Why do iphone users still see their phones as a status symbol
-
How does that telling happen, actually?
Companies pay groups to run marketing campaigns that push the idea that their product is missing from your life. Exact methods vary but it's often in the form of video and printed advertising. Sometimes you'll see celebrity endorsements or conspicuous product placement in TV/movies. Whatever the people-nerds think will convince the general public to buy.
-
Especially teens and college students
Source: i'm a college student
As a grown adult, I don’t care what people think about phone brands or multi billion/trillion companies when compared with more of the same. But it’s like sports teams. It doesn’t mean much but it can be fun with friendly rivalries. People who take it seriously though? Not to be taken serious.
I use one because I value privacy. I also have an Android phone from 2019 I like more for a few reasons. I like both. I also like both Xbox and Nintendo. And I don’t hate PlayStation. I don’t use Windows, I use Macs, but at work I’m unofficial IT, people come to the Mac user for help with Windows 10/11 because I know that too, it’s just not what I use at home. I still have like 30 years of experience with Windows. I also have a favorite (gridiron) football team. And I’ll tell you why they suck but I’ll never stop rooting for them. (Don’t have a favorite (association) football club.)
I think tribalism is for people who use things to identify themselves. When you stop doing that, tribalism starts to look dumb.
-
How does that telling happen, actually?
Simulated intellect. The same way that big, fake boobs sell products to a particular demographic, so do fake, big brains appeal to another.
-
Marketing.
Go back to the Apple/PC ads in the 90's,where the Apple guy was hip, and the PC guy was an old fuddy-duddy in a brown suit.
Apple has always traded on the slickness of their products. They often claim to be the "first" at something, when they really just developed the first seriously marketable version.
iPhone wasn't the first smartphone by years. Just the first one that was slick enough for consumers to bite on, when a year before it was geeky to have such a device.
Their entire premise is "Are you too stupid to work a computer? Now you can do computer things without being a nerd!"
-
Kids are like that. Most adults don’t care.
Bullshit. Adults absolutely care. It's human nature to try to project your status in the social hierarchy. That takes different forms and may instead be projecting status with a Stanley flask or Canada Goose jacket, or whatever.
-
I think originally because they used to be only for AT&T customers and were the most expensive, then android started flooding the market with cheap shitty phones.
This is the real reason. The iphone was the original tablet-like smart phone and it was marketed as a premium offering and as a result has always enjoyed that status.
Android was second to market and a competitor to the iphone. Because every manufacturer wanted to make a tablet-like phone, they copied the iphone's style and made hundreds of shitty knockoffs over the years that effectively bolstered the iphone's premium status. Yes there are flagship android phones made by Samsung and LG that cost more than the most expensive iphone - but they are loaded with bloatware and bootlocked so you dont get updates and is held back by garbage so it works like shit in only a few years. So even the premium options are shit. The google pixels are good hardware but they're made by a company that makes every one of their trillions of pennies by spying on you.
-
Especially teens and college students
Source: i'm a college student
My daughter wanted an iPhone when she was in high school because her friends played the arcade games together on it. That was the only reason she wanted it.
-
Bullshit. Adults absolutely care. It's human nature to try to project your status in the social hierarchy. That takes different forms and may instead be projecting status with a Stanley flask or Canada Goose jacket, or whatever.
Most adults don’t use their iphones as status symbols. Look at 10 random adults iphones and over 9 of them will be damaged.
I’ve managed iphones for hundreds of people and only encountered a few that care at all.
BlackBerry holdovers would be a different discussion though.
-
Marketing.
Duh.
But what does that marketing include?
This 39-year-old north-European doesn't seem to get reached by Apple's marketing at all.
-
I see mine for what it is. A phone. And a serious threat to my privacy. (I'm well into my 50s, if this matters)
If you're looking for privacy, I highly recommend (weirdly enough) a Google Pixel. With GrapheneOS it's way more secure and private than basically anything else on the market.
-
Wait people really give a shit? Never seen or heard about that
Source: I’m also a college student
It used to be much worse. I remember being excluded from group chats in high school because of the color of the chat bubble for android was different or some shit lol
-
Especially teens and college students
Source: i'm a college student
That’s why I make sure mine is old and cracked, dented, and scuffed to shit to make sure no one makes that mistake.
-
I second this. Been using a Pixel with GOS for 3 years now.
-
Especially teens and college students
Source: i'm a college student
I see my deGoogled Android device as a higher status symbol than any overpriced stock Apple device.
-
It used to be much worse. I remember being excluded from group chats in high school because of the color of the chat bubble for android was different or some shit lol
Some people really got to get a personality outside of the shit they own
-
Bullshit. Adults absolutely care. It's human nature to try to project your status in the social hierarchy. That takes different forms and may instead be projecting status with a Stanley flask or Canada Goose jacket, or whatever.
"Adults".
-
Kids are like that. Most adults don’t care.
I disagree, kids are taught by adults, so whatever they are learning its from their teachers and families. In my experience I have seen more adults give a status symbols to Apple products than children.
-
Especially teens and college students
Source: i'm a college student
Because they paid a lot of money for them and they need to convince themselves that it was worth the cost.
-
This is the real reason. The iphone was the original tablet-like smart phone and it was marketed as a premium offering and as a result has always enjoyed that status.
Android was second to market and a competitor to the iphone. Because every manufacturer wanted to make a tablet-like phone, they copied the iphone's style and made hundreds of shitty knockoffs over the years that effectively bolstered the iphone's premium status. Yes there are flagship android phones made by Samsung and LG that cost more than the most expensive iphone - but they are loaded with bloatware and bootlocked so you dont get updates and is held back by garbage so it works like shit in only a few years. So even the premium options are shit. The google pixels are good hardware but they're made by a company that makes every one of their trillions of pennies by spying on you.
android phones made by Samsung and LG
-
Especially teens and college students
Source: i'm a college student
they haven't outgrown being incredibly stupid and some never will.
