
|
| *Edit
| belkarx wrote:
| With big-tech algorithms working against that, weakening
| their minds so they just accept the easy, clean route of
| what is put in front of them /s ... good luck :-)
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| They would rather be dead than be uncool! Yikes.
| [deleted]
| autoexec wrote:
| Generalizing here, but that sounds exactly like teenagers. No
| perspective, and under way too much pressure to conform.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| And, on rare occasions, prone to hyperbole.
| collegeburner wrote:
| it's not "pressure to conform" it's that you will end up
| gradually pushed out of friend gcs especially. it's not
| always intentional but there is 100% a certain amount of
| social isolation that usually results.
|
| (p.s. this is actually a bit better than it used to be,
| everyone's a lot more comfortable doing a snap gc because
| it has most of the same features and the UX isn't dogshit
| like a mixed gc vs imessage.)
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| I was a profoundly uncool teenager and enjoyed life quite a
| bit. Buck the trend.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| As a contrapuntal anecdata, I was profoundly uncool from
| primary[1] through teenage years[2][3] and was miserable
| for almost all of it.
|
| [1] Parental unit is a teacher at the same school? Yeah,
| your life will be miserable.
|
| [2] Come from a different part of the area? You must be
| [insert various insults here] for 5 years.
|
| [3] Scholarship kid at a private school? Good luck with
| that.
| collegeburner wrote:
| from someone who is not too long outside of high school and
| so maybe remembers this better:
|
| imessage is specifically impactful because it doesn't exclude
| from individual communication as much as groups. you can
| still talk to your friends just fine but i remember being
| left off group texts because the experience is otherwise just
| so bad. can't add people can't react to stuff whatever.
|
| what usually happens is there ends up being a second gc: 1 is
| ostensibly the "main one" with everyone in it and the
| unofficial second is with just blue bubbles. but
| communication usually ends up in the blue bubble one.
|
| i will add it's not nearly so bad now, most people just do a
| snap gc but that wasn't the case e.g. 6 years ago.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| A lot of teenagers would rather be dead than uncool.
|
| One day, someone will figure out how to become a "blue
| bubble" with an android, and that person will make a lot of
| money.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > A lot of teenagers would rather be dead than uncool.
|
| and the more we push this culture-magnified story about
| teenagers, the more this will might approach actually being
| true. An awful lot of teenagers would much rather be uncool
| than dead, actually like their parents, don't find school
| terrible and so on. But for some reason, our culture has
| been spinning a yarn about them for decades now that both
| stands in opposition to the truth, and has simultaneously
| reshaped it.
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| I'm sorry, but no they won't. They will make a small amount
| of money, and then will be sued into the ground by Apple if
| they ignore the mountain of cease and desist warnings they
| will get.
|
| There have been a few attempts to make a cross-platform
| iMessage client (see: https://bluebubbles.app/), and they
| all require either genuine Mac hardware, or a virtual
| machine with spoofed serial numbers.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| There already is a way but it does require an apple Mac or
| virtual machine:
|
| https://matrix.org/docs/projects/bridge/mautrix-imessage
|
| I use matrix bridges for all my chats (to Whatsapp,
| telegram and signal) so I could add iMessage too. But I
| don't have anyone in my friends or family that wants to use
| it.
| agumonkey wrote:
| What astonishes me is how the mind of teens just cannot
| palpate the world they live in. Not to plagiarize Louis CK
| but even with an android flagship in their hands at 14, being
| cast away due to strange techno/market forces is enough to
| forget everything and suffer.
|
| in 2050 kids will storm out because their pocket nuclear
| fusor isn't the trendiest. 'thanks moooom'
| kazinator wrote:
| Since the green bubbles are an Apple issue appearing on Apple
| phones, the way you avoid them is by avoiding Apple phones.
| kornhole wrote:
| This gives me an idea for my Halloween costume this year. I am
| going to be a green bubble. I am actually proud to be one
| anyway.
| tomrod wrote:
| Same with mine!
|
| Sounds unbearable. I hope they survive to adulthood as a green
| bubble.
| m348e912 wrote:
| (iPhone user here) It does seem to me that Apple isn't playing
| fair and this is no longer the technical issue it once was.
| Apple has so far refused to adopt RCS (the successor to SMS and
| MMS) which is now an industry standard for text messaging.
| Because of that, aside from the green bubble, the text
| messaging experience with non-iPhone users is subpar. Images
| and videos are compressed and things like tapback and group
| texts just stink.
|
| https://www.android.com/get-the-message/
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I don't want RCS. Keep iMessage for people and very very
| limited businesses please.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/04/google-disables-rcs-ads-
| in...
| dalyons wrote:
| RCS is awful. It's an out-of-date, encumbered "standard" with
| poor global commonality in adoption. It exists for one reason
| only - because US carriers wanted some way to keep charging
| per message like their old sms cash cow, instead of being
| reduced to just proving dumb internet piping. Despite that,
| the carriers couldnt even agree amongst themselves on the
| "standard" RCS features to deploy for 10 years or so, until
| google co-opted the effort for their own goals semi-recently.
| Let it die.
| kcb wrote:
| US carries haven't charged per message in like a decade.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| No but when RCS was invented they still did because they
| hadn't lost the war with messaging apps yet.
| Aloha wrote:
| Show me an RSC server run by a carrier and I'd believe it.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| Lol RCS a standard. Because Google says so, just as with so-
| called "web standards"? In the real world, people use
| WhatsApp, SnapChat, Insta, Telegram, Signal, and, in fact,
| iMessage and SMS/MMS.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| They have no incentive to adopt some external standard if 4
| out of 5 teens will be adopting their platform in the not-
| too-distant future.
| JPKab wrote:
| They do this on purpose. They know from focus groups this
| encourages lock-in.
| atonse wrote:
| RCS is not end-to-end encrypted. (But neither is SMS, I get
| it).
|
| The fact that they're pushing a protocol in 2022 that has
| state-of-the-art design for fifteen years ago, is
| disingenuous, and is emblematic of all the chefs that have
| their hand in the pot with the Android ecosystem.
| deadmutex wrote:
| > RCS is not end-to-end encrypted.
|
| While this may be some technicality in a spec, the reality
| is that all the people I know using Android are enjoying
| end-to-end 1:1 encrypted conversations using Google
| Messages. Group messages were announced to get e2e
| encryption soon.
| codemac wrote:
| > RCS is not end-to-end encrypted
|
| RCS uses TLS, which is about as good as iMessage if you
| turn on iCloud Backups[0], as they just copy your private
| keys.
|
| [0]: https://support.apple.com/guide/security/security-of-
| icloud-...
| mtgx wrote:
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Why would apple give up this advantage?
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Given the iPhone's marketshare, is it RCS really the industry
| standard?
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| Does the iPhone have a standard that other phones could
| adopt? Ie is your argument that Apple has been pushing an
| alternate standard, but Google is rejecting it? If so what
| is it?
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I could argue the industry standard for interoperable
| messaging is still MMS. Because Apple.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Android is ~72% of the global market:
| https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile
|
| So, yes.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| The month-day-year format is the standard for 4.23% of
| the global population, but it's the default in most IT
| systems, including every globally-deployed cloud system I
| have ever used.
|
| What's your point?
| yakak wrote:
| You only need 15.6% of a market to claim there are no
| standards?
| bena wrote:
| Given the source of the claim, are you surprised by the
| claim?
| flutas wrote:
| > Given the iPhone's marketshare, is it RCS really the
| industry standard?
|
| It's funny to me seeing this statement, as half of the
| people out there push it the other way when discussing App
| Stores. "Well iPhone isn't a monopoly world wide."
| autoexec wrote:
| Iphone users on android devices are also subpar. When you
| "like" a text or whatever those interactions can get sent as
| a new text. One iphone user in a group text can spam the
| entire group with a flood of pointless interactions.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That was fixed last year.
| https://www.androidpolice.com/google-messages-might-soon-
| han...
| autoexec wrote:
| That's only if you're using google's SMS app. Many phones
| ship with something else (like Samsung's) as the default.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| No reason Samsung can't do the same.
| recursive wrote:
| Doesn't really matter whether they _could_ do the same if
| they don 't.
| deadmutex wrote:
| Samsung has started to ship Google Messages as the
| default:
|
| https://9to5google.com/2022/02/14/google-messages-
| samsung-ga...
| recursive wrote:
| That finally explains why I saw so many articles about
| how "Google fixed iphone responses on Android", but I
| never saw any evidence for it on mine.
| sneak wrote:
| RCS is less of an industry standard than iMessage.
|
| Apple built something better. So did Google. Then Google
| killed theirs. Then they did the same thing three more times.
|
| It's no wonder nobody wants to use Google messaging, and that
| Google resorts to smear campaigns. People would rather use
| WhatsApp spyware from FB/Meta or totally unencrypted
| Discord/Slack than bother with another Google IM product
| (which, let's be clear, is 100% what RCS is).
|
| PS: Apple preserves a backdoor in the end to end crypto of
| iMessage for government surveillance that allows Apple to
| read all iMessages. iMessage isn't good either.
| macintux wrote:
| > PS: Apple preserves a backdoor in the end to end crypto
| of iMessage for government surveillance that allows Apple
| to read all iMessages.
|
| That's configurable. By default a user can access them from
| other devices, but that feature can be disabled.
| sneak wrote:
| It's on by default, so everyone you iMessage with has it
| on, and is sending your plaintext to Apple in the
| unencrypted iCloud Backup.
|
| Your turning it off has no effect. Most messages are
| backed up twice.
| LocalPCGuy wrote:
| It's (iMessage) not a standard if it isn't open for
| adoption by anyone else.
|
| It doesn't matter how much better it is, if the only way to
| use it is via Apple hardware. It's their prerogative to do
| that, and it makes good business sense assuming it doesn't
| bring them monopoly problems (and IMO it probably shouldn't
| due to the aforementioned stats re: worldwide usage at 27%,
| and even US usage is only at 55%).
|
| But it in no way is a standard. It's just a proprietary
| piece of software. So literally any other standard proposal
| is "more of a standard" than iMessage.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Naive question here. What's the encryption story here with
| RCS?
|
| What I like about iMessage is that I _feel_ its relatively
| secure. Given the choice of trusting Apple vs a Frankenstein
| arrangement between Android and the various carriers, I 'm
| inclined to go with Apple, unfair practices aside.
| [deleted]
| Jtsummers wrote:
| RCS with _Google 's_ implementation allows e2ee for two
| party conversations (finally, as of last year). It doesn't
| do e2ee for group chats, and other implementations don't
| provide e2ee.
| jsight wrote:
| Apple is the new Microsoft.
| atonse wrote:
| I love the idea that somewhere, there are a bunch of high-
| priced antitrust lawyers having multi-hour serious discussions
| and debates about green and blue bubbles.
| zuppy wrote:
| and what would those lawyers do? green just means sms. if you
| disable iMessage you should get that on iPhones too. there
| has to be a way to differentiate the method of sending texts,
| as they may incur some costs in some markets.
| bloppe wrote:
| It's about as anti-competitive as you can get. Even putting
| aside the shortcomings of SMS, simply putting bright white text
| on an acid green background is visually nauseating. Why would a
| company that cares so much about aesthetic make this
| deliberately terrible visual design choice? If iPhone had a
| market share below 50%, this would be a terrible business
| decision. Turns out, since they have a very high market share,
| it's an excellent business decision.
| davidguetta wrote:
| Maybe you should start by not being a bitc* to your two
| children
| [deleted]
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Who tf uses imessage? Its all whatsapp, telegram or fb
| messenger or discord here. Sweden. SMS is not used. Only for...
| passwords, spam and reminders for packages.
| goblinux wrote:
| 87% of american teens
|
| imessage/sms/texting is king in the US
| rejectfinite wrote:
| How sad.
|
| Its gonna come here too. And probably is here already but I
| am an out of touch old man. We love to ape america and all
| the kids wanna be in eupohria on hbo.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| We like to fingerwag at social media companies for knowingly
| negatively impacting children's mental health and self-esteem,
| yet Apple is aware of how their systems ostracize children, in
| their own peer groups, who can't afford to carry around luxury
| phones.
|
| It's one thing to be ostracized by strangers on social media,
| it's an entirely other thing to be ostracized by your own
| friends and peers. The latter is tragically more personal and
| leaks into the real world with real world consequences.
| vlunkr wrote:
| It would be great if the general population would switch to
| another messaging app (or better yet a protocol that multiple
| clients support). I get the sense that this is how WhatsApp
| is used in other countries. It feels like a real regression
| to be using SMS based messaging in 2022. Seems like iMessage
| succeeds only by sheer numbers and ignorance of the general
| population.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| This is indeed how WA is being used.
|
| I have few friends with iphones here in Spain and of those
| all of them use WhatsApp. Not sure if they use iMessage
| with other Apple users but nobody ever uses it to SMS me
| (and if they did I would tell them to use something secure)
|
| The main messaging apps in use here are WhatsApp (#1 by
| far), Telegram (used a lot for groups) and sometimes
| signal.
|
| I've never had a friend suggest something else like Google,
| iMessage or Facebook/Instagram. I'm not on any of those
| anyway (even though I have an Android phone I don't use a
| Google account with it).
| feet wrote:
| There are a lot of things that succeed due to the ignorance
| of the population
| xcrunner529 wrote:
| Yes. WhatsApp is a hideous and bloated app and there are
| far better solutions.
| sho_hn wrote:
| Messaging is pretty fascinating. WhatsApp, KakaoTalk,
| WeChat, Line, Telegram, iMessage all so strongly dominate
| their respective set of countries/regions and a lot of them
| have their own distinct set of user mannerisms/memes.
| eitland wrote:
| Telegram has existed for a good number of years and despite
| all the hate from HN is the Ukrainians (and Russians)
| preferred way to share news (not military secrets,
| obviously).
| Maursault wrote:
| > Apple is aware of how their systems ostracize children, in
| their own peer groups, who can't afford to carry around
| luxury phones.
|
| Tell me about it. Audi, BMW, Ferrari and Lamborghini have
| been ostracizing me, and so have all the gas stations around
| where I live! Not only that, but Microsoft, developers of pro
| software, movie theaters, restaurants, travel agents, lawyers
| and hookers! The nerve of them all to exclude me from their
| products and services simply because I can't afford them.
| It's very cruel and so arbitrary.
| sho_hn wrote:
| I think people here take issue with the walled garden model
| of an intra-device comm protocol, not the price point or
| desirability of iPhones. The comparison to luxury cars is
| especially crude because it's an industry far more tightly
| regulated to the benefit of customers than any section of
| consumer electronics.
| Maursault wrote:
| > I think people here take issue with the walled garden
| model of an intra-device comm protocol, not the price
| point
|
| GGP specified ostracizing by Apple of those "who can't
| afford to carry around luxury phones." Now you are
| suggesting that Apple excludes communication from non-
| Apple customers by using an "intra-device comm protocol,"
| which I believe most refer to as iMessage. I'm pretty
| sure it was conceived to save the user from paying for
| SMS and MMS, or at least being a relief to use of those
| for-pay protocols, and the dreaded "green bubble" merely
| an indicator that the cell provider may be charging for
| it.
|
| The idea of competing for space here seems to be very
| popular, and there are many alternatives, such as
| WhatsApp, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, Kik, Signal, and
| many others. I just had the strongest sensation of deja
| vu, no, yes... something... do you at all remember IRC,
| IRQ, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Jabber, MSN Messenger, Google
| Talk? I don't recall anyone complaining about iChat or
| any of the other services mentioned for being exclusive,
| which they all are.
|
| Are you sure the grievance is legitimate? Where were the
| complaints before with the legacy chat apps? What makes
| Apple deserving of special scrutiny while every other
| message service with similar exclusivity is doing nothing
| wrong?
|
| I also don't see how Apple is responsible for
| narcissistic parents raising bullies and shitheads.
| Innocent kids being ostracized really could be, and I
| think really is, the responsibility of bad parents.
| sho_hn wrote:
| Let's put it this way: I am largely on board with your
| line of reasoning, in so much that you're forcing people
| to make up their mind on what they're really upset about
| and what the root problems are. :-)
|
| For myself and my own grievances, I'm not a fan of comm
| protocols that don't allow an open market of clients and
| servers to exist and to interoperate. I much prefer using
| the ones that do, and so I do a lot of my group chatting
| on Matrix in the social spaces where I can. The "green
| bubble effect" and who gets to control it adds another to
| my list of reasons to want the more open systems to be
| well-made and prosper, although it's not a primary
| driver.
| Maursault wrote:
| I think you have a nice intentionally harmless approach
| to this, but I'm still not sure how iMessage is exclusive
| of other protocols rather than conveniently saving the
| users from cell providers' charges for SMS and MMS when
| possible. iMessage still supports SMS and MMS, and it
| only prioritizes its iMessage protocol when messaging
| other Apple device users. I don't use iMessage and never
| have, but my understanding is it communicates to Android
| users, other smartphones and even dumbphones though the
| cell providers' SMS and MMS services. Seems like the only
| ones that should have any complaint here are cell
| providers for being undermined and cut out of their
| instant messaging revenues.
| sho_hn wrote:
| My take here is that if iMessage is truly a Better Tool,
| I'd be great if it was available on any computer that
| fulfills the hardware requirements to participate. For
| example, Apple could release an iMessage app for Android
| (and if they priced it fairly, this would still be
| cheaper than an iPhone, yet still turn them a profit). Or
| release specs so others can do so.
|
| Do I think they should be or should feel obligated to do
| so? I'm not sure. I think society is having a debate
| about whether modern communication networks have "public
| infrastructure"-type characteristics and need to be
| regulated more in general, and this is probably also a
| question on that spectrum to a degree. Let's say I
| wouldn't be surprised if one day we come to the
| conclusion that the answer is yes and a larger
| functionality scope for what is considered basic
| interoperability is important to us, but there are also
| some good arguments against it.
|
| Another angle to approach it from is the spectrum of
| arguments pro and con of bundling/unbundling of hardware
| and software/services. Governments which run
| environmental certification/badging schemes for example
| are increasingly expanding them to apply to software and
| considering or enacting rules that are decidedly against
| bundling. The reason is that it tends to cause more
| frequent hardware replacements to stay compatible with
| SW/services and therefore a larger energy/carbon
| footprint - unbundling allows legacy HW to keep going
| longer on average. A project along these lines I was
| tangentially involved with myself was the research to
| expand Germany's "Blauer Engel" label to software.
|
| What guides my thinking here is a bit overboard and
| flowery again, and also personal. As a software engineer
| and teenager myself I cut my teeth on making and
| maintaining one of the better-known IRC clients at the
| time; this was my first project that really had other
| users project part of their lives into it, hours at a
| time. For me it was quite powerful when I realized that I
| knew people who had met using my chat software and later
| gotten married and started families. It solidified my
| view of the engineer as a supportive toolmaker for others
| to better live their lives and build civilization. The
| modern day equivalent to the people who conceived of and
| made the flint tools others would use to start the fires
| to tell stories around. Comm tools being broadly
| available and interoperable and their social effects are
| stuff close to my heart, and stories of folks suffering
| from lack of access that isn't due to real technical
| barriers just aren't great, even knowing the complex
| economics driving the situation.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I just got a backup iPhone SE for $430. It's fantastic. Same
| chip as recent iPhones. Very decent camera. Better battery
| life than my 13 pro. Actually fits in pocket. More fun to
| play games with one-handed. Easily will last 5 years with a
| case. Not a luxury device, but pretty competitive with what a
| lot of young people in even middle-income countries would pay
| for phones.
| iamthirsty wrote:
| With the SE (and regular 13 & 14) having not-that-great 60
| Hrz displays, I could never switch from my 13 Pro to
| anything else but a 14 Pro (that's why my second phone is a
| Pixel 6 Pro [or sometimes a OnePlus 10 Pro], as 120 Hrz &
| 1440p are requirements for a phone to be in my pocket).
|
| I used to have a SE (2nd Gen), prior to ever experiencing a
| better display, and now I can never go back,
|
| _However_ , if the came out with an SE that did have
| 120&1440p, I would definitely buy.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| You can buy SE 2020's for significantly less, it's just
| that Apple themselves don't sell those in retail (but are
| still producing those and selling in gross).
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| $430 is a lot to some people.
| reiichiroh wrote:
| What about monthly data plans and their recurring costs?
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| That's another uniquely American atrocity.
| garyfirestorm wrote:
| Average yearly income in India 1875$ iPhoneSE for kids -
| 430$ I think it's unobtainable for most of the people
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/802122/india-net-
| nationa...
| Huh1337 wrote:
| They mostly use Android in India. This is about the US.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| iPhone SE in India isn't $430, it's $607 at today's
| exchange rate: https://www.apple.com/in/shop/buy-
| iphone/iphone-se/4.7-inch-... (still, EMI somewhat easily
| available)
|
| 20k-30k for Android phones seems to be the norm there
| according to the advertisements everywhere.
| eternityforest wrote:
| $430 is getting close to luxury phone. And the features on
| remotely affordable iPhones are often below or maybe on par
| with what you used to be able to get from LG for $220
| before they sadly stopped.
|
| The chip only matters for gaming really, cheap Android
| phones have been fast enough for years, and if the price
| difference is similar to a Switch or something then I'd
| rather have a dedicated gaming machine if I was really into
| gaming.
|
| I suppose it also matters for niche stuff like music
| production, but Android does very well at being a generic
| multipurpose device for non-enthusiast tasks, and at being
| cheap enough that you can afford a dedicated device.
|
| The short support period is an issue though.
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| Is it anywhere near a luxury if 88% of teens can afford
| it? The iphone _starts_ at $430 and tops out much higher
| than that, so the ASP is considerably higher.
| bongobingo1 wrote:
| $430 is a lot of money though... and probably a lot for a
| "kids" phone too? You can get previous generation androids
| that aren't total POS for ~$150, like a Moto G 8-9.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Moto G line has models that are $169 new. You can get
| older used models for $60 and a line of service for $20 a
| month. I think people vastly overestimate how much money
| average people actually spend.
| lynndotpy wrote:
| My first smartphone, as a highschooler, was $40 (circle
| 2014). My first "luxury" phone was a $150 Android.
|
| A $430 price tag IS a lot.
| nharada wrote:
| In the US?? It was VERY rare to find a phone that cheap
| in 2014. I had a Nexus 5 in 2014 and it went for $350
| ($437 in 2022 dollars). And that was considered a really
| good deal/budget phone.
| com2kid wrote:
| Pixel 6a was on sale a couple weeks ago for $350.
|
| I haven't ever paid more than $500 for a phone, and even
| that much upset me!
| ido wrote:
| Nexus was a mid/high-end model (google branded), budget
| android phones are usually from chinese manufacturers
| like ZTE.
| foobarian wrote:
| And to top it off the $430 was for a _backup_ phone.
| sho_hn wrote:
| There's a fair number of posts in the thread now pointing
| out that iPhones are not-that-expensive, and all of them
| drive up my own engagement with the plight of the people
| who can't afford one. If you're, say, in a 5% bracket of
| society who can't afford one, it's all the _more awful_ and
| potentially debilitating to have a marker on you that flags
| you as part of the 5%, no?
|
| And at $430 it's still a lot more than 5% in the USA.
| nomel wrote:
| If you think a green bubble is the only thing that will
| mark you for that 5%, that people will judge, you've
| never been, or known anyone, that was poor.
| carabiner wrote:
| iPhones aren't luxury in 2022. They cost no more than Samsung
| and Google models today.
| karamanolev wrote:
| The low end goes way lower with one than the other. And
| that's important for everyone who's not as privileged as
| you and me. And believe me, an iPhone (any brand new unit),
| just as the Pixel or the Galaxy S22 are way unaffordable to
| a huge swath of the population. That being said, the low
| end of Android phones is quite good and quite quite cheap.
|
| It's like saying that there are Lamborghinis that cost as
| much as a Nissan GT-R Nismo. Yes, that may be so (even if
| it isn't in reality). But your Nissan Altima is way more
| affordable to way more people.
| bmitc wrote:
| This seriously concerns me. I'm almost of the opinion that
| teenagers should not have phones for anything other than
| strictly communicating: voice and video calls and messaging.
| But that cat is out of the bag and now we have people growing
| up literally addicted to devices that are very detrimental to
| brain development and intelligence, emotions, socialization,
| etc.
| bink wrote:
| I remember my parents saying that TV was going to rot my
| brain... then video games... before that it was comic
| books. Are there any reputable studies that show having a
| smart phone is detrimental to the health of a teenager?
| I've seen studies suggesting social media has a negative
| influence on the mental health of certain teens, but they
| aren't one and the same.
| nomel wrote:
| I think the difference is that there are fairly
| conclusive studies showing that social media use, for all
| ages, can negatively influences happiness. Studies for
| TV, comics, and games never seemed to be conclusive.
| They're all very different things. An understanding of
| one doesn't give an understanding of another. They each
| deserve their own conclusion.
| mberning wrote:
| You act as if they don't make cheap and relatively accessible
| phones. They do. iphone se is a perfectly good phone that can
| be bought new for $400. Sure it's not at the absolute bottom
| end of the market, but it is fairly accessible when you
| compare it to their flagship phones.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Just because manufacturers have inflated the prices over
| the years that doesn't make $400 cheap.
|
| My current $200 phone is better in every aspect than the
| high end flagship phones not too long ago. With its
| performance and features it's still far from the low end.
| wolongong942 wrote:
| Maybe America is different but to me 400 for a phone isn't
| cheap. If poor people in the US are buying their children
| $400 phones then they can shut up about high living costs.
|
| I'd consider my ~$130 Oppo to be the upper end of cheap
| with NFC and snappy performance.
| filoleg wrote:
| In the current context, "cheap" is used in comparison to
| base configs of flagship smartphone models, such as
| Galaxy S22, Pixel 7 Pro, and iPhone 14. All of which tend
| to go for $700+. And that's not even mentioning the
| luxury models like foldable Galaxy ZFold4 going for
| $1.7k+.
|
| Sure, I wouldn't count a brand new $400 smartphone to be
| the most budget one, but it is almost half the price of a
| flagship. And that's not even getting into the used
| market.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| You can buy a new Android phone for $20. A $400+ phone,
| with a $19 charging cable that is not included, is a luxury
| for many people.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Apple phones also last long enough, barring accidents, that
| if the adults are using iPhones, the kids can probably get
| hand-me-downs that're still usable and receiving updates
| for at least a couple years.
| novok wrote:
| Humans will invent indicators of social status whether you
| like it or not. Get rid of green bubbles and something else
| will rise to take its place.
| nomel wrote:
| They'll just look at what's in each other hands. Or what's
| on their feet. Or what clothes their draped in. All as they
| always have.
| threatofrain wrote:
| What is the difference to Nike providing kids with flashy
| shoes when the _sole_ purpose is class and coolness?
| According to the same report, Nike is the most preferred
| fashion brand among teens.
|
| At least with Apple's message indication you know you're
| getting encryption and thus privacy from carriers. Would it
| be less problematic if Apple simply mentioned "warning: this
| is unencrypted SMS"?
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| Apple is free to open the iMessage ecosystem if they'd like
| to allow Android to send encrypted messages to iPhones as
| well. The truth is that Apple isn't doing this to help
| customers identify unencrypted messages. They are doing
| this for the network effect.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _They are doing this for the network effect._
|
| This is what people in the hate-Apple echo chamber like
| to chant, but it's wrong.
|
| When Apple started doing it, there was no network effect.
|
| The color choice was made years before everyone started
| freaking out about green and blue bubbles.
|
| It was done to show that a message went over SMS, and not
| iMessage at a time when many Americans paid for each SMS
| sent, but iMessages were data, and thus included in data
| plans. Blue=free Green=10C/
|
| It served as a warning that you were spending money. I
| suspect that's why it's green.
| xcrunner529 wrote:
| Before iMessage (yes it existed) all text messages were
| green. Blue denoted iMessage. There was no evil plan from
| Apple like bloggers love to conceive for attention - it's
| merely what was originally chosen and they wanted to
| differentiate iMessage when they released it.
| meragrin_ wrote:
| At what time has data ever been cheaper than SMS? That
| "Blue=free Green=10C/" would likely only have been true
| for people on really crummy plans sending a message while
| connected to Wi-Fi. Data has never been "free". They
| would have had to show iMessage messages as green when
| sent over the phone network.
|
| It was to mark the "plebs" so the "plebs" would be blamed
| for any issues rather than Apple.
| camhart wrote:
| Only reason its not encrypted is because Apple won't allow
| it to be.
| gleenn wrote:
| Citation needed. Is this really true? I keep hearing
| about RCS etc but I also keep hearing it's not actually a
| good standard. Not even sure it does encryption frankly.
| iamthirsty wrote:
| You haven't looked that much into it then; RCS has
| encryption[0], and works great for me. (I have an iPhone
| 13 Pro & a Pixel 6 Pro. RCS works as well as iMessage for
| Android-to-Android devices, for me.)
|
| [0]:
| https://www.gstatic.com/messages/papers/messages_e2ee.pdf
| threatofrain wrote:
| Is that RCS having encryption or is that Google providing
| an extension to RCS only with their Messages app? And to
| what degree does RCS _with_ encryption have buy-in from
| American carriers?
| iamthirsty wrote:
| RCS is an open source protocol that can be run by
| different 'operators'[0]. So it's not so much as an
| extension, as Google's implementation of the protocol
| (which is open source and can be added by other
| operators).
|
| [0]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services
| est31 wrote:
| There is nobody preventing Apple from developing an
| Android app for iMessage. They already have a bunch of
| apps on the play store, including one for Apple TV,
| Beats, and a migration app for iOS.
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Apple
| Retric wrote:
| Apple can't provide the same assurance that an android
| app is secured.
|
| The degree that matters is of course debatable, but it is
| one of their talking points.
| hatsix wrote:
| Apple can't provide assurance that browsers are secured,
| but they allow for iMessage in browsers.
| Retric wrote:
| Last I checked you can't send an iMessage from a windows
| browser only read messages you had personally uploaded to
| iCloud.
|
| Presumably they run security tests on 3rd party Mac
| browsers, it's a major security concern.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Nobody really preventing GM from developing OnStar
| systems for Ford, Toyota, VW, etc. cars, either.
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| RCS (as in: the standardized version) isn't encrypted.
| Google's proprietary extensions to RCS provide the
| encryption layer [1]
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services
| Alupis wrote:
| It's the same old story of perfect being the enemy of
| good (plus clear ulterior motives for Apple).
|
| Adding RCS compatibility would negatively impact
| precisely zero iPhone users, and would positively impact
| literally everyone (including iPhone users!).
|
| RCS may have its warts, but I do not see Apple proposing
| a better standard? Everyone agrees SMS/MMS is about as
| bad as it can be... and there's already a lot of industry
| buy-in outside of Apple for supporting RCS.
|
| Get with the program Apple...
| dwild wrote:
| > What is the difference to Nike providing kids with flashy
| shoes when the sole purpose is class and coolness?
|
| Maybe what Nike is doing is just as bad...
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Because wearing Nike's doesn't visually highlight every
| person's shoes on the basketball court that doesn't have
| Nikes.
| setr wrote:
| Sure they do; that's what the big logo is for
| [deleted]
| nojito wrote:
| Apple phones are cheaper and last longer than Android
| devices.
| JPKab wrote:
| It's a good opportunity to teach your kids about how crappy
| and shallow other kids can be, and also teach them how to
| respond to criticism like this.
|
| 20 years ago, you'd get shit for not wearing the cool kind of
| shoes your peers had.
| robbyking wrote:
| And kids _still_ get shit for not wearing "cool" shoes!
|
| When I was younger I got teased for not having a Starter
| brand fitted hat, and I wasn't even into team sports.
| salt-thrower wrote:
| The shoes thing is definitely still true in some circles.
| It's a valuable lesson to teach, but a very hard one. And
| most people don't internalize it until adulthood. Most
| parents will shrug and just spring for the iphone rather
| than listen to the incessant complaints.
| jmole wrote:
| This is not about brand, this is more like "you can't
| participate as an equal in this virtual communal space".
|
| Having a single android user in a group chat means the
| whole group chat is essentially crippled.
|
| The kids are not being shallow here, Apple is being
| anticompetitive.
| comboy wrote:
| I think most kids understand that. It's just that adults
| reality is way easier - if you don't like some people you
| just don't spend time with them.
|
| For kids, if you are not friends with people you spend 80%
| of your time with, you can't get the same kind of
| friendship elsewhere. The social games they play are way
| more complex than anything they teach them in school.
| Gatsky wrote:
| This is it, if it wasn't the phone it would be something
| else.
| AeroNotix wrote:
| So therefore we let tactics like this slide? It is an
| intentional mechanism to create FOMO and groupthink by a
| corporation.
|
| Just because kids are prone to being led in this way,
| doesn't mean those leading that behaviour get a pass.
| [deleted]
| crazygringo wrote:
| iPhones aren't luxury phones, sheesh.
|
| Their flagships are, sure, but the SE is extremely
| competitive in the US, especially when you consider their
| longevity and support. And then of course there's the used
| market.
|
| I mean, if 87% of teens own an iPhone, then that's very much
| by definition NOT luxury, as luxury is necessarily exclusive
| to some degree.
| password1 wrote:
| > I mean, if 87% of teens own an iPhone, then that's very
| much by definition NOT luxury.
|
| Yeah this is the point. Apple has a strong brand and
| pricing tactics that places itself as a high-end company.
| This branding works really well and Apple is perceived as
| luxury by many people, but the truth is that it creates
| consumer products and there's no luxury in that. If the
| iPhone was a luxury you wouldn't find it everywhere in
| almost all high schools. Luxury doesn't dominate a mass
| market.
|
| Some tech guys seems to think that value comes solely by a
| sort of price/performance ratio. If you can get MORE POWER
| for less money then you are getting ripped off. The rest of
| the price is not justified, you aren't paying for anything
| else so you must be paying a luxury premium. That's really
| a shallow way of analysing apple products. You pay more
| because the following is included: long time support
| (software updated and that continues to work without random
| behavior for 5yrs), really high quality control and higher
| quality components (no things that randomly stop to work
| after one or two years), great customer and tech support
| (yeah, non-tech people actually need it), seamless software
| integration, privacy and security guarantees. There are so
| much more things included in apple devices beside than tech
| specs and people find a lot of value in that.
| alvarezbjm-hn wrote:
| If the situation goes on, the US will go back to the spot
| when ATT was a monopoly for anything telecomms.
|
| Humans never learn.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| You can get a new Android phone for $20. The charging
| cables alone for an iPhone, which don't come with the
| phone, cost $19 each by themselves.
| crazygringo wrote:
| What are you talking about? No you can't.
|
| If you're talking about an unlocked smartphone that you
| can install apps on, there is absolutely no such thing as
| a new Android phone for $20 that any American consumer
| can buy.
|
| The Samsung Galaxy A03s is Samsung's cheapest, it's
| considered "ultra-budget", and it costs $160. The Moto G
| Pure, Motorola's cheapest, is also $160.
|
| (Edit in response to comments: yes if you buy a locked
| phone with a plan you can obviously get it cheaper
| upfront, but you're just dividing the remaining cost
| monthly. It's not actually cheaper. You can also get
| iPhones "for free" upfront if you pay for them on
| installment plans either bundled with a plan or separate
| from one -- so "prices" for locked phones are utterly
| meaningless for comparing the cost of iPhone vs Android.)
| indymike wrote:
| > If you're talking about an unlocked smartphone that you
| can install apps on, there is absolutely no such thing as
| a new Android phone for $20 that any American consumer
| can buy. Or even close to it.
|
| Hardly anyone buys a phone unlocked in the US. Most buy
| carrier locked devices and at the low end, it's mostly
| prepaid. I just bought a Samsung A03 from target that was
| for prepaid carrier Total Wireless for $10. I didn't
| activate it, I just use it for testing a mobile app on a
| lower spec phone.
|
| > The Moto G Pure, Motorola's cheapest, is also $160.
| Right now, you can get a Moto G Pure for $49 from three
| different no-contract pre-paid carriers at Wal-Mart.
| alvarezbjm-hn wrote:
| I am 100% sure parent meant $200, not $20.
|
| Just for the sake of argument, there are brand new
| android go phones in amazon. So, if you need a phone you
| can install apps on, $50-$200 being the base price, you
| can consider $1000 a luxury.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/s?k=android+phone&i=mobile&rh=n%3A
| 707...
| crazygringo wrote:
| Seeing as they were directly comparing a $20 phone with a
| $19 cable implying they were the same price, it seems to
| me like they actually meant $20. ;)
| jacobr1 wrote:
| On the other-hand, plenty of people will buy a locked
| phone direct from a carrier. The Moto G you mentioned
| only costs $35 from tracfone. You can't change carriers,
| but you still can install arbitrary apps.
| [deleted]
| rococode wrote:
| To their credit, you _can_ get pretty close: a prepaid
| TracFone will run Android for $30. It 's not unlocked,
| but it's a real Android system with all the usual bells
| and whistles (and anyways you have to pay for a plan no
| matter what you buy).
|
| https://www.amazon.com/TracFone-View-Prepaid-Smartphone-
| Lock...
| Huh1337 wrote:
| The _original_ cables do. You can buy much cheaper cables
| on Amazon and elsewhere.
| HKH2 wrote:
| Some cheaper Lightning cables don't work properly. Some
| don't work at all.
| sbuk wrote:
| Erm. Every iPhone comes with a lightning cable in the
| box. You can also buy lightning cables from other
| manufacturers for considerably less than $19. Get you
| facts right.
| localhost wrote:
| There is quite a healthy market for used iPhones if you're
| talking about the blue bubble phenomenon.
| robbyking wrote:
| Yeah, my son is entirely too young for a phone right now,
| but my wife and my plan is to just upgrade every few years
| and give him one of our old phones. It wasn't too long ago
| that we did the same thing for our parents.
| AeroNotix wrote:
| It's frankly insane that you think that is the solution to
| this problem.
| alexb_ wrote:
| I don't think you actually understand the problem
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Is the iPhone se really luxury? If you are starting from the
| idea that every teen will have a smart phone, I think apple
| has blanketed the market with products at all the cost
| points.
| retrac wrote:
| A new unlocked iPhone 13 Mini device is $850 in Canada. I
| can buy an unlocked Android smartphone for under $80
| that'll do what I need. Though I splurged and spent just
| under $200 on my last phone. Something that costs 4x as
| much as a decent mid-range model that will meet most
| people's needs is luxury.
|
| Most people do not purchase phones and service plans the
| way I do (separately - I buy an unlocked device up-front
| then use it with my preferred carrier). So they probably
| don't think about it like that. It's just an extra $30 a
| month on their bill for the lease. That really starts to
| add up, though.
| reiichiroh wrote:
| The 128GB Samsung S20FE is $475 CAD today
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Well you're paying for the Samsung brand I guess. There
| are plenty of cheap and usable Android phones.
| LorenDB wrote:
| I own a Moto G Stylus 5G (256 GB) from 2021 that I paid
| $240 USD ($330 CAD) for on Amazon earlier this year.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| > A new
|
| After having owned a what was already considered 'old'
| used iPhone for three years, I finally bought a new
| iPhone, which I expect to use for the next five years.
| bell-cot wrote:
| FWIW - my 5-year-old "original" SE, which was Apple's
| cheapest phone when I bought it, finally stopped
| supporting the new iOS version early this month.
| tuatoru wrote:
| Anything that has 87% of the market is by definition mass-
| market.
|
| Edit: Back in the '90s, PC Magazine had a saying, "the PC
| you want costs $3,000". This figure was fairly stable
| despite the improvement in PCs' performance over the
| decade.
|
| By this standard, and considering that as well as a PC it's
| a phone, a camera, an atlas and an encyclopedia, a TV and a
| music player, the iPhone doesn't seem too much like a
| luxury.
| elif wrote:
| 87% of the children*
|
| I wouldn't call Finding Nemo or it's current equivalent
| mass market even though I have no doubt 87% of children
| have seen <<insert cultural movie I probably am missing
| by a generation or two>>.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| Why not? A "mass-market" paperback book means unit sales
| on the order of 100k/year
|
| What level of market penetration would you expect? I
| would argue that most popular products still have a
| target vertical.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| You don't think finding nemo is mass market?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| You can walk into a prepaid wireless store and grab a new
| Android phone for $20.
| Huh1337 wrote:
| You ever tried that? It's a horrible experience. I love
| Android but you definitely need to spend much more to get
| something out of it. My advice is to get a second hand
| Samsung flagship - I have S9+, that's a great phone you
| can get for $200 - but don't go for anything less, you'll
| be very sorry if you do.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| A $20 Android phone is better than nothing when you're
| already struggling to pay bills and raise children.
| That's the reality many people face.
| Huh1337 wrote:
| No, it's so bad it's better to have nothing for a while,
| save some money and then buy a better phone.
|
| These phones really are so bad. Give it a go. Usually
| it's a horrible mess of Chinese tracking code, shitware
| apps you can't uninstall, and it won't be getting any
| system updates in a year.
|
| Buy an older flagship second hand phone for $20, that's
| going to be _much better_ experience than a new $20 one,
| even if it 's 5+ years old and doesn't look good anymore.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| It is when you need a phone to run apps to do your job or
| for simple things like banking. Talked to a pest control
| guy who works for a large company, and he needs a
| smartphone to do his job. He is quite literally managed
| through an app, needs it to check-in to work, for time
| sheets, find out where the next customer lives etc.
| Someone like that cannot go without a smartphone,
| requirements like that are leaking into low-level service
| and retail jobs, now.
| Huh1337 wrote:
| No, it's not. Never buy a new $20 phone - it's subsidized
| by all that tracking and pre-installed shitware and it
| won't be getting updates soon, if it ever got even one,
| and the hardware is going to be absolutely terrible too.
| Buy a second hand one if $20 is all you can spend.
| hikingsimulator wrote:
| You don't care about bloatware when your first worry is
| whether you can end up homeless or malnourishing your
| kids at the end of the month.
| Huh1337 wrote:
| You do because your phone isn't usable because of it.
| Hard to do work on a phone that barely runs the SMS app.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Your Samsung has more tracking and spyware installed you
| won't be able to uninstall. Never buy a Samsung and
| expect privacy.
| Huh1337 wrote:
| Samsung has unlockable bootloader and good LineageOS
| support. Unheard of with these $20 phones. And even
| without flashing, I'd still rather be tracked by Samsung
| than whatever they put into these $20 ones.
| Conan_Kudo wrote:
| It's pretty luxury nowadays. Decent smartphones go for less
| than half that cost, and good ones can be even cheaper. The
| accessibility and affordability of high quality mobile
| computing devices has risen across the board.
|
| But Apple is very much on the upper mid range to high end
| side of things.
| Gigachad wrote:
| You can get older iPhones for almost free. And they work
| fully with iMessage
| leetrout wrote:
| Locally? Or is there a reputable place online?
| YinLuck- wrote:
| [deleted]
| bombcar wrote:
| Best Buy has some: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/apple-
| pre-owned-iphone-8-64gb-u...
| est31 wrote:
| I've bought an used SE 2 from refurbed, but it's not
| available in the USA. There are competitors which do
| deliver to the USA, e.g. refurb.me:
| https://www.refurb.me/refurbished/iphone/iphone-se-2
|
| It's its own entire market. Generally I would suggest
| looking for bigger companies and ones which have policies
| to replace batteries if they are below a certain health
| level.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > Is the iPhone se really luxury?
|
| If you combine the SE with the local used market, it can
| get extremely inexpensive. I'm currently rocking an SEv2
| that I got for $150.
|
| I'm not saying that $150 is cheap objectively, but in
| relation to Android phones - even used ones - it stands up
| pretty well.
|
| This is especially true since Apple supports phones for so
| long. If you're cost constrained, you can spread the cost
| of a phone over more years than a typical Android phone.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| The SE is so dang small, and I love the 8 Plus's still
| having a home button and fingerprint sensor. I feel stuck
| because I don't want having my face scanned (even if
| Apple says it's not sent to a centralized auth server, it
| creeps me out).
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| But with Android you get much more features for the
| money. All Android phones are bezelless for instance,
| even the cheapest budget phone. The SE still rocks the
| iPhone 8 design from 2017 with all its drawbacks.
|
| Personally I don't use Apple because I have far too many
| things I can't do on it (mostly due to their restrictions
| in the app store, like using open PGP keys over NFC). But
| if I did I'd never consider the SE.
| SxC97 wrote:
| If the discussion is around phone for kids, I think a
| second hand SE is still a great choice. Kids don't really
| care about the features that you or I would care about.
| mojzu wrote:
| The screen size/battery size would probably be larger on
| a price competitive Android phone then the SE, however I
| doubt you'd get as fast a processor/as many years of
| software updates either so it really depends what you
| prefer. I may be biased though having the SE, think I'll
| only bother to upgrade it when Apple finally switches to
| USB-C
| abledon wrote:
| its the only iphone model with a physical front button.
| it will be my replacement come december!
| nordsieck wrote:
| > its the only iphone model with a physical front button.
|
| It's definitely a great feature if you wear a mask often.
| I find I only have trouble with it if my finger is wet.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| I wish Apple would bring back the fingerprint scan. Once
| my iPhone 8 plus bricks they won't sell me a new 8. Face
| scanning is too dystopian and violating for me, but any
| iPhone after 8 requires it. I tried buying the SE to
| resist this practice, but it's designed to be
| intentionally tiny and inconvenient to force us neo-
| Luddites into the current corpo-dystopian era
| [deleted]
| reiichiroh wrote:
| Why is bezelless a "feature" or improvement?
| nordsieck wrote:
| > Why is bezelless a "feature" or improvement?
|
| I mean, it makes the phone smaller for the same screen
| size. That's an improvement for me.
|
| Not enough for me to drop $$$ on an iPhone-mini, but I'd
| be happy if Apple put future SEs into an "iPhone 13 mini"
| body (presumably with a single lens camera).
| munk-a wrote:
| Is there a reason to allow a tech company to arbitrarily
| emphasize ostracization and bullying to increase their
| bottom line?
|
| I know there are common accusations of fan-boyism in both
| directions but I would hope this community can unite in
| calling out Apple over their messenger bullshit. Real
| stakeholders at Apple need to realize how damaging this
| profit optimization is.
| crazygringo wrote:
| But Apple isn't doing any of that.
|
| They invented a ton of new messaging features that SMS
| didn't support, and the phone has to make it clear which
| conversations support those and which don't. So they had
| blue bubbles replace existing green ones.
|
| Ostracization and bullying is what teens do for a
| thousand different reasons over a thousand different
| things. Yes Apple is responsible for creating a walled
| garden of messaging, just like WhatsApp has over most of
| the rest of the world, and basically every other rich
| messaging app is trying to do. It's not like Google Allo
| was trying to be any less walled garden.
|
| But to say Apple is responsible for ostracization and
| bullying is to take the notion of responsibility too far.
| Is Supreme responsible for kids who bully other kids
| because they aren't wearing Supreme...?
| feet wrote:
| Or they could just open iMessage to android...
| [deleted]
| cercatrova wrote:
| I agree with you but it's not damaging to Apple (much the
| opposite) so they'll continue to do it.
| munk-a wrote:
| That is why I'm specifically advocating for us calling
| them out on it - that makes it damaging to them.
| sbuk wrote:
| Here's a crazy idea. Why not fix the problem at the
| source? Address the entitled behaviour of teenagers.
| alvarezbjm-hn wrote:
| What is more difficult to fix?
|
| Humanity (specifically, teens) or
|
| Apple ( the largest technology company by revenue
| (totaling US$365.8 billion in 2021) and, as of June 2022,
| is the world's biggest company by market
| capitalization[0] )
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| You mean the behaviour that ancient civilizations already
| used to complain about? I'd argue changing one UI color
| would be an easier first step.
| munk-a wrote:
| If you want to fix teenage rebellion and cliquishness I
| applaud your efforts. I certainly personally suffered
| from bullying when I was a teenager over my clothes and
| haircut and pretty much every other facet of my person so
| if you can come up with a way for no one to ever endure
| it again I'd celebrate your achievement. Humanity hasn't
| managed to impart real empathy on teenagers in thousands
| of years of existence - we have accounts of rebellious
| teens from Rome so I assume it's not an easy fix.
|
| So, maybe instead of focusing on bullying we can just
| focus on punishing companies that profit from bullying.
| sbuk wrote:
| > So, maybe instead of focusing on bullying we can just
| focus on punishing companies that profit from bullying.
|
| This is an extreme take. Yes bullying is is a consequence
| of society. Don't be lazy and blame someone else for
| _your_ societies ills. _Especially_ when the solution is
| simple: encouraging the use of an alternative. No. RCS
| isn't the alternative. WhatsApp, Line, Telegram, Signal,
| Snapchat, TikTok, Discord etc, etc, etc are all mature,
| are used widely by the rest of the world (where SMS is
| practically free to use as well). The easier solution,
| and much cheaper for _everyone_ is to change behaviour.
| It's extremely naive to think that changing the colour of
| a bubble will stop this sort of bullying.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| The average worldwide cost of a smartphone is ~$300.
|
| Android phones can be bought new in box for $50-$170. The
| iphone SE which is basically last years model starts at
| $429 and comes without the power bring which allows you to
| plug into an outlet which costs an additional $18. That is
| iphones start at a cost more than the majority spend on a
| phone admittedly worldwide but that isn't what I call all
| cost points.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| The Apple website prices only reflect the top end of the
| iPhone market. The iPhone SE 2nd generation is still sold
| new directly from low price/prepaid carriers for under
| half that price (right now $189 on the Tracfone website
| for example, probably even cheaper elsewhere). Compare
| that to new Android phones in the same price range which
| often are loaded with adware/spyware apps that cannot be
| uninstalled, and blocked from all security/software
| updates, the longevity makes an older SE competitive with
| the cheapest 3rd world country android phones in the long
| term, and with performance that exceeds even the highest
| end Android phones because of a better cpu.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > The iphone SE which is basically last years model
|
| The iphone SE is not last year's mode. It's an iPhone 8
| body (including camera) with the current CPU. For
| example, the SEv3 came out this year and has the same CPU
| as the iPhone 13 which came out at the same time.
| est31 wrote:
| Yeah the SE is probably the fastest iphone model there is
| because the CPU is top notch while the screen resolution
| is smaller, so rendering is less complex computationally.
| jl6 wrote:
| On the other hand, this seems like a teachable moment, where
| perhaps kids can be encouraged not to marginalize others
| based on trivial differences in messaging apps. The drumbeat
| of inclusivity is pretty loud these days so it shouldn't come
| as too great a surprise that including their green bubble
| friends would be the decent thing to do.
|
| I don't place much blame on Apple for completely
| stereotypically standard teenage attitudes. If it wasn't
| green bubbles it would be uncool sneakers. The answer is not
| to force interoperability (though that would be great!), but
| for parents to help their kids grow out of these tribalizing
| behaviors.
| XorNot wrote:
| Why is the answer not to force interoperability? This is
| exactly what we should be doing because it's generally good
| for the communications ecosystem and the overall
| marketplace.
|
| It's not an answer to the problem of teenagers having to
| learn decency, but I'm failing to see a downside to taking
| Apple to task on this.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| It's not just a trivial difference in bubble color. SMS
| conversations in iMessage lose features. The social
| rejection is a result of the features lost when an Android
| user participates in a messaging group.
| alvarezbjm-hn wrote:
| The social rejection is a result of teens being teens, as
| pointed out. Adults would use another more inclusive
| tool, like whatsapp, email, discord, rss, etc.
| nomel wrote:
| > SMS conversations in iMessage lose features.
|
| "Lose" makes it sound like they could be found. Are the
| features even possible to implement with SMS?
| redavni wrote:
| Technically yes, Realistically there isn't a need. The
| iMessage feature set has been mostly matched by RCS on
| Android. Apple does not want compatible messaging.
| purpleblue wrote:
| Absolutely absurd statement.
|
| Is this similar to the "trauma" suffered by teens that wore
| Levi's Jeans that didn't have the Red Tab, back in the 80s
| and 90s? To compare a green text bubble to mental health
| issues is offensive.
| blix wrote:
| I'm pretty certain that a lot more interaction occurs
| through phones than through jeans.
|
| As an adult, some of my friends have asked to switch to an
| iphone so they could use imessage features in a group chat.
| It's not hard to imagine being left out of a group for this
| reason. I don't think I've met a girl in my age group who
| has anything other than a negative opinion of "Android
| Users." This stuff doesn't bother me, but I can see how it
| would upset kids.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| I'm ignorant, but what are the features in group chats
| that Android people don't get? The heart/emoticon bubble
| things? I used to do group chats with my last Android
| phone, but now that I have iPhone...I just have too much
| anxiety to open these chats and respond, because I don't
| want to hear the notification sound buzz in triplicate
| over the next hour. I dislike my phone and using it so
| much that it's making me socially isolated.
| gw99 wrote:
| This is quite frankly utter bullshit unless there is a lack
| of parenting going on i.e. you brought your kids up to be
| judgy assholes.
|
| My kids and their friends have a right mix of all sorts of
| phones. They don't even talk about it. They just work out how
| to deal with it. Mostly that results in them picking a common
| platform, usually Discord or Snapchat and using that.
|
| This is not a technology issue!
| tayo42 wrote:
| Can't help but notice the irony of how much judgment is in
| this post
| gw99 wrote:
| That point is recursive...
| janef0421 wrote:
| Fortunately, an iPhone isn't strictly a luxury, as there is
| still a healthy market of second-hand and independently
| refurbished models available at a variety of price points.
| Apple's actions over the last few years threaten to seriously
| undermine this, though.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| What's a "green bubble"?
| [deleted]
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Android users' text message bubbles show up green, and you
| can't send the "tapback" reactions (or rather, they show up
| as a "so and so has liked your post" rather than a thumbs up
| icon). This is annoying for Android users and it's kind of
| tedious for iPhone users to have to vet group chats to see if
| there is a single Android user who might be annoyed.
| Apparently this is factoring into people's phone purchasing
| calculus.
| alphabetting wrote:
| It actually only shows the "so and so has liked your post"
| on Apple devices unless they've changed it recently. In
| Google messages you see the reactions from iphone users as
| they should be shown.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Tapbacks on text messages work on the iPhone side too. I
| just had the occasion to try that a few days ago.
| alphabetting wrote:
| It doesn't say "so and so has liked your post" on Iphone
| when someone has Android in a group chat now?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That's not the permutation I tried, so maybe in group
| chats it still happens that way. But in a 1:1 chat it
| worked fine.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Whoa, that's great to hear. My Android-user friend said
| otherwise, but maybe she was misinformed or I
| misunderstood or something.
| alphabetting wrote:
| Maybe an old version of android but this has what it's
| look like on Google Messages. Think it changed sometime
| in the past year. https://i.imgur.com/GYHMkHy.png
| rajbot wrote:
| All incoming texts, whether sms or iMessage, show up in a
| gray bubble.
|
| Only your own outgoing texts are in a colored bubble
| salt-thrower wrote:
| That's patently incorrect. Incoming texts from my
| Android-user contacts are green bubbles. Incoming texts
| from my iPhone-user contacts are blue. Source: I'm
| looking at my iPhone right now.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I think you should look again. Source: looking at my
| iPhone right now.
| dgritsko wrote:
| The way an SMS message is displayed in iMessage (sent from a
| non-Apple device, as opposed to a "blue bubble" for iMessage-
| to-iMessage messages).
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Yeah, I had to google it too:
|
| _" If you see a green message bubble instead of a blue one,
| then that message was sent using MMS/SMS instead of iMessage.
| There are several reasons for this: The person that you sent
| the message to doesn't have an Apple device. iMessage is
| turned off on your device or on your recipient's device."_
|
| So apparently iPhone users see text messages from us Android
| users in a green bubble instead of a blue one. And apparently
| they've been conditioned to think this is _icky_?
| [deleted]
| mewse wrote:
| Your quoted source has that backward -- messages you've
| received always appear in light grey bubbles, regardless of
| whether they came in via SMS or iMessage.
|
| It's only messages which you *sent* which appear in green
| or blue, to let you know whether each message was sent via
| SMS (which may have incurred a charge from your telco) or
| iMessage (which is free). At least to a casual glance,
| there's nothing on received messages to indicate whether
| they came in via SMS or iMessage.
| chadd wrote:
| it's not color it's functionality. a single non-iOS user
| being added to the group breaks the group texting behavior
| _for the entire group_
| wafriedemann wrote:
| This sound horrible. What a bullying tactic from Apple.
| procinct wrote:
| It more means the group chat will all switch to using SMS
| (to include the non iPhone user) which isn't as feature
| rich as using iMessage. It's not a judgement on someone for
| their phone, it's more that including their phone makes the
| group chat function worse.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| SMS/MMS is icky. Absolutely shit protocol.
| sho_hn wrote:
| In iMessage, which seems to be a thing in the USA (I don't
| know of any other market where it's a dominant messaging
| system), non-iPhone users participating via SMS appear to
| iPhone users with a different (green) background color to
| their message bubbles.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| _Your own_ messages appear in a different color, not
| theirs. At least not on current iOS.
|
| It's so you know that the messages you're sending are going
| over MMS instead of iMessage, so zero features other than
| sending plain text to individual recipients will work well,
| if at all. It's like time traveling back to the late '00s
| with text-chat-groups inexplicably splintering mid-
| conversation, adding new participants screwing everything
| up, and potato-quality photo and video attachments that
| take forever to download and simply fail a good fraction of
| the time.
|
| My friend group solved this by switching to WhatsApp. But
| if we'd all been iPhone users I doubt we'd have bothered,
| because iMessage is at least as good and, if you use some
| of the more-advanced features, much better, provided your
| chats are actually going over iMessage and not MMS.
|
| iMessage is basically exactly the same as having a good
| messaging app just for iPhones plus a necessarily-shitty
| MMS one, except you don't have to switch between them
| because they're combined.
|
| I distinctly recall Google trying to do the exact same
| thing when I was an Android user, must have been over a
| decade ago: on a major OS update, they replaced the texting
| app with some unified MMS/other-messaging-service (who
| could possibly keep track of them all? May have just been
| gchat, at the time) app. I had to "downgrade" to the old
| texting app because the new one was so broken that it was
| unusable. In particular, it lost messages all the time, or
| would switch mid-conversation between MMS and other-
| messaging-protocol, screwing everything up. iMessage is
| nowhere near _that_ bad, at least, even when in "green
| bubble" mode.
| sho_hn wrote:
| > Your own messages appear in a different color, not
| theirs. At least not on current iOS.
|
| Thanks for the correction! I understood that wrong.
|
| But it still ends up drawing attention to non-iPhone
| users if they make the iPhone user's message bubbles go
| green on their ends.
|
| > I distinctly recall Google trying to do the exact same
| thing when I was an Android user, must have been over a
| decade ago
|
| I have the same memory.
| metadat wrote:
| See today's other story:
|
| _One trick Apple uses to make you think green bubbles are
| "gross"_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33176668
| cwkoss wrote:
| Sounds like their attitude may be a good reason to get them
| android phones
| cgearhart wrote:
| Anecdotally, my twins (both 17) have been asking for Android
| phones since they got their first phone at 14. I thought they'd
| be excited to get iPhones because I read reports and stories
| like this, but it doesn't appear to be universal.
| J5892 wrote:
| It's basically social suicide for kids now.
|
| But it's great for people like me, because I'm much less likely
| to be added to a family group text.
| cm2187 wrote:
| what about whatsapp and signal, do kids not use them?
| testermelon wrote:
| I read your comment to my wife and her response was "what is a
| green bubble?".
|
| We are living in Japan and here we only use Discord, WhatsApp,
| and Line for messaging.
| gaudat wrote:
| I think the mobile phone market in Japan is also dominated by
| iPhones now?
| throwaway773748 wrote:
| It's worse than that. At our kids' school, they are required to
| have iPads for their school work. By default then, iMessage
| becomes pretty much the only game in town for them to message
| with their friends. If they want a phone that can also then
| participate in those conversations, iPhone is the only option,
| it's not even a choice. SMS isn't a thing, if you have any
| other phone, your friends with iPads only don't even have a
| phone number to send it to. Something like Discord is really
| the only other option, but that only seems to have any sort of
| mind share with kids who are more than just casual gamers.
| tootie wrote:
| My school district almost went down that road before making
| the much saner decision to buy chromebooks.
| paganel wrote:
| I find it strange how iMessage has become so important (for
| lack of a better word) in the States. I have had to use it for
| the last 2-3 months, as WhatsApp cannot be installed on my not-
| updated older iOS anymore, and I have to say that WhatsApp is
| way better at doing the messaging thing than iMessage.
|
| Granted, I'm in my early 40s and I honestly didn't know that
| there were different "bubble colours" when using iMessage
| (depending on the phones that are part of the conversation,
| that is).
| ghaff wrote:
| Although in the States, most people don't use WhatsApp by
| default unless they regularly text overseas (which most
| don't). I have it installed but there is like one person who
| I very seldom use it with. Another person I use Facebook
| Messenger with. Work folks I often use Google Chat for.
| Everything else is SMS/iMessage and, as a non-teen, I
| absolutely don't care what color the bubble is (unless
| there's some cost implication for international texting).
|
| Text messaging is free for the most part in the US--and most
| people don't care about encryption details--so it's natural
| to just use what's built in.
| [deleted]
| jbverschoor wrote:
| That's probably because feature-wise it is
| 42e6e8c8-f7b8-4 wrote:
| Seems like an opportunity to teach that it is folly to "Keep up
| with the Jones."
|
| Wait till they hear that they can make purchases in other areas
| to "Keep up with the Jones" - fancy cars and McMansions. By
| then they will be fully enslaved to debt, but boy will they
| have that glorious glorious status.
| johndfsgdgdfg wrote:
| Anytime I see anything like that I just laugh at Americans'
| proud proclamation of individualistic culture. My more accurate
| reading of American culture is self-centeredness + validation-
| seeking.
| throwaway292939 wrote:
| This proclamation is likely triggering for the HN audience
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I know the "green vs blue bubbles" gets a lot of press, but as
| someone who is _not_ a teenager, and on the contrary is
| considerably past middle age at this point, that is not the
| real reason iMessage has a stranglehold on users.
|
| I've got an Android, and I recently went on a vacation with a
| group of friends who all had iPhones. I _did_ feel a bit like a
| leper in the group chat we had set up for our vacation, and it
| wasn 't because of green and blue bubbles. Not only was the
| experience pretty broken for me, it essentially broke the
| experience of everyone else. I couldn't do emoji responses,
| which are a huge way folks communicate in group chats these
| days. Videos I received on my phone were essentially
| unwatchable. Videos or images I would send to the group would
| randomly just not show up on some people's phones. At the end
| of the vacation my good friend said flat out (jokingly, but
| still with a point) "Dammit hn_throwaway_99, just get an
| iPhone".
|
| It's the breaking of group chats that makes iMessage the
| lynchpin of Apple's anticompetitive stance here.
| brundolf wrote:
| SMS has always been pretty broken for group chats and
| multimedia. I don't think we can blame Apple for that
|
| We _could_ blame Apple for not making an Android iMessage
| app, though
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Rumor has it that, despite Apple's public claims, one
| reason why is that iMessage is tied to a physical device.
| This helps keeps spam, malware, and banned devices all
| under control. Expanding to Windows and Android by
| definition means that iMessage can no longer have that per-
| device tie, which undermines these controls.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| This is a total bullshit reason. Literally every other
| messaging app, including well regarded secure ones, have
| cross platform versions available.
| filoleg wrote:
| Yeah, and that's exactly why I've never received spam
| through iMessage even once over many years (despite being
| active in a bunch of group chats and 1:1 conversations).
|
| All while I receive whatsapp/telegram message spam on a
| fairly regular basis, despite not being active in any
| groups or channels on those apps (and in general, opening
| them maybe once or twice a week at most). The only reason
| I even use those 2 apps is to talk to select few old
| relatives of mine who are not very tech literate and who
| just happened to learn how to use those apps +a couple of
| friends who simply insist on using those apps.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I have the opposite experience for what it's worth.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| But points being:
|
| 1. RCS is now available and a standard. iMessage already
| "degrades" to sending SMS messages to those not on
| iMessage. There is no reason they can't better support RCS.
|
| 2. While MMS groups were missing a ton of features, there
| are just things now that are much _worse_ as an Android
| user interacting with an iMessage group than it was
| previously in an MMS group. I.e. I never used to have
| issues with dropped images before, but in an iMessage group
| it 's like a crapshoot whether my photos get delivered.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| There's _many_ reasons not to support RCS.
|
| It is a bag of standard parts thrown together by a bunch
| of telecommunications companies in a desperate attempt to
| hold on to their 50c per message cash cow.
|
| If you spend more than a minute actually looking into it,
| you'll realise that Apple would basically have to run it
| in a virtual machine for security, and then hand over
| control to a bunch of telcos that can't even all agree on
| what is and isn't included in RCS.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Still better than SMS/MMS. But apple can come up with a
| new standard if they want. Or... they can port the one
| they've already invented to android.
| ghaff wrote:
| I guess I'm old in that I basically never use emoji unless
| the platform changes something like :-) to one. -\\_(tsu)_/-
| croisillon wrote:
| you've got quite the apt name for becoming a poster here
| jansan wrote:
| 42799 karma, but you should have seen all his other
| throwaways.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Whenever I go in vacations with friends we talk. Rarely, we
| talk over the phone, otherwise we talk in person. Never text.
| That is the point of going together and not separately.
| nemothekid wrote:
| I love how the loudest criticism is "Apple is making teenagers
| feel bad with green bubbles".
|
| I will gladly take that over the next generation being completely
| plugged into the ad tech surveillance machine.
| alkonaut wrote:
| The reasons my kids have iPhones can be summed up as
|
| 1) I use iPhones so I get a new one every 2.5-3 years or so.
|
| 2) The phones last long enough (performance, battery life, OS
| support) that when I get a new one, my kids are perfectly happy
| to take over my old one.
|
| Let's face it, kids don't choose phones their parents do. When
| you become a teenager these days you are probably on your second
| or third smartphone. At least if you got the first one at age
| 7-10 somewhere, you probably didn't decide between Android and
| iPhone, your parents did. It doesn't matter so much then whether
| it's a status symbol or what color the text bubble is. You chose
| a platform long ago.
| ilamont wrote:
| My kids have iPhones because they inherit ours when we upgrade. I
| suspect it's the same with many other parents. And: Much easier
| to provide support, share photos, reimburse them/send money, and
| do many other things that would be frustrating with Android.
|
| I remember when Steve Jobs apologized to parents for unapproved
| in-app purchases and promised to do something about it. And they
| did. That resonated with me. I think the company still cares, as
| evidenced by its support options and privacy requirements.
|
| When I still bought Android devices they tended to be
| problematic. Probably HTC and Xiaomi were the best designed, but
| updates were a pain especially on the Hongmi. LG camera sucked.
| Google Nexus had screen problems and eventually bricked, with no
| support options. I think I got my son a "Blu" phone at one point,
| which just had bad performance. Was happy to give him my iPhone 6
| and move up to an 8.
| ajross wrote:
| It's just a line in the article, the data isn't provided. This is
| the source of the headline quote:
|
| > 87% of teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their
| next phone; 31% of teens own an Apple Watch
|
| And sorry, but that's just laughably wrong. Even in my teen's
| upper middle class school of tech scions, the penetration of any
| kind of phone sits somewhere around 50%. And I don't think I've
| even seen a smart watch on these kids.
| TillE wrote:
| It's an actual survey from a company which does that kind of
| thing, which I take considerably more seriously than vague
| anecdotes.
| swayvil wrote:
| Well I'm an actual company and according to my survey you're
| wrong.
| snapcaster wrote:
| I think there is the implicit assumption in your comment that
| people benefitting from tech are more likely to use tech but
| I'm not sure that's a safe assumption
| imranq wrote:
| Tech workers might be stricter with their childrens' phone use
| given that they know how much tracking and manipulation is
| possible
| dimgl wrote:
| Why is this laughably wrong? Why is this so hard to believe?
|
| Also, why would being a tech scion mean that you wouldn't want
| to use an iPhone? If anything, I'd argue that being in tech
| makes you appreciate the benefits of having an iPhone.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Also, why would being a tech scion mean that you wouldn't
| want to use an iPhone?
|
| I think this is the opposite of what the person who is
| replying to you is saying. I'm going to disagree with both of
| you and say that I think that the kids of techies would be
| far less likely to have an iPhone, because they're more
| likely to judge technology on its merits rather than on
| marketing (for the same reason that both of my parents being
| programmers made me a programmer.) On the merits,
| iPhone/Android is going to be closer to a 50/50 split than an
| 87/13 split.
| literalAardvark wrote:
| I'd argue that tech bros know that social media screen time
| fries your brain and may try to keep their kids away from
| phones as much as possible.
| ajross wrote:
| My experience among tech parents jives with that, FWIW. But
| even so: if techie kids are less likely to own phones, you
| need to be pushing 90%+ iPhone usage in working class
| schools, which is, again, nuts.
|
| These numbers are wrong when interpreted as a global
| sample, they just are.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > if techie kids are less likely to own phones, you need
| to be pushing 90%+ iPhone usage in working class schools
|
| You're vastly overestimating the number of "techies."
| akgoel wrote:
| My 13 year old daughter has an Apple Watch. It allows her to
| send and receive texts even though her phone has to be put
| away, and the teachers haven't stopped that. Yet.
| [deleted]
| wvenable wrote:
| I'm pretty sure every kid I know has a phone. Most often than
| not, it's a hand-me-down from someone else.
| b0tch7 wrote:
| I'm an Android lifer and Apple's refusal to open iMessage is why
| I will not own an iPhone. That said, I'd willingly pay $5-10/mth
| for iMessage on Android. Apple has a number of services on
| Android now (including Apple Music & TV), it irritates me to no
| end they refuse to support this
| eternityforest wrote:
| This stuff scares me a bit, both because green bubble culture is
| creepy, and because I really do not want iOS to become the
| dominant mobile OS just as Android is becoming one of the most
| amazing platforms out there.
| higgins wrote:
| Would love to hear your thoughts on what makes Android "one of
| the most amazing platforms out there"?
| cercatrova wrote:
| I can run apps I download from anywhere I want, for one, like
| I can on laptop.
| YinLuck- wrote:
| dan-robertson wrote:
| That's always been true of android but the parent implies
| that something has been changing.
| eternityforest wrote:
| It's in practice mostly open, anyone can make apps for it,
| they give you enough APIs for things like Tile to actually
| work, and it's pretty much hassle free. Stuff just works.
|
| It uses tiny amounts of power on cheap hardware and still is
| always reasonably performant.
|
| It's very discoverable and convenience oriented, there's no
| gestural control stuff(Aside from the hideous pull to refresh
| feature that I hate, which I'd imagine apple has too).
|
| Anecdotally, Bluetooth never seems to give any trouble(Aside
| from a rare bug where it was turning bluetooth off
| occasionally, which i think was specific to my phone model),
| wheras Apple users seem to always have complaints whenever
| they try to use it with random gadgets.
|
| And subjectivly the intent seems different.
|
| iOS is an appliance. A multipurpose appliance but still an
| appliance. It has a set of things it does and some it
| doesn't, and it trusts you'll be able to get by without the
| stuff it doesn't do.
|
| Android is a generic multitool made into a consumer friendly
| format. It can replace a sizable fraction of ones's material
| possessions. It seems to be meant to be the catch all point
| for everything that integrates with everything else no matter
| who made it.
|
| Also, hardware wise, the phones are relatively free of luxury
| fashion, which is a really specific aesthetic that only
| appeals to certain groups. All Apple's stuff has a theme, it
| feels like it's meant to be at home next to a whole foods
| bag, some Nike sneakers, or even some Supreme underwear.
|
| They're much more willing to use plastic instead of metal and
| things like that, instead of spending money on stuff that
| can't even be seen when it's in a case.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| I can run actual Firefox with ublock origin.
|
| or Bromite.
|
| or Brave.
|
| or anything really.
| csdreamer7 wrote:
| So I have owned an Android all my life and never daily driven an
| iPhone. The iPhone (edit forgot the iPhone part) screen seems
| more responsive and very bright and colorful. To me the freedom
| of an unlocked phone I can put my own apps on is very important
| for me for Android. Why should I get an iPhone?
|
| edit: not sure most teens care or are unaware of Android's around
| 3 years support length for a phone.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > edit: not sure most teens care or are unaware of Android's
| around 3 years support length for a phone.
|
| I don't think they care either, but in many cases it makes
| iPhones a wiser purchasing decision, so they should care. If
| we're decrying the effectiveness of iPhones' marketing and
| intentionally cultivated and preserved incompatibilities on
| children, our alternative must be to encourage practical
| decisions. Sadly, a slightly old iPhone is often the most
| practical decision, because Android is still a closed platform
| masquerading as an open one, and they aren't kept updated
| outside of Google's and the manufacturers' hardware marketing
| strategy.
|
| Apple is making money from the _use_ of its phones, so (mostly)
| happily keeps them going far longer.
| [deleted]
| jderiksen wrote:
| > Why should I get an iPhone?
|
| I am a musician and the iPhone has lower latency. Many music
| apps perform better on iTunes and some app developers never
| even bother developing on Android.
| nightfly wrote:
| Longer support period. Easier to tell if you're getting a
| "good" phone since there's only a few models.
|
| I use Android phones, but that last points almost dragged me in
| a few times after getting disappointing phones.
|
| Edit: you asked why _you_ should get an iPhone, not why teens
| should.
| jsight wrote:
| That's true. The Android marketplace is full of a _lot_ of
| bad products. The good ones get most of the attention,
| thankfully, but its easy to walk into a phone store and walk
| out with a shiny piece of pain.
|
| Even the worst iphone will be better than that.
| wollsmoth wrote:
| If flexibility and having an unlocked phone is important to you
| then you might just be better off with android. I've daily
| driven both. I kind of like the iPhone hardware a little better
| but android software a little better. both do what I need.
| personjerry wrote:
| You don't have to. But this article isn't about you. Kids will,
| because of peer pressure, and the fact that it just works.
| tristor wrote:
| Interestingly, I am a heavy Apple user, and I am trying to
| convince my teenage daughter and wife to use iPhone and have
| offered them iPhone and Apple Watch, and they have strongly
| preferred to stay on Android. I think it's unsurprising most
| people use / want to use an iPhone in the US, because it has a
| network effect with iMessage and it's clearly a superior
| experience for the average person. But, globally that network
| effect doesn't exist, so it makes sense in a more international
| sense that many people would prefer being in the Android
| ecosystem.
|
| The claim doesn't surprise me, but I definitely think it
| shouldn't be taken as universal.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Yeah, my mother is basically the only one in my family who uses
| Android, so when Tim Cook ticked a bunch of people off the
| other month by suggesting that we should buy our moms iPhones,
| I suggested it to her. She doesn't really know the difference
| between Android and iPhone, but she seems ideologically opposed
| to paying more than a drug dealer would spend on a burner phone
| because "that's all she needs". It's pretty frustrating because
| when she has problems, she asks me for help and isn't all that
| happy when I tell her to get an iPhone.
|
| It was also very frustrating when trying to share photos to put
| together a slideshow for a funeral. And on that subject, it's
| her primary camera now and the quality leaves a lot to be
| desired on that front.
|
| On the other hand, it's kind of amazing how much an $80 Android
| phone can do, and that it can take passable pictures at all, so
| I sort of see her point too. And obviously there are quite high
| end options as well.
| tristor wrote:
| > It was also very frustrating when trying to share photos to
| put together a slideshow for a funeral. And on that subject,
| it's her primary camera now and the quality leaves a lot to
| be desired on that front.
|
| This is actually one of the main reasons why my other family
| members prefer to stay on Android. While the average Android
| handset may not have a camera better than an iPhone, the best
| phone cameras are generally on Android handsets. This is
| partly just because Android runs on handsets from many
| different manufacturers and everyone competes on camera /
| picture quality for their flagship phones, and there is
| iterative improvements in technology over time. While the
| recent DXOMark report disagrees, in our testing ourselves,
| the S22 Ultra outperforms the iPhone 14 Pro, although both
| capture very good photos.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Yep, the problem is the burner Androids bringing down the
| average. Basically every phone that I've used in the past
| decade has had a decent camera, but I'm aware that the
| premium Androids have some superlatives in that department.
| eagsalazar2 wrote:
| It is not _clearly_ a better experience. Give me a break. 99%
| of the time it is a grid of icons that launches apps. The
| notification area on Android is far superior and is actually
| quite useful compared to iOS where it is a jumbled mess. Apps
| on both platforms, more and more, are virtually identical. If
| you want integration with apple watch, then great use apple but
| your blanket statement about superior experience is exactly the
| pernicious "network effect" (fanboi-ism) these kids are being
| hit with.
| tristor wrote:
| My statement doesn't come out of any sort of fanboyism, I was
| an Android developer and built custom ROMs for many years,
| was heavily into Android in the beginning, and I still use
| and support Android devices in my home (see above).
|
| It /is/ clearly a better experience for several reasons, not
| the least of which is the difference in privacy stance and
| the tighter integrations for families. I do not want to re-
| litigate this every time I comment in one of these threads,
| because it's annoying, irrelevant to my central point, and
| obnoxious. If you wish to engage, please engage me on the
| central point I was making, not on an aside.
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| Man, kids aren't stupid. They see a busted, slow old phone
| running 2 or more major versions of Android behind, that puts
| a bad taste in their mouth. Apple has made many deliberate
| steps to appeal to youth, iMessage playing some part, but
| that's not the whole picture.
|
| Kids want something that works and is as fast as they are.
| alphabetting wrote:
| It's definitely not universal. The imessage effect has been
| instrumental to Apple's market share in US so they won't be
| altering that.
| syntaxing wrote:
| Used Android since like the original HTC phone in my early teens,
| owned probably 6-7 android phones in my life (majority Google
| since the good old Nexus days). My first iPhone was the 12 and as
| of now, I think my kids first phone will be an iPhone. The walled
| garden is annoying and monopolistic but an iPhone just works. 2
| years later, my iPhone is still going strong and I don't even
| want to change my phone for the near future. They're just built
| better and supported better. My family relentlessly complain
| about the Pixel 6 heat issues and plans on "upgrading" a year
| later.
| werber wrote:
| I wonder why their sample was heavily weighted in the south
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| This could be just another index for measuring a country's
| wealth. Percentage of teens who own an iPhone. I like that. Here
| in Brazil, the price of some iPhone models is greater than 1 year
| of the national minimum salary.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I've been assured that we still can't call it a monopoly until
| it's at least 120% (accounting for yearly turnover.)
| vlan0 wrote:
| Want more data? I've got a campus with roughly 60k unique
| devices. 50% are iOS. Another 20% are MacOS. Android is 7%.
| lostmsu wrote:
| What are the rest? Windows laptops?
| gnrlst wrote:
| I'm assuming a long tail of "everything else"
| vlan0 wrote:
| Windows is 18%. The rest are a mixed bag. All kinds of
| Linux/IoT.
| laurentoget wrote:
| If that is true, wouldn't that be a de facto monopoly which Apple
| could be sued for?
| granzymes wrote:
| It isn't illegal to have a monopoly.
| robertwt7 wrote:
| Even if people said that apple lacks innovation after Jobs, what
| they have done here in market penetration, branding, and
| ecosystem is brilliant. I don't even know how they did it, they
| just keep creating new stuff in the ecosystem that makes it so
| hard to switch out once you're in it
|
| The visionary should be rewarded. Maybe that's Tim? He does a far
| better job compared to the other ceo of big tech companies..
| JPKab wrote:
| My 16 year old son has an iPhone because Apple has the best
| parental control integration built-in. Kids can always get around
| it, which is why I have monitoring the little bastard doesn't
| know about via my WiFi router, along with automated deactivation
| of his cellular data connection via a schedule with the carrier
| (after 10 PM on weekdays).
|
| The "green bubble" crap that I get from my iPhone owning buddies
| due to my Pixel is most obnoxious because it's entirely Apple's
| choice to have that.
|
| However, no question that teens are incredibly status conscious.
| After all, Abercrombie and Gap built massive businesses slapping
| labels on shitty goods and marking the price up by 1,000%. Nike
| as well.
| kache_ wrote:
| if you think your kid won't outsmart you, think again
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| Jesus. I know it's off-topic and things differ across cultures
| or whatever, but I remember _moving out of home to go to
| university_ at 16. The idea that there are parents out there
| doing stuff like monitoring their kids ' internet connections
| at that age is almost inconceivable to me.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I think we should evaluate that stuff based on the outcomes,
| not just on assuming our personal culture as a norm. I moved
| out to live with friends at 15. Wouldn't say it was the
| greatest idea, although I wouldn't change it. I have also met
| Indian guys whose parents are all the way up their asses at
| least until they're into their 20s, and as far as I can tell
| it results in a good degree, good employment, and early
| marriage.
| chenshuiluke wrote:
| Why go to such lengths to monitor your 16yo?
| Invictus0 wrote:
| I have a friend attending Stanford for undergrad whose
| parents monitor his location 24/7, and another dealing with
| the same nonsense at BU. If she wanders too far from the
| places she's supposed to be, she gets an angry call from
| parents/her long distance bf (who is also in on it somehow).
|
| I guess even that isn't that bad compared to the parents that
| literally move across the country to wherever their kid is
| going to college so they can keep controlling them.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Wow I can't imagine the mind of people that trust their
| kids enough to give them a $300000 education at Stanford
| and then keep such close tabs on them.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| A bit like house arrest then.
| adeleine wrote:
| Sitting in front of a phone all day at this age leads to
| severe mental health problems and is probably the biggest
| portal for unfiltered harmful content
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7012622/
| rejectfinite wrote:
| He is 16 lol
|
| I saw plenty beheadings and horse appendages.
| plsbenice34 wrote:
| I'd wager that at 16 years old having no privacy and such a
| nasty relationship with your parent would have much worse
| effects
| pessimizer wrote:
| You're assuming the relationship is nasty. It isn't a
| given that people who raise kids differently than you do
| will fill them with hatred and bitterness.
| plsbenice34 wrote:
| "monitoring the little bastard doesn't know about via my
| WiFi router" proves for me but of course that will be a
| matter of opinion
| bink wrote:
| That study appears to conflate smart phone use with social
| media use. Which one is really to blame?
| hdlothia wrote:
| As a parent of a toddler wondering why you deactivate th data.
| To disincentivize sneaking out? Preventing game addiction or
| too much social media?
| ok_dad wrote:
| So he can MITM his son on WiFi and invade his privacy. I bet
| the day you can own a 5G AP at your home this guy is gonna
| MITM his son on that. Some people need insane control over
| their kids, for some reason.
| r00fus wrote:
| Yes. My kids aren't old enough for that (they are all asleep
| at 9pm still) but if I had one that did I'd definitely find a
| way to ensure they avoided pitfalls I suffered through in
| school (game addition is a really debilitating habit and can
| remain with some for years afterwards).
| howinteresting wrote:
| It's one thing to have monitoring that your kid knows about,
| but monitoring your kid doesn't know about is child abuse. 16
| year olds are people too, and this is no different from
| installing spyware on your partner's phone because you suspect
| them of cheating.
| neaden wrote:
| This claim seems a little odd to me. I searched more about it and
| found this article:
| https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/01/06/gen-z-survey-says...
| from January saying the exact same thing as this fall survey, and
| this article form 2020 which says it was 86%:
| https://nationalinterest.org/blog/techland/apple-rules-86-pe... .
| I can't find an estimate for teen iPhone ownership besides this
| company but this just seems very high to me when you account for
| teens without a phone as well as non-iPhones. In comparison from
| what I can find about half of adults own an iPhone. The fact that
| it is this high and stable for several years seems suspect to me.
| phatfish wrote:
| If not owning an iPhone really makes you the social outcast
| that some comments here are suggesting maybe people don't even
| admit to it for a marketing survey.
|
| It's like a survey on how may times you have sex in a month.
| ggm wrote:
| > _It 's like a survey on how may times you have sex in a
| month._
|
| Exactly like, for teenagers. Their answers tend to either
| aspirational or lies.
| currenciessfe wrote:
| On instagram is even higher. 99% of influencers have iPhones.
|
| Showing an Android is basically declaring you are some sort of
| a monster.
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| I hate apple with a passion for not opening up iMessage, but here
| we are.
|
| That being said, I am getting my first iPhone in just a few days
| because I am sick of the 100000 choices between android phones
| that all suck in one way or another. I don't believe they will
| last more than a few years if my last samsung is any indication.
| And I don't give a crap about what android can do- I just want a
| phone that works.
|
| So I guess you win Apple.. but it's criminal that a _vast_ reason
| they have so much market share is because of imessage and the
| fact that it 's "broken" with SMS to some degree.
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| iPhones are amazing, and there are definitely a few brands of
| Android-based phones that also deserve to be called amazing.
| iMessage definitely helped, at a time when SMS sucked and
| nobody (not Google) was stepping in to improve the situation,
| but they also crush Androids in accessibility and ease of use
| all day. Something that gets teenagers hooked early...
| AustinDev wrote:
| I remember when Steve Jobs said it would be an open protocol.
| pwinnski wrote:
| That was FaceTime, not iMessage, and FaceTime ran into patent
| issues which Apple lost in court, repeatedly, and so had to
| be reengineered in way that made it not work as an open
| protocol.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| You misremember. It was Facetime which Jobs promised Apple
| would make into an open standard, in 2010. He died the week
| before Apple released iMessage.
|
| "And we're going to take it all the way. We're going to the
| standards bodies, starting tomorrow, and we're going to make
| FaceTime an open industry standard." - Steve Jobs, 2010 WWDC
| Keynote https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOxf9tEXEKQ
| aendruk wrote:
| > So I guess you win Apple
|
| You can still push back against the bubble elitism: Settings -
| Messages - iMessage Off. My bubble's not turning blue until
| Android users can participate.
| AustinDev wrote:
| This works if you're ok with sending all your messages in
| cleartext over your phone's radio.
| aendruk wrote:
| No, you still choose a secure messenger--just one that's
| available to everyone.
| to1y wrote:
| Is there some sort of troll farm apple campaign going on here?
| In my experience Apple has been much more troublesome, their
| walled garden pretty much guarantees bugs and errors and
| ofcourse the trademark throttling of CPU, battery,
| functionality in general when they think it's time for you to
| get a new phone, where's the die-hard fandom come from? My $340
| Android works better than a $1000 iPhone.
|
| I admit they're actually better built phones, but Apple is
| shooting yourself in the foot and paying for the bullet.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > My $340 Android works better than a $1000 iPhone.
|
| You trolling? I've not had any of the random problems with my
| iPhone that you describe. And I feel like by now HN users,
| regardless of ideology, are well aware that the CPU
| throttling with a degraded battery was a sensible choice to
| prevent reboots, but was terribly handled and became a PR
| disaster.
| endtime wrote:
| Have you tried a Pixel? I've been happily using them for years.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I've had Nexus 4->6 and Pixel 1->4. I don't understand the
| complaints about Android phones not working.
|
| With that said I wish I didn't have to choose between
| surveillance device Pixels or walled garden iPhones.
| hparadiz wrote:
| Have you tried a Sony phone?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Pixels have unusually high rates of hardware and software
| problems over time. The reliability isn't there. The current
| issue of the month is random failure to call emergency
| services. If you randomly experience this problem, you could
| call 911 over and over, dozens of times, without success. It
| also doesn't matter if you have 4/4 bars.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32713375
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/y039zn/i_compi.
| ..
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/rfld6m/comment.
| ..
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/x5ea32/life_an.
| ..
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/wpirx8/had_an_.
| ..
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/v1enh5/cannot_.
| ..
|
| https://support.google.com/pixelphone/thread/176875269/why-w.
| ..
| sosodev wrote:
| I don't know why you're being downvoted. They most
| certainly have had historically poor build quality. My
| Pixel 2 began boot looping after a couple of years of use
| and apparently that was motherboard quality issue that had
| been around since the Nexus line. I got a replacement and
| it happened again after another few months. Google "Pixel 2
| bootloop" and you'll find thousands of threads from people
| with this issue.
|
| That was around four years ago. I switched to an iPhone 11
| and have had a fraction of the problems that I had with
| Android phones.
| LocalPCGuy wrote:
| Because of the insistence on anecdotes rather than actual
| industry reports to back up the claim. Even your claim is
| your personal anecdote. But when you dive into actual
| industry repair reports, Pixels do not (at least in the
| ones I've looked at) stand up in terms of being
| "historically poor quality". For every anecdote of
| someone having an issue, there are a large majority that
| just use their phone day in and day out without a
| problem. And of course, there's also that person that has
| to point out that their Pixel is working just fine in
| response to the person with an issue.
|
| I'm not trying to dismiss the issues Google has had. Just
| to put it in context that they get a lot of press about
| the issues they do have, and so there becomes an
| impression that it's historically bad when the actual
| numbers do not seem to show that to be the case. (Also,
| if anyone provides links to 2021 or newer reports, I'd be
| happy to revise my opinion here based on new data, if it
| shows that I'm no longer correct, as it's been a bit
| since the last report I saw.)
| sosodev wrote:
| Can you link said industry repair report? I've not heard
| of such a thing.
|
| I know you want to write my experience off as "bad luck"
| but I had several high-end Android phones with serious
| hardware and/or software issues before I made the switch.
|
| I really wanted to like Android but I also want a phone
| that works. :/
| LocalPCGuy wrote:
| Pixels may have what seems to be an unusually high rate of
| problems over time if you judge things by anecdotes on
| Reddit. There are many more folks just puttering away on
| their Pixel oblivious that there are any issues at all (or
| even posting their own anecdotes in response to the
| anecdotes about problems telling folks that their Pixel is
| fine). But they don't generally show up leading the pack in
| industry reports from the folks repairing phones, at least
| the ones I've looked at.
|
| Every manufacturer has some level of issues, Google sure
| seems to be about average. I will say that their insistence
| on automated (read: poor) support can sometimes exasperate
| problems (which then leads to more anecdotes being posted).
| jameal wrote:
| I'm still using a first generation Pixel XL I bought
| refurbished many years ago. Battery life ain't great but it
| does what I need it to do.
| jacooper wrote:
| Hmmm, this probably will change when the Digital Markets Act
| starts.
| rr888 wrote:
| > I don't believe they will last more than a few years if my
| last samsung is any indication.
|
| I think this is the real reason for kids using iphone, most a
| seeeded with parent's castoffs. If your parents are android
| users the phone is probably broken. :)
| seydor wrote:
| how do you know that iphone works?
| currenciessfe wrote:
| What 100000 choices?
|
| There are basically 6 Android phones. Of which only one matters
| - the Samsung Galaxy in it's 2 biggest sizes.
|
| So basically you need to pick between 2 Samsung phones, the
| major difference being size.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Wow, that's an intense level of myopia right there.
|
| There are lots and lots (and lots) of people who don't need a
| Galaxy. Take my wife for example. Entirely happy (or as happy
| as you can with any contemporary portable computing device)
| with her old LG Aristo 5, it started failing a few weeks
| back, and we replaced it with a T-Mobile Revvl 6 Pro 5G.
| $219. Entirely adequate phone for her, and for most the
| people we know.
|
| Yeah, I'm an old, and I don't personally use a cell phone of
| any kind.
| currenciessfe wrote:
| No, the point was that if you don't want to choose between
| 100000 androids you buy the Galaxy which is the iPhone
| equivalent.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| My next smartphone is gonna be an iPhone as well. Android is
| becoming ever more locked down, hardware attestation is already
| a thing and there's really no reason for apps to not require
| it. What's the point of putting up with Android's imperfections
| and Google's bullshit if my rooted and customized phone can't
| run the apps I need because I "tampered" with it? Might as well
| get an iPhone.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > it's criminal that a vast reason they have so much market
| share is because of imessage and the fact that it's "broken"
| with SMS to some degree.
|
| That's just speculation, though. It's entirely plausible that
| the fundamental reason they have so much market share is
| because people agree with you:
|
| > I just want a phone that works.
|
| I've gone back and forth between Android and iPhone myself, and
| what draws me back to iPhone is the lower TCO and more
| appliance-like nature of the phone. I have enough tech toys to
| play with every day, I don't need my phone to be one of them.
| beckingz wrote:
| Lower total cost of ownership?
|
| For an iPhone?
|
| That does not check out unless you're buying the extra fancy
| android phones.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Absolutely. iPhones have a _much_ better resale value if
| you replace them every two or three years. And if you just
| want to keep them until they die, they receive updates for
| maybe 10 years.
|
| I've never lost more money on phones than when I was buying
| flagship Android phones.
|
| You might be able to spend less if you buy the crappiest
| Android phones. But that's not even a little bit comparable
| to the cheapest iPhone.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I see this a lot around here. HN user hates company with a
| passion but buys their products rather than deal with some
| minor annoyance.
|
| I guess you don't hate Apple with a passion then.
| sosodev wrote:
| I think you might be understating "minor annoyance". I don't
| like Amazon but I often buy niche products from them because
| I'll get them in days instead of months.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I mean, if you hate Apple _and_ Google, you don 't have a
| whole lot of other options. I'm vaguely aware of some
| competitors, but they're quite obscure. And I don't think
| going without a smartphone is all that feasible either these
| days.
| dozgon wrote:
| Yep, for me, it is banking.
|
| N26 (Europe) requires you to have a smartphone and a SIM
| card. Obtaining a SIM card means that you need to identify
| yourself.
|
| You can't just have a smartphone. The OS needs to be
| unrooted and also mainstream (iOS/Android).
|
| This really sucks.
|
| Furthermore, Google and Discord lock your accounts, if you
| don't provide a phone number.
|
| The alternative might be to use an Android/iOS just for
| banking. Another Android/iOS for services such as Google
| (Play store).
|
| And a Librem or any other open source phone as your daily
| driver. Or, just live with a "dumb phone" or no additional
| phone. I am not sure about the SIM card. Is it even
| possible within the EU to buy one without identification?
| to-too-two wrote:
| You can hate the King with a passion but still pay your
| taxes. Sometimes people feel like they barely have a choice
| and can hate them in-part for that too.
|
| I hate Verizon and Comcast with a passion but if it's between
| them or no internet access, well I hardly call that a choice.
| dozgon wrote:
| I would like to use a Google-free phone. However, online
| banking apps (e.g., N26) require you to have a mainstream
| phone (Android/iOS). You can't have root access, since
| apparently those banking apps won't work then. You need to
| have a SIM card as well, and you need to identify yourself
| when purchasing one. I really hate all that. At this point,
| I dream to live without smart technology as much as
| possible. Living mostly with "dumb tech". "Smart" ain't
| smart for us, it seems, it is for the benefit of those
| companies (e.g. Samsung TV's). More control, I suppose. Can
| you install uBlock Origin on a Samsung TV?
|
| Furthermore, Samsung phones come with bloat, and you can't
| even remove them easily.
| nix0n wrote:
| Samsung is just as bad as you say, but there's about a
| dozen other manufacturers of Android phones.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Minor annoyance? Android is becoming just as much of a locked
| down walled garden as iOS. Hardware remote attestation is
| already here and it threatens to deny access to apps to all
| rooted phones.
|
| If I must be in one of these little walled gardens, I'm
| choosing the better kept one. It sure as hell isn't Google's.
| kirse wrote:
| Sony Xperia still offer a great experience. Near stock Android,
| regular updates, quality cameras.
| Animats wrote:
| That's scary. That's sucking a huge amount of money out of
| parents' pockets.
| robbyking wrote:
| My guess is a lot of their parents are iPhone users who pass
| their phones on to their children. My wife only recently
| upgraded her iPhone 8, and only did so because of how noticable
| better the photos were on my new iPhone. In my experience
| Android phones don't last that long.
| elif wrote:
| The biggest concern I have from this is how comfortable the next
| generations will be in walled gardens where they are unable to
| look under the curtain let alone tinker.
| decafninja wrote:
| I am always surprised by stories like this. I'm part of several
| distinct, mostly non-overlapping social circles. The majority of
| people in all these circles are iPhone users. But none of these
| circles use iMessage as the chat app.
|
| I'm in NYC, so it's not like I'm in some obscure corner of the
| planet either.
| znpy wrote:
| I switched to the iPhone and, under some aspects... it's so much
| better. I had an iPhone for on call duty previously.
|
| If you see the phone as just a tool, the iphone has no rivals.
|
| It either can or cannot do something. You don't have to evaluate
| seven different brands.
|
| The ui is okay, and once you get used to it you'll 99.9%
| recognise the ui in the next iphone.
|
| It's small! The iphone se is beautifully small. Yet fast and
| snappy.
|
| And the next time I can get the next iphone without thinking too
| much. Which is huge. Xiaomi today might be good, and xiaomi
| tomorrow might be trash. Same for samsung. Same for pixel.
|
| No wonder.
| connectsnk wrote:
| Is there no one who feels that kids shouldn't have iPhones until
| they are 18 and don't accidentally put information online that
| leads predators to them?
| hparadiz wrote:
| As someone who was on the internet by age 12 and was coding by
| 15 I see this argument and can't help but shake my head.
|
| If you want your kids to grow up with zero street smarts or
| ability to distinguish threats then sure. By all means keep
| them locked in their bedrooms till 18 too.
|
| Don't be surprised when they stop talking to you by age 21.
| CollinEMac wrote:
| This is surprising but I'm more surprised by the finding that
| "26% of teens own a VR device"
|
| Is VR really getting that popular?
| vyrotek wrote:
| Yes. The Quest2 did really well last Christmas. My kids use it
| daily. Several of their friends have them too.
| wollsmoth wrote:
| I own a vr device that collects dust.
| jsight wrote:
| If Google Cardboard counts, then I do too. :)
| deng wrote:
| > Is VR really getting that popular?
|
| I hear VRChat got really popular during the pandemic among
| teens, but I also find these numbers very surprising.
| bragr wrote:
| A lot of kids got oculus quests for christmas/birthday but I
| suspect many collect dust. Some sort of daily or weekly active
| user stats for teens using VR would probably be a better
| indicator.
| CollinEMac wrote:
| From the same line:
|
| "Weekly usage of VR devices moved to 14% from 17% last
| Spring;"
| bragr wrote:
| Ah yeah. So then in the neighborhood of 40-50% collect
| dust. Not terrible, not great (for VR companies).
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| A recent NYT article mentions that Horizons is awash in teens
| and pre-teens.
| xwdv wrote:
| Green bubbles are disgusting, to the point where you won't be
| allowed to certain events or parties if you RSVP with a green
| bubble. You'll just never get a response back, don't even bother.
| It's a way to gate keep. There is even an androidphobic slur for
| those who text in green bubbles, that I won't repeat here. Ask
| your kids.
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| Green bubble bullying is worrying.
|
| Interesting to see how widespread this is outside of US. I guess
| it's heavily correlates with iPhone user share.
|
| In where I'm from most peers adopted Telegram in the past 5
| years.
| asciimov wrote:
| Best things about the iPhone:
|
| - long term support - can expect a new device to get 5-6 years of
| Apple Updates
|
| - AppleCare
|
| - better build quality than cheap android devices
|
| - Reasonable expectation that required software will support it
|
| - Not having to listen to a teen complain about what their
| friends have that they don't
|
| - Finally, Updates, APPLE SUPPORTED UPDATES! - I'm really salty
| that my android phones had to be rooted and have another OS
| installed just to get basic security updates after 12-18 months.
| hn_saver wrote:
| You mean updates that intentionally slow your device so that
| you will want to buy the new model?
| bink wrote:
| They had a choice between slowing the device or providing a
| substandard user experience when the old battery couldn't
| keep up and the phone shut down. I think there are plenty of
| reasons to criticize Apple but I have no idea why people have
| latched onto this obviously false narrative.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Or they could have recalled faulty devices, you know. To
| fix them and provide the experience they promised
| originally.
| asciimov wrote:
| I'll take updates that slow my phone as long as I'm also
| getting security updates. I don't like have my banking app
| cut off because I no longer get Android updates.
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| This is a nice headline, but doesn't match reality. I really
| hate how much of an Apple fanboy I'm coming off in this
| thread, but if you're just going to spout straight lies, it's
| hard to ignore.
|
| It's true that overtime iOS has become way more bloated, but
| they have released major updates which actually sped up older
| devices because they were focused on bug fixes and
| improvements, rather than something that's flashy and looks
| good in a commercial.
|
| Is it a useful tactic to sell more phones? Absolutely. It
| also means that iOS completely destroys Android's statistics
| on % of users who run the latest version of their OS.
| lostmsu wrote:
| He is referring to the degrading battery fallout in 2016:
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/11/apple-settles-
| wi...
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| Yeah, good point, if I remember they _did_ give you the
| option to override the battery safety feature and
| preserve your clock speed. Still, I think it is fair to
| say that iOS did over time start to feel more sluggish as
| they were adding more ambitious features which an aging
| chip couldn 't handle.
| nilsleep wrote:
| You forgot three very important points:
|
| - Privacy. Apple didn't built their business on milking
| people's data unlike google and so many others.
|
| - Security. Among many other factors the walled garden does
| provide a higher degree of security compared to Android.
|
| - Performance. Not only iPhones completely destroy Android in
| terms of performance and optimisation but the fact they are so
| performant make them great long term purchases. Still rocking
| my iPhone X from 5 years ago and it's still buttery smooth.
|
| Kids aren't stupid, they want something that works and is as
| fast as they are.
| vyrotek wrote:
| Our whole family and extended family only have Android. Our kids
| all get the free Android phones.
|
| As for me and my house, we shall never own Apple products.
|
| People can get what they like, but I struggle with the cognitive
| dissonance of "Everyone should just get iPhones, it'd make
| everything easier" and "Oh no why is <company> acting evil with
| their monopoly?!". I like choices. I wish Windows Phones could
| have stuck around longer.
|
| We'll ultimately get what we deserve as consumers. Is it any
| surprise FB wants to be the Apple of VR? We've shown we like our
| cozy premium walled gardens and are willing to be abused.
| gtvwill wrote:
| 1/3 of my kids have iPhone. The use of iPhones amongst them and
| their peers is directly related to their level of IT/Tech
| knowhow. Long story short the kids on android are probably gonna
| wind up building the tech the kids on apple consume. Or atleast
| that's how it's playing out amongst them atm. iPhone kids legit
| just take photos and short vidyas mostly of themselves. It's like
| you can correlate an iPhone with a toxic level of vanity and a
| lack of technical literacy amongst the teens.
| TobyTheDog123 wrote:
| What a weird generalization.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Ironically, it's a very Silicon Valley privileged child POV.
| The anecdotal observation is that some smart kids, usually
| the hardware-oriented tinkerers, use Androids because they're
| more customizable. It's certainly not universal.
| currenciessfe wrote:
| But in their free time the android people building the tech
| stacks will be watching the iPhone influencers.
| robbyking wrote:
| Since we're trading anecdotes, none of the iOS engineers on my
| team have Android phones, but about half of the Android
| engineers have iPhones.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| That's insane -- your engineers should be dogfooding their
| stuff. It's 2022.
| turtlebits wrote:
| If you're talking personal phones, that should have no
| bearing on your job. Your employer should give you the
| devices you need to do your work.
| robbyking wrote:
| In theory I agree, but we have something like 10k employees
| and millions of users per platform per day, so our code is
| pretty well vetted.
| chris_wot wrote:
| What they do with their own personal devices is their
| decision.
| mymythisisthis wrote:
| But the kids with the iPhones will be the financier controlling
| the purse strings. See the Commodore vs. IBM clones vs. Mac in
| the early 1980s. Apple wins because wealthy people use them,
| it's Apple's advantage.
| mbernstein wrote:
| What's your evidence that Apple "won" because of computers
| bought by rich families in the 80s because last I knew after
| the mid 90s Apple got (checks notes) massacred in the
| computing world by Microsoft and the rest and really only won
| in the mid 2000's via consumer electronics with the creation
| of new markets that they've largely dominated since.
| klyrs wrote:
| I guarantee that kids who grow up to be financiers won't be a
| significant fraction of the 87%. Just like kids wearing Air
| Jordans when I was in school didn't all grow up to be pro
| ball players.
| robbyking wrote:
| It's at least arguable that kids that grow up with the
| means to afford new iPhones will be more likely to have the
| means to go to a good college.
| dagmx wrote:
| The irony that your own post displays a toxic level of vanity
| regarding technical competency but projects it onto the
| children.
| 369548684892826 wrote:
| Doesn't match what I see. Tech knowhow is more likely
| correlated to whether the kid has a laptop or PC to play with
| rather than what OS is on their phone.
| gtvwill wrote:
| The iPhone ownership tends to roll on to the laptop/compute
| choice. And much lulz the apple kids are basically stuck in
| the realm of fisher price kids computers using apple.
|
| They watch on in awe as the normal pcs play games, open any
| program they want and so on.
|
| Tbh I actually find it quite depressing. I setup online games
| and score free stuff for the kids and half their mates can't
| even participate cus they are cucked by apples stubbornness
| and general refusal to play ball w the rest of the world.
|
| Been on a slow mission to donate them all pcs. I run a micro
| msp so I get used gear regularly. Theyre all getting exposure
| to Linux too cus why the hell not.
| imperialdrive wrote:
| Android is definitely the road less traveled and I could
| totally get that kids using them would correlate with a larger
| mental toolbox.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Based.
| [deleted]
| JasonFruit wrote:
| What I don't see discussed in here is why we should care what
| phone teens, particularly, have. Teen preferences are largely
| built on what's popular right now; it's not as though I'm still
| wearing untied high-tops and carrying a boom box. Do we have any
| evidence that this particular early preference carries on to
| adult life, when it's they who are making the purchase with money
| they have earned? Do we think teen technology preferences have
| influence on other age groups?
|
| In short: What's the point here?
| fortylove wrote:
| I tried avoiding the iPhone bandwagon for practically a decade,
| going from flip phone to the HTC Droid Incredible, to some HTC
| M<#>, to Samsung S4, and then a series of Pixel phones, starting
| with the OG Pixel, and ending with the Pixel 3.
|
| I have to say: besides a few clunky swipe experiences, the iPhone
| is better in every single way. The camera opens when I click the
| camera button. The phone pairs wonderfully with my airpods. With
| Android, the camera would inevitably lag after pressing the
| button, sometimes taking 10+ seconds to load, and making me miss
| a photo.
|
| I don't miss Androids/.
| SergeAx wrote:
| I am on an Android bandwagon since first Samsung Galaxy. The
| sheer joy of being in a total control of my hardware and
| software is still here. I am installing some apps directly from
| vendors and thus avoiding big companies censorship. My current
| phone is more than four years old for now and I am thinking
| about buying a new one only because the battery is slightly
| degraded. This is just a phone, a tool, used mostly for
| communication (including right now).
| dopeboy wrote:
| Same. Used android for eleven years and switched a year ago the
| iPhone.
|
| You can feel the dedication and craftsmanship with the iPhone.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| In the budget range it's the other way around though.
|
| For EUR300 you get a decent phone with bezelless 120Hz OLED
| screen. The iPhone SE that is almost EUR600 doesn't even have
| any of that. Cool that it's made from finely crafted
| aluminium but the screen is what I interact with constantly.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I don't mind the Android OS but other than one of the Google
| models I had the handsets were crappy, with pocket dialling or
| freezing on the numeric pad to make a call, sometimes full of
| telco adware. I could only handle 3 years or so of it before
| switching back to iphone.
| binkHN wrote:
| > ...Pixel 3. ... The camera opens when I click the camera
| button.
|
| I still have a Pixel 5 and one of my favorite features is
| double pressing the power button to activate the camera. It
| works so well that my camera is ready to go before I have even
| focused on the subject. I don't know if this feature is
| available on an iPhone.
| poglet wrote:
| It's not available.
|
| On the iPhone you need to take it out of your pocket, wake up
| the screen by tapping it once, or lifting it to some angle
| that the screen turns on. Then you need to long press the on
| screen camera button.
|
| If you enabled the double tap, you still need to take it out
| of your pocket and wake up the screen before you can double
| tap.
|
| On Android you could have the camera ready before the phone
| is even out of your pocket.
| knolan wrote:
| You can set iOS so that a double or triple tap on the rear of
| the phone case can trigger almost whatever you want including
| opening the camera.
| dont__panic wrote:
| > The phone pairs wonderfully with my airpods.
|
| For some users. If you somehow fall through the cracks or off
| the happy path of AirPods usage, modern iPhones that lack the
| headphone jack are miserable experiences. I've had enough
| struggles getting AirPods to connect to switch back to wired
| IEMs for good.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| I switched recently due to divorcing myself from Google
| services and products. Overall I've found the iPhone experience
| to be basically the same, but with a much worse notifications
| system.
| vlan0 wrote:
| And with a much better regard for security!
|
| For instance, you could still own an iPhone 5s, released in
| 2013, and receive security updates.
| grosswait wrote:
| I was forced to iPhone 18 months ago and while it isn't as bad
| as I'd feared, notifications just don't seem right to me on
| iOS. I'm constantly missing things that I never would have on a
| Pixel.
| girvo wrote:
| Really? My Android phone gets notifications way way late
| compared to my iPhone.
| samatman wrote:
| There's a learning curve with any new platform.
|
| Apple recently added "modes", which I like about 80% of the
| time, and 20% of the time I'm in the wrong mode for whatever
| reason and the wrong set of notifications get sent.
|
| You can turn it off if you'd like.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| >The camera opens when I click the camera button
|
| I've been a lifelong Android user but this problem is very real
| and has only gotten worse, and even with a brand new current-
| generation device it still takes 2-3+ seconds (sometimes up to
| 10 seconds like you mentioned) for the camera to open.
| Extremely infuriating. Does no higherups at Google use an
| Android phone and see this happening? Or maybe they just don't
| give a shit
| cheq wrote:
| That is a camera problem in the Google Pixels, specially 3s and
| 4s. Never a thing in old Samsungs and Motorolas I had.
| noasaservice wrote:
| If iOS was properly supported on Linux, I'd use one.
|
| But it's not.
| frant-hartm wrote:
| When I was a teenager and mobile phones became widely available
| everyone had Nokia, Siemens or Sony-Ericsson, depending on how
| well-off the family was, it was either the old or new model. But
| we customized the phones as much as we could - custom ring
| melodies, screensavers, custom covers, if the phone didn't allow
| that then at least some stickers. Everyone wanted to be unique,
| go against the social norm.
|
| Android phones are arguably equivalent in terms of functionality
| for what today's teenagers use (whatsapp, tiktok and camera), but
| offer much wider variety and a chance to stand out.
|
| Why do the current US teenagers follow the herd in this regard?
| hankman86 wrote:
| Because owning an Android means you're poor.
| daneel_w wrote:
| I think the common take on the "Apple tax" is a false
| impression. A sort of knee-jerk reflex when seeing the price
| tag, without any further thought. Every brand has a premium
| product segment with premium price tags. The difference is
| that Apple doesn't have a budget segment with budget price
| tags.
| gtk40 wrote:
| They have the iPhone SE which they explicitly market as a
| budget option.
| daneel_w wrote:
| Which is still not a budget option. Not in hardware
| quality, not in customer/product support, not in price.
| It's a premium product in every way.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| I think Apple have a pretty big range these days. There are
| older models and the se. There's also a pretty vibrant
| second hand / refurbished market. Perhaps one issue is that
| devices can still be somewhat expensive secondhand but
| that's because they are still good quality and expected to
| last (eg being supported and getting updates) for a long
| time - the alternative would surely be the kind of
| complaints about planned obsolescence or poor resale value
| that seem more fitting for the typical androids device (I'm
| not sure about premium. Maybe typical android devices get
| more updates these days).
| root_axis wrote:
| > _The difference is that Apple doesn 't have a budget
| segment with budget price tags._
|
| Right... hence the status signal the GP is referring to,
| when you own an affordable phone "you're poor"
| cercatrova wrote:
| Messaging network effects, if you're in an iMessage
| conversation and an Android user joins, suddenly the
| conversation becomes SMS only with photo and video sending
| being crippled.
|
| Its the same as a social network, if all your friends use it,
| you almost have to in order to communicate with them.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| They don't use FB Messenger, Discord, Telegram, Whatsapp?
| People are really out here using the default sms app? lmao
|
| Not a thing here, but we do love to ape america so its
| comming. Its gonna be one shows ppl whatch and then its over.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Pretty much every iPhone user in the US uses exclusively
| iMessage.
|
| > People are really out here using the default sms app?
|
| Well no, they're using the iMessage app and not
| communicating with people who don't have iPhones.
| cercatrova wrote:
| This always comes up when non-Americans talk about US
| messaging systems. The simple fact is SMS was good enough
| (being pretty cheap or even free for many years) that
| people didn't care to switch. In contrast, many other
| countries had much more expensive SMS so free messaging
| systems were built and widely used.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Yes.
| bloqs wrote:
| Americans, do people not use whatsapp over there? In Europe
| everyone uses whatsapp for literally everything, with a
| sprinkling of Telegram if you are into something a little
| subversive and Signal if you actually care about privacy.
|
| The only time I use text/sms is to recieve codes for things, and
| I'm doing that less and less.
| tbenst wrote:
| Mainly use WhatsApp to chat with European friends or a group
| chat that includes someone with android. Else it's all
| iMessage, Telegram, Signal, and Slack / Discord for more
| community groups. And the occasional Instagram or Twitter DMs.
| (And that's not even mentioning WeChat, Facebook Messenger,
| GroupMe, ...).
|
| Amazing how fragmented the messaging space has become.
| h4n1 wrote:
| In my experience the only Americans who use WhatsApp have
| family outside the US/Canada. There's a very large proportion
| of the population living entirely inside the Apple ecosystem.
| jansan wrote:
| No, they don't. Also facebook seems to be still a big thing in
| the US. Really funny how the culture is different.
|
| The only time I use SMS is for to receive codes for two factor
| authentication. Nobody ever receives an SMS from me.
| jmt_ wrote:
| Lifelong US citizen here - I've barely heard anyone mention it
| in person my whole life. If it wasn't for reading about it in
| discussions like this, I would probably never even think about
| it. iMessage, social media DMs, and regular SMS seem to be the
| most common in my experience. Signal/Telegram are pretty much
| only used here by tech people and/or people discussing not-so-
| wholesome things and I'm always surprised to see people on HN
| talk about moving their whole family to one of these apps or
| using them more casually in general.
| lordofgibbons wrote:
| If I could install Firefox with ublock origin plugin on iOS, I'd
| switch today.
| bmitc wrote:
| I have never understood the arguments that Apple doesn't have a
| monopoly or monopolies and thus should get away with all the
| anti-trust violations they get away with. They definitely have
| monopolies when it comes to market power and influence, even if
| Android phones (which are split across several manufacturers)
| have a larger worldwide market share.
| hangonhn wrote:
| This is the concept that's about to be tested in court. The
| majority of the revenue generating segment of the smartphone
| market is iOS while the majority of the overall smartphone
| market is Android. I get the sense that Apple did this on
| purpose but the Unity lawsuit may write a new chapter on what
| it means to be a monopoly. This Planet Money episode talks
| about this dilemma:
| https://www.npr.org/2020/09/18/914563075/apple-v-everybody
| nbzso wrote:
| There is no sane technologically educated person who will buy
| Apple or Google phone. It is obvious that the smartphones are
| data gathering and control tools for the surveillance economy.
| Degoogled smartphone with limited usage is the safest bet for
| now. Apple computers are still valuable, when configured
| properly, but I don't have a high hopes for the future. Apple
| will lock whatever they can to "protect" the bottomline and
| expand the Imperium.
| mordae wrote:
| I am with you, but remember, you are preaching to their
| employees or at least employee-wannabees in here. :-)
| Thaxll wrote:
| "26% of teens own a VR device"
|
| Sounds very strange.
| deng wrote:
| Also of note:
|
| > Weekly usage of VR devices moved to 14% from 17% last Spring;
| 26% of teens own a VR device (flat vs. Spring 2022)
|
| I find these numbers actually more surprising, but I hear VRChat
| is really popular.
| hankman86 wrote:
| It's about status more than anything else. A teen's greatest fear
| is that owning an Android makes you un-effable.
| TGRush wrote:
| Reading through comments like these really makes me appreciate
| how this entire iPhone culture thing really didn't swing over
| to where I live.
|
| It really sounds like a nightmare.
| chadd wrote:
| ... this is why Apple should be investigated for Anticompetitive
| behaviors regarding app store policies and iMessage
| interoperability.
| sbuk wrote:
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