(unpaywalled version on archive.today: https://archive.ph/03cwZ)
Interesting figure that comes out of the article: 87% of US teens prefer iPhones. Also the explanations given aren’t quite surprising, I guess it’s mostly because of iMessage. Teens will feel like outcasts if they get an Android phone while their friends still use iMessage because of the green bubbles.
It’s actually hilarious how we allowed consumerism to take us this far and that we have now peer pressure over smartphones.
“You’re telling me in 2023, you still have a ’Droid? […] You gotta be at least 50 years old.”
ouch 😔
I’d be curious to know what they can’t figure out with Android.
I use both on a daily basis and there’s a severe lack of differentiation in experience nowadays. Both have icon based launchers, both have similar looking control centres, both have long form lists for settings pages, both have identical payments experiences, and so on.
They’ve stolen each other’s features liberally to the point where the only real differences are in the gnarly platform specific stuff that no one really touches unless they’re a super user and are mostly hidden away in settings screens.
Notifications are a bit different I guess, but even that’s a stretch.
I want to point out two things: beyond the first OS versions, the majority of design theft was by apple. Also, iOS is unintuitive AF imo. It’s not even close for me. If there’s something I can’t figure out on android, it’s typically a weird settings organizational issue I can Google in a few seconds. On iOS, the UI feels like it was designed by someone who never uses a phone like a normal person and hides or removes super common options. I feel gross trying to use an iPhone. Like I’m in a padded room with the electrical outlets covered or some shit.
Why the FUCK does the iphone not have a fucking BACK button? I have to search around to find the right button to hit to go back? Because it’s different in every page in every app, sometimes it’s “cancel”, sometimes it’s not even a button, I have to swipe down the keyboard or something. Fucking ridiculous, I hate iOS.
It’s 2023 get a fucking back button.
I’m so with you. Tiny shit you take for granted on android is like pulling teeth on that bullshit OS
I agree that having the back button is really nice for navigation, but there are maybe three or four ways to go back in general? (Swipe to the right from the left side of the screen, press a button in the top-left corner, and probably some others.) It doesn’t take more than a second to find out how to go back, and more often than not you can either swipe right or just press the button in the top left.
yup, phone GUIs today have converged, just like different consoles’ controllers used to be distinct, and now they’re all Dual Shock clones.
Console pads are a great analogy for this phenomena. Even Nintendo broke eventually