Posted on 11/07/2011 10:10:37 AM PST by markomalley
(snip)
So I asked my Android-loving friends on Google+ a very simple question: Why do people buy iPhones? Rapid Responses
In less than eight hours, they had maxed out Google+'s 500-comment limit. Boy did I get an earful. Here's why people buy iPhones, according to Android fans:
The iPhone is a status symbol. iPhone buyers are attracted to the Apple brand as a prestigious status symbol or fashion accessory, for the same reasons people like Rolex watches or Gucci bags.
The iPhone is a smart phone for dumb users. The iPhone is supposed to be easy to use, so novices are attracted to it for that reason.
iPhone users are ignorant. iPhone buyers don't know what Android phones are capable of, or how unnecessary iPhone limitations are.
iPhone users are suckered in by skillful marketing. iPhone users are brainwashed sheep, victims of Steve Jobs' reality distortion field. Product announcements, commercials, packaging, TV and movie product placements and other marketing campaigns by Apple have convinced users that it's a better phone. The iPhone's assumed superiority is marketing-driven perception.
The iPhone is the most popular phone and most recognizable brand. Some iPhone buyers want the biggest-selling phone for the same reason people go to Starbucks instead of the locally owned coffee shop or choose Nike shoes instead of a brand they've never heard of -- big brands and popular products are attractive for their own sake to some people.
(Excerpt) Read more at pcworld.com ...
The iPhone is a smart phone for dumb users. The iPhone is supposed to be easy to use, so novices are attracted to it for that reason.
I think that’s a fairly accurate statement.
I find that Apple user’s priorities are such that they want their computers to work flawlessly, with no trouble and they are willing to pay a premium for it.
bttt
As a EE...and one who knows comms/digital design/etc, I’ll still pick Apple.
Not perfect...but still (IMHO) the best.
As a developer and user of BOTH, basically Android is what folks generally settle for when they can’t get an iPhone, that’s the long and short of it.
I am not a lifelong apple fan, and in fact was very skeptical of the iPhone for years, but it is without question a simpler more elegant OS and System than Android.
Android is getting better with every version, but it is still nowhere in the iphone/ipad category and doubt it ever will be. There is too much fragmentation in the marketplace to ever get it on par with the Apple products.
Back when iPhones were $400-$500 yes, you could argue the status symbol stuff to an extent, but now that you can get a free older version with a 2 year contract that’s not remotely the case.
Apple is ruling the roost, simply because its got the best product, period. That might change sometime down the road, but for now its an undeniable truth.
Now that doesn’t mean there aren’t folks out there that love their androids, and find them useful and can cite the things they can do that the iphone/ipad can’t, but pragmatically Apple dominates Android currently, its just a better product.
And I say that, as a person who has been having flame wars against Apple since he got his C=64 in 1984, I am not an apple fan boy in the least.
Iphone is still the best.
However, Android has a few issues that I don't like:
I have an iPhone 4S. I'll probably continue to upgrade as long as Apple introduces new devices that are at least close to the competition, because I have an investment in applications that I don't want to repeat.
But, that doesn't mean that I'm going to belittle people that choose an Android device. Everyone is entitled to their choice, as long as they are willing to live with it.
I've noticed many people who like and defend Apple products put a lot of emphasis on how much market share Apple has, and how much money they're making. These are even offerred up in defense of Apple in discussions about technical issues, where it is totally out of context to the questions at hand, but they somehow seem to think it's very important to include it in any discussions that involves anything from Apple.
Im an iPhone user. I used to mock apple. I am a dotnet developer and would make fun of people with their style over substance computers. Then I decided to load OSX on my Toshiba laptop (to prove im not an idiot technologically) and thought to myself....holy crap this is substance too.
Not too much later on, i bought a used white macbook, then moved up to the macbook pro used and then went gusto for the newest 2011 Macbook Pro with SSD and 8 gb ram. This this runs both Windows 7 and OSX at the same time and I can do anything I want.
People who deny apple’s understanding of the typical computer user and avoid it with false preconceptions are missing out. I almost did.
Same goes for the iPhone. Get one cheap (like a 3gs) and never look back.
Personally, I think my Droid is much easier to use than my wife’s iphone. GPS tracking is better (I am a runner and track my workouts for improvements), the music is free and I don’t have to use itunes, and I like the removable SD card instead of storing all memory on the phone. I am also on 4g, which is much faster and iphone does not have it. i phones block Flash Player, making it impossible to view many websites. No difference in price and some Android phones suck, but the Motorola Droid series > iphone series. The only advantage of the iphone that I have found is it gets better battery life.
I agree 100%. Android suffers from the same problem Linux does, fragmentation. Fragmentation is why, IMO, Linux hasn't made greater penetration into the desktop.
I buy the iPhone because I am secure enough to contract out beta testing to the pros. I just want to use the phone, without being intimately involved in putting it together.
Other folks may like to tinker, but I just want to make my calls, check my e-mail use a few apps. For my purposes, the iPhone fits the bill.
I’m an Android user, but I just watched my daughters do a video phone call on their Iphone 4s. I was impressed.
I wonder how many of those polled have had an opportunity to use both systems? Seems to me that what you get are the after-the-fact opinions of those that have chosen 1 of the phones without ever having used the other.
I use a Blackberry for work. I have used an Apple 3G and briefly an Android. I wasn’t impressed with either. I considered the iPhone to be flashy & the Android as a work-in-progress.
I’m an Android user. I can buy a battery off the shelf.
Are you advocating that iPhone users are dumb?
I can go through of litany of weaknesses of the Droid v iPhone, and can point out issues going the other way as well.
You are correct iPhone does not have 4G yet, and I suspect the single biggest reason is battery life, 4G in my experience is a bigger battery hog.
Droid has a multitude of problems, but the biggest is hardware, there are so many cheap crap phones out there, the manufacturing and qa standards are NOT there on the hardware or on the software side... Hardware forget about it, I know so many people who have bought PRICEY android by big names only to have them get replaced MULTIPLE times within a year for failures, lets not even get into the cheap phones they give away with subscribing.
On the software I have been burned more than once by manufacturers who have “tweaked” the open source OS and screwed it up , so that their version of android doesn’t do what the API says it should do, causing nothing but headaches for developers and users.
Google has to do a better job controlling both the hardware and software that is getting out into the wild with Droid attached to it... and I don’t honestly see how they do it when they are giving it away as open source. There only recourse is to hold back marketplace/gmail etc.. but even with that threat, they don’t QA well enough the manufacturers distributions, causing all sorts of problems in the market.
I write an IOS program for say version 4.1.. I know its going to work on ALL iPhones/iPods and iPads with that support that version... I write a 2.2 or 2.3 or even a 1.6 android app, I GUARANTEE I’ll have someone have a problem with it because some manufacturer or another has tweaked the OS and caused some of the rudimentary methods to not function properly and cause my app to crash on that hardware.
Droid has been improving and will continue to, I have no doubt, but its still just not on par with an iOS device for the typical user. (oh and lets not even get into OS crashes)... I think I’ve had to reboot my iPhone 4 or 5 times in 2 years, droids I hit that number in less than a month and I don’t use them nearly as much.
End of the day, for the average user, both will do what they need and do it well enough and as long as anyone is happy with what they use that’s all that matters.
RIM is in trouble, their Torch sucked a big turd.
The biggest problem with Android devices is their inconsistent experience and Google understands this.
Not at all.
But that is the major draw of Apple products, being able to put any Apple products together and it works. You don’t have to spend much time making any technical adjustments, because Apple has basically done that for you.
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