Android isn’t cool with teenagers, and that’s a big problem::Nearly 9 in 10 US teenagers use an iPhone, spelling disaster for Google’s mobile future

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    10 months ago

    Honestly, it’s a way bigger problem that kids are being indoctrinated into “keeping up with the Joneses” as such a young age.

    We’ve officially made children part of the Conspicuous Consumption game and motherfucker, they don’t have money, it’s their parents money!

    It’s sickening and will fuck their finances their whole lives if having the best iPhone is more important than being able to put food on your plate.

    I’m way the fuck more worried about these kids indoctrinated into a Capitalist hell-hole more than I am about fucking Android.

    If our democratic future is banking on these kids saving us, and they’re already rooted firmly up a corporations asshole, we’re fucked.

    • DeadlineX@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Nothing is new here.

      This isn’t that different from when I was a kid twenty years ago. Only instead of phones (though we all had phones back then too, even if they weren’t smart), it was game consoles, or Pokémon cards, or beanie babies or whatever.

      • M500@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        Only difference is about $1000 give or take a few bucks.

        • DeadlineX@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          Yeah you’re not wrong about that. Although some people went hard into the beanie babies. And the Pokémon cards actually.

          If you were into warhammer you resigned yourself at a young age to never having money. Those things eat up an ungodly amount of money.

          • M500@lemmy.ml
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            10 months ago

            That’s fair, I’m actually thinking of magic the gathering at the moment. Luckily my friend was given a huge chest of cards like hundreds and hundreds of cards, so we never had to buy any.

        • Windex007@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Assuming a new iPhone every 2 years, that’s still pretty on par with historical premiums that would be being paid in the same timeframe for the “in” clothing brands. Designer jeans and Lululemons come to mind.

        • paraphrand@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Accounting for inflation? Maybe not much of a difference when talking about game consoles…

      • scarabic@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Yeah I don’t know where this guy has been for the last 70 years but consumerism came for kids a long time ago.

        • DeadlineX@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          He’ll, kids shows have been essentially advertising platforms for decades. Shows and movies exist to sell toys and make profits.

    • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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      10 months ago

      Is this why me and my equally autistic partner are so decent with our money against statistical odds?

      I mean i knew purchases for status where a thing but surely thats just the odd snobbish people right?

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      So, they’re mindless image driven consumers who are going to bankrupt themselves and their parents to the point of starvation AND bring about the end of democracy because… of which phone they use?

  • filister@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    You guys are hating on Android, but the reality is that I will pick Android any day.

    At least with Android I have the freedom to install custom OS versions, change the default browser, sideload apps and to be honest I find Apple’s anti-consumer practices appalling, not to mention their very questionable legacy, etc.

    On my Android I have changed the default browser to Firefox nightly and loaded the libredirect and I am enjoying a lot of sideloaded apps, including Newpipe and it is running beautifully. I personally find Android a lot more powerful and customizable.

    • XIIIesq@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      You’re absolutely right, but none of the things you’ve mentioned have any importance to a teenager. The only thing that matter to them is fitting in and if all their friends have iPhones then custom OSs and sideloaded apps really aren’t going to matter at all.

      • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        As a teenager I did, but I’m definitely in the minority as a tech enthusiast. I also installed and used Linux at 13…

    • paraphrand@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      You’re a computer enthusiast. Android phones are computers.

      Not everyone needs to be a computer enthusiast. It’s ok that you are though. No shade.

  • eleitl@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    Teenagers. US teenagers, specifically. So definitely no big problem.

    Personally for me the problem starts when there is no mobile hardware which supports free/libre OS. It is already visible in the supported hardware list of LineageOS. Large tablets, particularly.

    • Alex@feddit.ro
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      10 months ago

      As a teen, I’m glad I’m European. Nobody has mocked me for using an Android from 2019

      • keesrif@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I’m wondering if it’s tied to how status symbols differ per culture. Its been 20 years, but I don’t remember status symbols mattering much to my environment when I was a teenager in the Netherlands. I wonder how that is now.

  • Nacktmull@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    US teenagers have never been known for being particularly smart …

  • Hillmarsh@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    I actually think that Android has gone downhill in a big way, but I still won’t go to Apple’s closed ecosystem, and I don’t care what teenagers think.

    • tomo@reddit.azumanga.gay
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      10 months ago

      ^ this
      until google completely locks down android i think androids still gonna be popular with someone
      i say until because theyre totally gonna find a way to, theyre probably just waiting until they have an opportunity to since google pretty much envies apple above all else

  • CarlosCheddar@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I wonder how this correlates to low use of WhatsApp in the US. In South America and Europe WhatsApp is used heavily and looks the same no matter the platform but none of my US friends have WhatsApp so they rely on iMessage instead. None of them want to be seen sending green bubbles in the chat. I’ve even seen this as a side plot in a teen tv show that my wife was watching.

  • Jumuta@sh.itjust.works
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    10 months ago

    Can people just stop fucking arguing about android vs iphone, amd vs intel, apple vs samsung etc. I’m so sick of this idiotic mess.

    “this soulless corporation is better than this soulless corporation because their marketing material uses this shade of grey with white text”

    I am going to have a mental breakdown if I read any more of these braindead conversations

    It should be GNULinux vs Windows/Mac, Graphene/LineageOS vs Android/iPhone, etc.

    People arguing corpo1 vs corpo2 have all been brainwashed by the corpos to ignore freedom respecting alternatives, and rather argue a meaningless argument because those 2 corpos are probably owned by the same shareholders anyway.

  • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
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    10 months ago

    Google had the game in their hand and then they destroyed Hangouts.

  • Decentralizr@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I think it starts with the ads… privacy etc. people believe that shit a s apple is good on it. That said iMessage is another things used a lot around central and North America and also in Asia. I think Europe not so much. That is why iPhone is popular. Just a thought. Not sure I am right. I use an iPhone and a pixel with GrapheneOS. Enjoy both and need both one for business and one for day to day private life

    • rob299@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      the thing is apple devices aren’t terrible, just over priced, they are better when it comes to less ads, or are they…? on most Android phones the ads come from the apps the user use, which are likely to be the same on an iphone anyways. YouTube anyone?

      . and knowing how much free money apple gets from the search engine deal on the daily and yet they still charge $1000 for phones that right there, ends my trust for that company, forget about their privacy claims after that nonsense.

      • Decentralizr@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I honestly don’t know about much ads. I use a pretty good dns setup what already blocks most. On top AdGuard pro take cares most of the ads I would see. I use also vinegar for YouTube so I don’t see ads there haha.

        On android you have with rethinkdns a pretty great firewall with a name what sounds more like a dns service. Anyway, I use apple for business, just because it works with my associates and have GrapheneOS as my daily drive.

  • rob299@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Look at it like this, how many wanted the Playstation 3 when it was cool, then factor in how many people bought that at launch vs the ps2 at launch. Actual market share matter more then opinions on what’s cool.

  • gr522x@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    It’s surprising that teenagers are uncomfortable using a surveillance device created by the largest advertising company in the world. Our friends at Alphabet Inc simply want to monitor everything you search for and all your communication because they care and want to keep you safe.

      • gr522x@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        They are definitely both pretty terrible, pick your poison I guess. Apple will gouge your eyes out with overpriced hardware and Alphabet (Google) will spy and you and sell your data. I don’t like either, but faced with the choice I’d rather pay more for my phone and avoid Google’s surveillance capitalism empire as much as possible. If you don’t mind advertisements and privacy isn’t important Google is probably a better choice.

  • kittenzrulz123@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    As much as I dislike Apple I hate Google and their stupid proprietary operating system. I wish actual mobile Linux distributions like Plasma Mobile or Ubuntu Touch were actually usable.

  • mindlessLump@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I see it as a good thing. Apple is not without faults, but anything that keeps Google from harvesting more data is a win for humanity. The Safari browser is the only thing stopping Google’s browser monopoly. Unfortunately it is forced, and 99% of Apple users probably have no clue they are holding up the last line of defense.

    • pastabatman@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I know Lemmy has a hate boner for Google, but come on. What about Firefox, brave, opera, edge? It’s trivially easy to get a browser without Google telemetry on every single platform, and because they are all standards compliant (unlike the Internet explorer days) websites will work just fine on all of them. Chrome isn’t even preinstalled in windows, mac, iOS, or most (any?) Linux distros. People aren’t being forced to use it, they are downloading it. I promise you this is not humanity’s biggest problem right now.

      • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Just so you know, of that list, only Firefox isn’t chromium. And they’re only 3% market share

        Nobody’s saying it’s humanity’s biggest issue. But it is an issue, and it’s a larger issue than people realise.

      • mindlessLump@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Definitely not humanity’s biggest problem. Chromium becoming the de facto browser creates a situation where one entity controls standards and influences how the web operates, impacting user choice and freedom, and reduces incentives for privacy and security updates.

        This already happened once with IE.

        I only use Firefox on desktop, but I doubt it will be a relevant choice much longer.

        Edit: wrt telemetry, I was referring to the Android operating system. They collect anything and everything on users and all nearby devices.

        • Richard@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Android does not collect any telemetry, GApps does. Pure Android as developed by the AOSP is fully free and open-source software and does not communicate with any vendor’s services, which is why there are completely private Android distributions like LineageOS or e/OS. Android is NOT Google, it is developed and maintained by the Open Handset Alliance. That most people happen to run modified versions of it like Samsung’s Android flavour or that they happen to have GApps like Google Play Services installed is the actual problem.

      • rob299@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Chrome wasn’t the problem, more or so Google being the defualt search engine everywhere you go except windows, and the degraded search experience on Google. Google chrome itself is actually a good fast speedy browser. whether it’s the speediest is debatable. but it is a good one.

        also Google Chrome is pre installed on Chromebooks and Android phones. while Chromebooks aren’t as… popular, android phones particularly dominate sales charts.

    • rob299@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      eh, isn’t safari using WebKit, wasn’t that made open source at one point.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      I can stop nearly all data collection on Android. I can’t even change the browser on iOS. (All browsers on iOS use web kit, so not actually a different browser).