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Comment by ryandvm | Hacker News Reader

What's funny is that ugly apps actually do alright on Android. I don't know how many times I've seen an app have 5 stars and hundreds of thousands of downloads, only to install it and find out the UI is horrendous.

This seems to reinforce a pervasive stereotype that Android users are utilitarian while iOS users are much more concerned with aesthetics and form.

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I think you would find that most iOS users are just as utilitarian. The vast majority of complaints you see on iOS app reviews concern functionality. If anyone, you should accuse Apple of being (overly?) concerned with aesthetics.

I would guess that the majority of users on both platforms don't really care, or don't understand the subject clearly enough to verbalize it. But among the most vocal and informed users of each platform, the difference suggested by the GP is quite clear.

The same stereotypes were applied to Mac and PC users. And it correlated (not claiming causality) to the respective marketing messages:

You are an Apple user, you are young and creative and beautiful.

You are a PC user, you are mature, businesslike, and successful.

This could be a self-reinforcing problem, too. Apps with ugly UIs do well, so developers don't see the need to invest resources in better UIs, which means users don't have better alternatives and end up buying apps with ugly UIs, and so on…

> This seems to reinforce a pervasive stereotype that Android users are utilitarian while iOS users are much more concerned with aesthetics and form

The root is probably in iOS users being richer and coming from a richer countries. It's like the interior design of cheap kebab shops and hairdressers vs hipster artisan shops.

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