Why teens hate Android phones | Hacker News Reader

Why teens hate Android phones

wsj.com

8 pointsbookofjoe19 comments

Because everyone in their circle has iPhones and they might literally get bullied should they buy an android phone.

For teens, these things matter. Being part of the norm matters. When your crush asks for your number you will be dreading the green bubble because that's simply how teens work.

This is seen mostly in countries where iPhone is most popular with the demographic, I mean, Chinese teens are not buying iPhones. South American teens are not buying iPhones. It's just not a cultural issue to not be able to afford iPhones.

An android phone is more than capable of doing everything an iPhone can, save for interacting with iPhones. I think this strategy from Apple of encroaching society into their ecosystem has been quite successful but i am disgusted at the principle of it. Most people don't care, but they feel the pressure, they've just internalised it and called it a choice.

iPhones are great, the same way Eden was great in the scriptures. Just be content with what God mandates of you and everything will be fine.

Fragmented system, no single set of instructions will work everywhere and should be tailored for specific manufacturer, no updates after 2ish years, more suitable for tech illiterate as most teens are, and also parents prefer to use that for better parental control too. Android used to be the king of the hill pre-2014 era, after that, you get the worst of both words, the android downside and the iphone downsides (locked bootloader, etc.)

> Android used to be the king of the hill pre-2014 era, after that, you get the worst of both words, the android downside and the iphone downsides (locked bootloader, etc.)

Android isn't a vendor. Choose the right vendor, and it's still king of the hill.

Iphones are more tailored for younger creatives. Its sleek look curates a modern, sophisticated, as well as efficient interface makes it an easier choice for most people. It is simple, yet efficient, as well in its own category when it comes to its IOS features. Compared to the android, which features a lot of gadgets, software updates, and constant change. Its not really on brand, and usually outdated, losing its value within a year or less. Teens will either choose androids, by either its software, or by its cost. That's it marketing ploy. When it comes to choosing, people will either pick and choose by their own bias, nit pick each other, and then go home and scroll happily by their choice. At the end of the day, I perfer iPhones because of its long standing value, as well as its minimalism.

>Iphones are more tailored for younger creatives

Funny, the only iPhone users that I see are technically-illiterate people asking around for who has an iPhone charger they can borrow because their battery went flat. There's a billion USB sockets in the building but I guess that's not creative enough.

Check the comment history and reread that comment you're replying to- it stinks to high heaven of badchatbot.

Because they don't have to pay for them?

Yeah sure let me pay money I don't have to impress the people that hate me

iPhones are more expensive, and are thus status symbols. That's it. That's the phone.

Teens can be pretty stupid sometimes.

Suggested edit: "Teens often are very stupid."

Parents need to say "no" more often, try to provide opportunities for kids to exercise some real & positive agency, and also try to educate their kids about types of youthful stupidity. I'm not saying that'll prevent stupid stuff...but you can at least hope that they'll learn a bit more from the experience if they have both a cognitive framework for how they screwed up, and a bit more reality-based self-esteem.

https://archive.ph/03cwZ

I remember when I was a kid, I really wanted Converse All-Star shoes. My Mom said “no,” and that was that.

Oh, I should mention that I survived the remarks about my K-Mart knock-off’s. I didn’t like it, but oh well.

Kids don’t need iPhones. They just want them. “No” is a very good answer.

iPhones are literally a bridge to real social connections.

Teens use AirDrop and FaceTime a lot. AirDrop is its own social network in some schools and ages.

There's no reason to give a kid one more social hardship when the cheapest iPhones are the same price as passable Android phones. No one is saying you have to drop $1,000 on this. It's like even free from the carrier.

> It's like even free from the carrier.

That’s like getting a “free” car because you pay $1 million dollars for gas. There’s no such thing as a free phone.

> There’s no such thing as a free phone.

If your choices are:

A) Pay $45/mo. for service.

B) Pay $45/mo. for service and get a new phone.

Then there is a free phone. You don't pay a lower price if you refuse the phone, so it's effectively free.

There are contract terms (usually 2 years), but if you cancel, you pay the remaining value of the phone, so you still got some percentage of that phone subsidized by the carrier.

Which carriers are these? I just went to the AT&T site, they wanted $30 a month for an iPhone + a separate $85 a month for cellular service. If instead I pick "wireless->bring your own" and go through the steps it was $75 a month so

A) Pay $75 a month for service B) Pay $115 a month for service and get a new phone

Their bottom offer was $5 a month for an iphone 12 (plus the $85 month for service)

Curious which carriers offer free iPhones where there's no difference in price.

T-Mobile has a deal if you trade in existing phone but the phone has to be high-end and recent otherwise they won't give you the trade in value needed to cover the new phone.

You get the free phone when you create a new line, so it's easy enough for parents to just choose an iPhone as their kid's first phone (which is what they all seem to be doing).

> Then there is a free phone. You don't pay a lower price if you refuse the phone, so it's effectively free.

No. The cost of the phone is baked into the plan and you get punished with a higher price if you don’t buy your phone from the carrier. It’s a way of getting people to think of it as free so they’re effectively buying a new phone every 2-3 years.

It’s a variation of tied selling, but instead of requiring you buy a phone from them they just price it so it’s obviously a bad deal not to.

American teens hate Android phones. Non-American teens don't particularly care about iPhones, or even prefer Android phones.

The greater majority (eighty-something percent) of smartphones in the World run Android.

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