>Not because they had to switch to another app to reach him, but "because he was on Android and turned the thread green" (sic).
That's a sneaky odd bit of social engineering. Wonder how many iphone sales they've actually gotten because of this.
That's a sneaky odd bit of social engineering. Wonder how many iphone sales they've actually gotten because of this.
That number is biased, however, as 1) it's solely based on a survey done in high schools, and not every teen will feel comfortable admitting they have something else than an iPhone 2) the surveys are performed by DECA Inc. which is more affiliated with private schools and public high schools in affluent neighborhoods.
Still, I estimate that about 3 in 4 teens (and increasing) have an iPhone, either new or a model that was previously used by a parent who bought a new one. That's huge, and iMessage plays a very big role in that.
[1] https://www.ped30.com/2019/04/08/apple-piper-jaffray-genz/
I haven't found anything on Android that allowed me age-appropriate fine-grain controls that didn't require exceptions like turning the entire rule off just to allow a single purchase, or having the same functionality controlled in two or three different overlapping spots, etc.
If you really want to see how bad it can possibly get, take a peek at Amazon's Fire Tablet parental controls. Those take the cake for opaque settings that sometimes do what they say, sometimes much more, sometimes nothing.
On iOS you can disable installing apps, uninstalling apps, updating apps or disable the app store completely using Screen Time and before that you could (and still can) require a password/fingerprint/face ID for any app install including free.
It would take almost no effort from Google's part to replicate the last of these (add an option requiring a password to install any app, even free with lowest rating) but they seem to be unwilling to do so.
If I want to hand my own phone over to a child for a while, there's no way (that I've found anyway) to prevent a child from installing all sorts of crapware on it.