Hacker News Reader

Comment by nobody9999 | Hacker News Reader

>To get a blue bubble you must give up control over your mobile life to Apple.

As someone who has never used Apple products (well, except for the OS on an Apple II I built from a kit as a high school project in 1983), I don't understand why a "blue bubble" is important.

Would you mind explaining that to me? Not being snarky here, I just really don't understand what value there is in a "blue bubble."

View on HN

It is a huge status symbol among the youth. Kids will discriminate against and even sometimes bully people for not having it. And there are certain features that only apple users can use over messaging that has no reasonable excuse for not allowing other mobile platforms to participate in other than to push kids into buying iphones so they aren't excluded. Effectively pushing kids into buying devices far more expensive and powerful than they actually have any usage for. And for kids of poorer families buying an iphone is a fairly large financial burden.

And on slightly older people on Tinder too, or so I've heard (Australia). But maybe for some it's a positive that those people filter them out.

You can get a perfectly functional used iPhone that runs the current OS for under $200. One only has to spend a lot if one wants the latest and greatest.

That still doesn't solve the issue that to get a blue bubble you must give up control over your mobile life to Apple. Almost nobody carries around two phones.

>That still doesn't solve the issue that to get a blue bubble you must give up control over your mobile life to Apple.

...and if you "want the blue bubble" you must give up control over your messaging to Apple.

And if I want to use WhatsApp, I have to use WhatsApp.

Wow. I never knew as the rest of the world uses WhatsApp. That's the most stupid thing I've heard in a while, I can't believe people give it any kind of importance. I've never owned an iPhone, stuff like this makes me even less likely to.

To a first approximation, no one pays full price for a phone up front. They buy it through a carrier.

Even the low end carriers like Metro give you a “free” iPhone with a contract. Even if that’s not the case, the price of a iPhone SE over two years is not that much higher than an Android.

That’s not even bringing up the refurb market.

They will find another status symbol, like e.g. does their prey’s phone have an actual apple logo on it. Or see it on a screenshot, in clothing, accessories. This blue bubble argument is utter nonsense, fix your youth, not the phone.

Apparently using your iphone without a protective cover is a status symbol, too.

Blue means end-to-end encrypted. Green means plaintext.

it's a status marker. Only people who can afford the iphone get a blue bubble.

> it's a status marker

Not as much as you probably believe it is (at least in the US), given it has the majority smartphone owneship share here.

This is such a tired cliche. How is something owned by 60% of the American market a “status symbol”?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com