Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#81

Post by bpoyner » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 1:00 PM UTC

Macha wrote: post #51

leokennis wrote: post #27

I feel like many people love iOS, but many also hate it (not open enough, lock in etc.) but they hate the cheapishness and crappiness of Android even more. Is there any development ongoing for a mobile OS that is not full of crap like Android, but not as restrictive as iOS? Not sure if Windows Phone or PalmOS were like that, but those are both gone…

Windows Phone apps were absolutely mostly shovelware, which had a not insignificant contribution to it's failure I feel. Never used PalmOS to comment. I think third place these days is Tizen which is in a worse place than the two big ones for apps, and then fourth might genuinely be GNU/Linux but there's massive dropoffs between third and fourth, and between second and third.

But you may have used the Palm OS successor, webOS, which is used by LG smart TVs. It blew me away that Palm OS is still around in some form. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebOS

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#82

Post by curtainsforus » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 1:00 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #34

RappingBoomer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, i can AFFORD any phone i want...but i use a cheap android because my self esteem is not dependent on using money to signal other people about my high social status

The iPhone isn't a good social status signal any longer - the majority of smartphone users in the US have one. If the majority can afford something, it's quite obvious it no longer functions for signaling high social status. The iPhone hasn't been a good social status signal for nearly a decade at this point.

There's a 'waterfall' effect of status signals. The upper class uses signal A to differentiate themselves from the middle class; the middle class catches on, and starts using signal A to imitate the upper class; the upper class moves on to signal B, to differentiate themselves from the middle class; the lower class use signal A to imitate the middle class; the middle class uses B to differentiate themselves from the lower class and imitate the upper class; from there, it cycles.

ABA->BAB->ABA

The upper class aren't worried about being mistaken for the lower class; that's why 'ghetto chic' exists, and why Zuckerberg wore hoodies. Conspicuous adoption of low-class signals can be a signal of high-class- for a while, till the rest of the culture catches up.

Usual caveats of 'this is a simplified model' etc.

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#83

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 1:00 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #13

For average people, iPhones are aspirational, android is what you get if you can’t afford an iPhone. So as soon as you can afford it, you buy one. Tech people excluded because they have other niche reasons for their smartphone choice.

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Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#84

Post by laumars » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 1:00 PM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #31

Are there any "real" (come on, techy people, you know what I mean) reasons for going Apple besides I suppose the genuine convenience of fully interoperable phone/messaging across devices (which I fully concede is probably a big one for a good number of people?) The price differences between Android and Apple still strike me as absurd. On the other side, I went from "picking an Android very carefully for rooting" grad…

No. But there’s also no “real” reasons to buy Android instead either. It’s literally just a matter of personal preference

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#85

Post by herbst » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 1:00 PM UTC

helloooooooo wrote: post #55

jrm4 wrote: post #31

Are there any "real" (come on, techy people, you know what I mean) reasons for going Apple besides I suppose the genuine convenience of fully interoperable phone/messaging across devices (which I fully concede is probably a big one for a good number of people?) The price differences between Android and Apple still strike me as absurd. On the other side, I went from "picking an Android very carefully for rooting" grad…

I switched from Android to iPhone. I was tired of my Android phones (Samsung Galaxy’s) only receiving updates for ~2 years. On top of that, I found that there was a lot of “jank” when using some apps. They would crash, fail to load, slow down etc… I attribute that mostly due to the Java based code. I also hated having both Google and Samsung trying to bait me into their “ecosystems”. They also have both the device OE…

To be fair Samsung is pushing the worst possible android experience consistently since they make phones.

Their android flavor is nothing like stock android, buggy and gets barely updated. The phones to expensive for the actual build quality.

Samsung is just the most ugly side of Android. A pixel or even a Xiaomi that ship with stock and allow removing unwanted apps without hacks is not even compareable.

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#86

Post by est31 » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 1:00 PM UTC

Rhedox wrote: post #14

londons_explore wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU mandate that all large messaging platforms be interoperable by mid 2023 ought to widen this gap too. I wouldn't want to be part of the team having a deadline of March to develop and implement a way for every big messaging app to interoperate, with different user models, privacy concerns (e2e?), data storage models, data durability models, etc. Yet if it launches late, you have that 10% of revenue fine hanging…

Did they actually mandate that? I thought what the EU mandated was mostly about payment services.

They mandates a bunch of things, more than just payment services. It also includes app stores, at least according to multiple reports, but linking to the specific article that includes app store freedom seems hard to me.

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/07/05/eu-approves-landmark-le...

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#87

Post by ethanbond » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 1:01 PM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #38

londons_explore wrote: post #7

I attribute most of this to iMessage and the associated lock-in effect. You don't see the same trend in the rest of the world where 3rd party messengers (Whatsapp, Viber, Line, snapchat, etc) are mostly used for comms. The inability of iPhones to easily host 'cracked' apps also acts as an anchor to adoption - theres a lot of people hooked on their cracked ad-free spotify or youtube apps, or games with 'everything fre…

Isn't therr career subsidies already heavily at play ? Having the actual price partially swallowed in business rebates or scaled into years of monthly charges changes the optics in term of price and the option to afford "luxury"

It's probably that using an Android device remains an extremely poor experience. I was an early adopter, a root mod developer, and an open source believer. Even I got tired of hoping for the experience to rival iOS "next year" after 5 years or so.

There's really nothing clever going on. People prefer good products over less good ones.

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#88

Post by bachmeier » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 1:02 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #7

I attribute most of this to iMessage and the associated lock-in effect. You don't see the same trend in the rest of the world where 3rd party messengers (Whatsapp, Viber, Line, snapchat, etc) are mostly used for comms. The inability of iPhones to easily host 'cracked' apps also acts as an anchor to adoption - theres a lot of people hooked on their cracked ad-free spotify or youtube apps, or games with 'everything fre…

> I attribute most of this to iMessage and the associated lock-in effect.

It would be nice to see some evidence of this. It seems less complicated to me.

Particularly among young people, Android phones have a reputation for being trash, and they are the equivalent of my generation's store brand shoes.

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#89

Post by coldpie » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 1:02 PM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #31

Are there any "real" (come on, techy people, you know what I mean) reasons for going Apple besides I suppose the genuine convenience of fully interoperable phone/messaging across devices (which I fully concede is probably a big one for a good number of people?) The price differences between Android and Apple still strike me as absurd. On the other side, I went from "picking an Android very carefully for rooting" grad…

There are zero Android phones that are usable one-handed. Apple makes two such models. I strongly prefer Android as an operating system, but if I can't physically use the phone, it's useless to me. So I'm on iPhone.

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#90

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 1:02 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #79

seydor wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think more people like apple's hardware than their software (myself included) android is not full of crap if it doesnt come preloaded with it. the google apps , which you can download are pretty great and the interface can be replaced with another launcher. The app selection in the stores seems identical to me

Yeah. I switched to iPhone late last year, since Apple is the only manufacturer that builds a phone that fits in the human hand. I'm pretty blown away by how bad iOS is compared to Android. Way fewer features, many more bugs, less customizable. Android is a far better software experience, but Apple is my only choice for a reasonably sized phone. Sucks.

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