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Android isn't cool with teenagers, and that's a big problem (www.androidpolice.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

69 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Android isn't cool with teenagers, and that's a big problem::Nearly 9 in 10 US teenagers use an iPhone, spelling disaster for Google's mobile future

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[–] [email protected] 102 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Honestly, it's a way bigger problem that kids are being indoctrinated into "keeping up with the Joneses" as such a young age.

We've officially made children part of the Conspicuous Consumption game and motherfucker, they don't have money, it's their parents money!

It's sickening and will fuck their finances their whole lives if having the best iPhone is more important than being able to put food on your plate.

I'm way the fuck more worried about these kids indoctrinated into a Capitalist hell-hole more than I am about fucking Android.

If our democratic future is banking on these kids saving us, and they're already rooted firmly up a corporations asshole, we're fucked.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Nothing is new here.

This isn’t that different from when I was a kid twenty years ago. Only instead of phones (though we all had phones back then too, even if they weren’t smart), it was game consoles, or Pokémon cards, or beanie babies or whatever.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Only difference is about $1000 give or take a few bucks.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah you’re not wrong about that. Although some people went hard into the beanie babies. And the Pokémon cards actually.

If you were into warhammer you resigned yourself at a young age to never having money. Those things eat up an ungodly amount of money.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

That’s fair, I’m actually thinking of magic the gathering at the moment. Luckily my friend was given a huge chest of cards like hundreds and hundreds of cards, so we never had to buy any.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Check out MTG:Arena. Great online adaptation if you haven't seen it yet.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Assuming a new iPhone every 2 years, that's still pretty on par with historical premiums that would be being paid in the same timeframe for the "in" clothing brands. Designer jeans and Lululemons come to mind.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I don’t know where this guy has been for the last 70 years but consumerism came for kids a long time ago.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is this why me and my equally autistic partner are so decent with our money against statistical odds?

I mean i knew purchases for status where a thing but surely thats just the odd snobbish people right?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

You guys are hating on Android, but the reality is that I will pick Android any day.

At least with Android I have the freedom to install custom OS versions, change the default browser, sideload apps and to be honest I find Apple's anti-consumer practices appalling, not to mention their very questionable legacy, etc.

On my Android I have changed the default browser to Firefox nightly and loaded the libredirect and I am enjoying a lot of sideloaded apps, including Newpipe and it is running beautifully. I personally find Android a lot more powerful and customizable.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You're absolutely right, but none of the things you've mentioned have any importance to a teenager. The only thing that matter to them is fitting in and if all their friends have iPhones then custom OSs and sideloaded apps really aren't going to matter at all.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

You’re a computer enthusiast. Android phones are computers.

Not everyone needs to be a computer enthusiast. It’s ok that you are though. No shade.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Teenagers. US teenagers, specifically. So definitely no big problem.

Personally for me the problem starts when there is no mobile hardware which supports free/libre OS. It is already visible in the supported hardware list of LineageOS. Large tablets, particularly.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

As a teen, I'm glad I'm European. Nobody has mocked me for using an Android from 2019

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I'm wondering if it's tied to how status symbols differ per culture. Its been 20 years, but I don't remember status symbols mattering much to my environment when I was a teenager in the Netherlands. I wonder how that is now.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)

"Nearly 9 in 10 US teenagers use an iPhone"

No.

"Nearly 9 in 10 US teenagers SAY THEY use an iPhone"

FTFY.

How many actually use an iPhone remains to be seen.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This. Self selected, self reported. Not a good survey.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You have literally described all surveys, good job.

It isn't like people who run surveys don't know this and take it into account, there has been plenty of math that has been sussed out to try to remove the kind of bias that can happen in self reporting.

There's reams of science dedicated to this problem, it isn't new. I'm tired of seeing this argument shat out without a shred of consideration for scientific and mathematic history of taking surveys.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

Not all surveys, no. Just the ones where people have chosen to participate and are trusted to provide accurate information.

We know, individually, self selected surveys have problems with validity, as do self reported surveys. Combining the two is a huge problem.

What we can't tell from this article at any rate is if it's a failure in methodology or a failure in reporting. Either could be true.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5639921/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4115258/

That being said, there IS a more accurate way to define Apple usage among teens and that would be to survey the school districts.

"How many students do you have? How many devices connect to your network wirelessly? What percentage of those are iOS?"

That still wouldn't be 100% accurate due to teachers and staff bringing their own devices, but the students vastly out number staff so the variance could calculated.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago

Wonder how many of these teens are buying their own phones.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago

US teenagers have never been known for being particularly smart ...

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

This stat seems wrong. It suggests 90% of teenagers have parents who bought an iPhone and handed it down or bought a new one for a kid (or the kid worked for a long time and saved up, etc). So many people have basic phones because of their budget that this seems way off.

Maybe I'll read the article now.

Edit - Read it but still skeptical. Study summary here - https://www.pipersandler.com/teens

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I actually think that Android has gone downhill in a big way, but I still won't go to Apple's closed ecosystem, and I don't care what teenagers think.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

^ this
until google completely locks down android i think androids still gonna be popular with someone
i say until because theyre totally gonna find a way to, theyre probably just waiting until they have an opportunity to since google pretty much envies apple above all else

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yet android has the bigger marketshare.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yet android has the bigger marketshare.

Globally. In the US, however, which is the focus of this article, it’s about 55/45 to Apple.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

meaining it's about a 50-50 split in the us. i'm still not really concerned. when you have only two smartphones, ad no one wants to make a 3rd commercial smart phone that is not based on andriod, resualts like this are bound to happen.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Teenagers might think they want an iPhone, but not everyone has the money for one and paying the bills. Whether they could make life changes to make more money is debatable, but the fact remains that not everyone does have $1000 to throw at a phone.

Because of this, the cheaper yet surprisingly still usable alternative, android has the larger marketshare. Since Google makes money on ads it's better for them to hand out more phones for cheap or in same cases for free, when a manufacturer makes a phone, when all those users see ads on YouTube and Google.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)

My $1200 Android phone is considered budget because it's not Apple.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

Definitely. Android has tiers, from flagship down.

You can get an Android that surpasses any iPhone in specs and price no problem.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They just want to have an iPhone because their friends also have an iPhone...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

And if your biggest userbase is teenagers you are on shaky ground. Trends change quickly and as soon as they have to pay for it themselves it's goodbye luxury item for a lot of them.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

I wonder how this correlates to low use of WhatsApp in the US. In South America and Europe WhatsApp is used heavily and looks the same no matter the platform but none of my US friends have WhatsApp so they rely on iMessage instead. None of them want to be seen sending green bubbles in the chat. I’ve even seen this as a side plot in a teen tv show that my wife was watching.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Can people just stop fucking arguing about android vs iphone, amd vs intel, apple vs samsung etc. I'm so sick of this idiotic mess.

"this soulless corporation is better than this soulless corporation because their marketing material uses this shade of grey with white text"

I am going to have a mental breakdown if I read any more of these braindead conversations

It should be GNULinux vs Windows/Mac, Graphene/LineageOS vs Android/iPhone, etc.

People arguing vs have all been brainwashed by the corpos to ignore freedom respecting alternatives, and rather argue a meaningless argument because those 2 corpos are probably owned by the same shareholders anyway.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Google had the game in their hand and then they destroyed Hangouts.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think it starts with the ads.. privacy etc. people believe that shit a s apple is good on it. That said iMessage is another things used a lot around central and North America and also in Asia. I think Europe not so much. That is why iPhone is popular. Just a thought. Not sure I am right. I use an iPhone and a pixel with GrapheneOS. Enjoy both and need both one for business and one for day to day private life

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

the thing is apple devices aren't terrible, just over priced, they are better when it comes to less ads, or are they..? on most Android phones the ads come from the apps the user use, which are likely to be the same on an iphone anyways. YouTube anyone?

. and knowing how much free money apple gets from the search engine deal on the daily and yet they still charge $1000 for phones that right there, ends my trust for that company, forget about their privacy claims after that nonsense.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

I honestly don’t know about much ads. I use a pretty good dns setup what already blocks most. On top AdGuard pro take cares most of the ads I would see. I use also vinegar for YouTube so I don’t see ads there haha.

On android you have with rethinkdns a pretty great firewall with a name what sounds more like a dns service. Anyway, I use apple for business, just because it works with my associates and have GrapheneOS as my daily drive.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (8 children)

Well yeah, of course teenagers will just want the most expensive thing, regardless of whether it's actually any better.

Teenagers are largely stupid. We all were.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Look at it like this, how many wanted the Playstation 3 when it was cool, then factor in how many people bought that at launch vs the ps2 at launch. Actual market share matter more then opinions on what's cool.

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