The only people I see with cracked screens are iPhone owners. No Android-phone owners I have ever seen has been using a broken phone.
So no, I don't buy that Apple has some sort of magical build quality-property which can't be had in better (and cheaper) phones made by significantly less evil vendors.
All Apple has left is full platform lock-in and a church.
Android phones need replaced much more often than iPhones, due to how slow they get and lack of updates. There is a reason the resale value of iPhones is 2-5x any Android phone.
That's kinda surprising given apparently it was only a few months back that iPhone's market share finally surpassed Android in the U.S., and it bodes pretty well for Apple's long term future - are there stats on how often people change between Apple/Android (and is it predominantly in a particular direction)?
(FWIW I think I went through two iPhones 15 years ago when they first came out I guess, but found their screens overly prone to getting smashed and switched to Android/Samsung, lots of reasons I doubt I'd ever switch back now, though it's certainly not impossible).
I admittedly have an iPhone bias, but based on anecdotal evidence, I know way too many non-technical people who have Android phones (instead of iPhones) simply because:
1) The iPhone wasn't available on their carrier
2) They received their Android phone at a very low price (or free) due to a carrier promotion
3) They hate Apple, or just want to be different
With the iPhone being available on Verizon and costing as low as $99 on contract, I don't know if Android will continue to have such amazing growth numbers after this year. Given how much money iPhone users spend on apps compared to Android, I don't see them switching to Android any time soon, especially when they're not available on Android.
Not that many preferring iPhones? People not having iPhones has mostly to do with the 'luxury' aspect of them. Many want an one, but can't/don't want to spend the money on it. The absolute majority of Android devices sold is the sub-€300 market, many subsidised. It's mostly the tech-savvy crowd that on purpose buys an Android from what I see.
Just look at the insane secondhand value of any iPhone. Even my perfectly working old iPhone 6S I use as a backup would still sell for €240 today - which is absolutely nuts...
This seems to be the main sticking point for people I know - Android Phones are nice, but thay aren't iPhones. It's the hardware that is holding up Android rather than the OS, as far as I can see.
If there was a phone as well made as the iPhone that runs Android, I'm sure many developers would switch to an open platform rather than continue to jump through obfuscated hoops for Apple.
See I'm honestly not that sure that there are than many true Android fans out there. While Android phones probably outnumber iPhones among my circle of friends by a good 3:1, I don't know if many of them are really fans. Certainly not in the way people are fans of their iPhones. Most of them (including me) bought Android because you got a pretty good smart phone with a good ecosystem for a lot less than an iPhone, or because they preferred the hardware (larger screen, smaller screen, keyboard etc.), or often some combination of the two. "Android" is just an incidental detail that enables the above.
I have 70% of Android global market share. It offers more choices of devices, price points and a less restrictive OS.
There's almost nothing you can do on an iPhone that you can't on an Android. Conversely, there are plenty of things that the more open Android platform allows that iOS doesn't.
And yet, despite all of that, some people still prefer to buy iPhones. I think it's their choice to make.
I can attest that HN and Reddit Programming readership use iDevices at twice the rate they use Android devices, based on a sample size of 30,000 this weekend.
This didn't surprise me in the least. The people I know who use Android are either the people who can't afford iPhones (and kick up a huge fuss about paying for any content) or people who love tinkering with them.
Android has lost the smartphone war. Apple has 40% of the used-phone market [1] and they have over 60% of the premium smartphone market. [2] When people think of smartphones, iPhone is the default. Androids are unironically seen as peasants...
But iOS users surpass Android users in web usage and other smartphone features. Android is essentially the default choice on cheap feature phones. It's often what one gets when there is no choice.
Anecdotally, I know more people who complain about their (slow, poor battery life) iphones than people who own android phones, especially the ones actually produced by google.
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