this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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Everyone I know in tech uses android. People that want capable handheld devices choose android. People that want a basic device that does what the company says and nothing else go Apple. Even I suggest Apple to old people and luddites, it protects itself from them. Oh, and people easily manipulated by social pressures (OMG I need the right colored text bubble!) will deeply overpay for a subpar device.
See, this is what I'm talking about. Being so invested in the type of phone people have that calling people with a different phone "Luddites" seems a tad excessive.
It is literally the equivalent of an iPhone user being like "Only poor people have android phones."
Also, for what it's worth, I too work in tech and talk to probably hundreds of IT people monthly and the phone type split is pretty even. I only know because a lot of time we're doing security for their endpoints and we need to know device types for that. But see, much like your evidence, that's just anecdotal. Neither of us know anything.
And my goodness, do I hate the whole colored text bubble thing, from both sides. iMessage is convenient because it gives you all the pros of a third party texting app without having to use a third party app. You're correct that people get pretentious about it, and that's ridiculous, but what's easier? Convincing everyone you know to download signal or whatsapp or matrix or whatever or having that built into the text app. I mean, the whole thing is just a larger issue with SMS/MMS being garbage but still. Hopefully, with IOS 18 having RCS support, it will be less of an issue, but that remains to be seen.
Anyway, as I've clearly not demonstrated by consistently replying to randos on the internet, don't think about it. There are more important things to worry about in this world.
FTFY
When presented this way, the choice is very different.
You make a fair point here. The pressure to just buy an iPhone so you can use iMessage is frustrating and downloading a third party app is really easy (and possibly a better option than iMessage) but you gotta remember most people don't think like that. Honestly, I use signal for most of my messaging but still need to use text for many of my family members because I'm not about to walk my Dad through downloading, setting up, and using a separate app just to text me.
Also, yeah Apple could make iMessage available on Android but in the same vein Nintendo could make games for Playstation/xBox. They could, but why would they? People buy their hardware for the specific software that is offered. It's frustrating but that's part of their business model.
The real solution is to replace SMS/MMS with a better solution, which RCS is attempting to do, but it's sub par compared to anything else still, in my opinion.
That social pressure sure does a lot in the USA. In Austria for example iOS sits at 17.8% (July 2024) despite being a rich country.
Since none of Apple's native services are being used the only upside of Apple products is their out-of-the-box neatless communication (MacBook-iPhone) and not being able to do much (this is an upside for old people who want to have as little options as possible, like they did on their old flip telephones). Accordingly, iPhones are very popular among people who only ever use their phones for photos and communication, which is a small percentage (as the statistic shows).
Most people simply care for what their phone can do (screen, camera, battery life, speed, customisability, software availability, bang-for-buck), for the camera it's a tie (iPhones still win for videos, Android flagships win for photos) and in all other points Android wins, leading to its 70% market share.
Source for market share by OS: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/303829/umfrage/genutzte-mobile-betriebssysteme-in-oesterreich/
I know people in tech who use iPhones. But they're definitely the exception.