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87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

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Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#541

Post by warner25 »

meragrin_ wrote: post #500
reaperducer wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are doing this for the network effect. This is what people in the hate-Apple echo chamber like to chant, but it's wrong. When Apple started doing it, there was no network effect. The color choice was made years before everyone started freaking out about green and blue bubbles. It was done to show that a message went over SMS, and not iMessage at a time when many Americans paid for each SMS sent, but iMessages we…

At what time has data ever been cheaper than SMS? That "Blue=free Green=10¢" would likely only have been true for people on really crummy plans sending a message while connected to Wi-Fi. Data has never been "free". They would have had to show iMessage messages as green when sent over the phone network. It was to mark the "plebs" so the "plebs" would be blamed for any issues rather than Apple.

I think that data plans used to be expensive (I avoided getting a smartphone until 2014 because of the costs), but once you had a data plan for other reasons (e.g. being able to browse the web) then messaging apps were a cheaper way to send a message on the margin. My cheap minutes-only plan with AT&T back in 2008-2011 charged me $0.20 per SMS sent and received, which added up fast with unsolicited messages, but eventually I found the option to just block all SMS to save money (yes, I was just oblivious to whatever people sent me for a couple years, and it probably wasn't good for my social life...).

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#542

Post by D13Fd »

heavyset_go wrote: post #24
rsync wrote: post #2

My two oldest children - 13 and 15 - have loudly proclaimed that having a "green bubble" would be worse than death .

We like to fingerwag at social media companies for knowingly negatively impacting children's mental health and self-esteem, yet Apple is aware of how their systems ostracize children, in their own peer groups, who can't afford to carry around luxury phones. It's one thing to be ostracized by strangers on social media, it's an entirely other thing to be ostracized by your own friends and peers. The latter is tragicall…

Then just buy an iPhone, or get over it? You're acting as if Android vs. iPhone is an immutable part of a child's identity. It's not.

You can get a totally workable used iPhone cheap, because they keep working for so long.

It's not like you need a lot of horsepower for texting. My kids take a beat up 8-year-old iPhone 6 out when they go to sleepovers and things. It still works fine.

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#543

Post by munk-a »

sbuk wrote: post #502
munk-a wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to fix teenage rebellion and cliquishness I applaud your efforts. I certainly personally suffered from bullying when I was a teenager over my clothes and haircut and pretty much every other facet of my person so if you can come up with a way for no one to ever endure it again I'd celebrate your achievement. Humanity hasn't managed to impart real empathy on teenagers in thousands of years of existence - we…

> So, maybe instead of focusing on bullying we can just focus on punishing companies that profit from bullying. This is an extreme take. Yes bullying is is a consequence of society. Don’t be lazy and blame someone else for your societies ills. Especially when the solution is simple: encouraging the use of an alternative. No. RCS isn’t the alternative. WhatsApp, Line, Telegram, Signal, Snapchat, TikTok, Discord etc, e…

I don't think adding RCS support is going to instantly solve all the world's ills but Apple is pretty explicit about their reasoning for not supporting RCS: to create a specific and exclusive messenging experience on their phone. This exclusive experience is causing just another thing kids can be assholes about - they are currently and will forever continue to be assholes about a lot of stuff but this particular one is one artificially created by Apple to benefit their profitability. I'm sure in their internal meetings they like to think that exclusivity will only really affect adults and that we're mature enough not to bully each other (which, we mostly are, since the behavior we most bully as adults is bullying itself) but this exclusivity also affects teens that are far less mature. Personally I'd also love it if everyone moved off SMS/RCS in general since it's billed as an extreme luxury by carriers but I don't know if we can make that happen when Messenger comes pre-installed on iOS devices.

I don't assume that fixing a bubble color will fix all bullying but I do stand by your interpretation that I find that changing the color of a bubble will stop all this sort of bullying.

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#544

Post by GeekyBear »

meragrin_ wrote: post #500
reaperducer wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are doing this for the network effect. This is what people in the hate-Apple echo chamber like to chant, but it's wrong. When Apple started doing it, there was no network effect. The color choice was made years before everyone started freaking out about green and blue bubbles. It was done to show that a message went over SMS, and not iMessage at a time when many Americans paid for each SMS sent, but iMessages we…

At what time has data ever been cheaper than SMS? That "Blue=free Green=10¢" would likely only have been true for people on really crummy plans sending a message while connected to Wi-Fi. Data has never been "free". They would have had to show iMessage messages as green when sent over the phone network. It was to mark the "plebs" so the "plebs" would be blamed for any issues rather than Apple.

> At what time has data ever been cheaper than SMS?

Phone plans used to come with a limited number of SMS messages per month (or even none), and the rates per SMS if you went over the limit were beyond extortionate.

>Since BlackBerry messages are sent as data, users do not incur individual charges for each message as they would through regular SMS texting. While phone companies have introduced bulk texting plans, many options still include caps on the number of individual SMS messages that can be sent. BBM has no such limit.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/why-is-bbm-so-suc...

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#545

Post by sangnoir »

GeekyBear wrote: post #511
est31 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nobody preventing Apple from developing an Android app for iMessage. They already have a bunch of apps on the play store, including one for Apple TV, Beats, and a migration app for iOS. https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Apple

Nobody prevented Microsoft from creating a Youtube app for Windows Phone. Oh, wait. Google prevented Microsoft from creating a Youtube app for Windows Phone.

How is a Microsoft-authored app connecting to Google's YT servers comparable to an Apple-authored app connecting to Apple iMessage servers?

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#546

Post by systoll »

heavyset_go wrote: post #325
mberning wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You act as if they don’t make cheap and relatively accessible phones. They do. iphone se is a perfectly good phone that can be bought new for $400. Sure it’s not at the absolute bottom end of the market, but it is fairly accessible when you compare it to their flagship phones.

You can buy a new Android phone for $20. A $400+ phone, with a $19 charging cable that is not included, is a luxury for many people.

The cable is included - https://www.apple.com/iphone-se/specs/

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#547

Post by Mockapapella »

bloqs wrote: post #322

Americans, do people not use whatsapp over there? In Europe everyone uses whatsapp for literally everything, with a sprinkling of Telegram if you are into something a little subversive and Signal if you actually care about privacy. The only time I use text/sms is to recieve codes for things, and I'm doing that less and less.

Nobody I know (locally) uses whatsapp. I'd be surprised if a majority have even heard of it.

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#548

Post by GeekyBear »

sangnoir wrote: post #545
GeekyBear wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody prevented Microsoft from creating a Youtube app for Windows Phone. Oh, wait. Google prevented Microsoft from creating a Youtube app for Windows Phone.

How is a Microsoft-authored app connecting to Google's YT servers comparable to an Apple-authored app connecting to Apple iMessage servers?

How does Google have the nerve to whine about iMessage after they used Youtube as a weapon to kill Windows Phone?

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#549

Post by josephcsible »

GeekyBear wrote: post #544
meragrin_ wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what time has data ever been cheaper than SMS? That "Blue=free Green=10¢" would likely only have been true for people on really crummy plans sending a message while connected to Wi-Fi. Data has never been "free". They would have had to show iMessage messages as green when sent over the phone network. It was to mark the "plebs" so the "plebs" would be blamed for any issues rather than Apple.

> At what time has data ever been cheaper than SMS? Phone plans used to come with a limited number of SMS messages per month (or even none), and the rates per SMS if you went over the limit were beyond extortionate. >Since BlackBerry messages are sent as data, users do not incur individual charges for each message as they would through regular SMS texting. While phone companies have introduced bulk texting plans, man…

> Phone plans used to come with a limited number of SMS messages per month (or even none), and the rates per SMS if you went over the limit were beyond extortionate.

But wasn't cellular data priced similarly extortionately back then?

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#550

Post by colinmhayes »

filoleg wrote: post #539
colinmhayes wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the opposite experience for what it's worth.

To make sure I understand it correctly, you actually receive imessage spam, not sms spam? Because regular sms spam (green bubbles) could still arrive.

Oh yea it’s normal, but so what? Still sends me a notification
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