I’m using the URL slug headline for this one (check the link).
This map showing the locations of 280 million individual posts on Twitter shows a depressing divide in America: Tweets coming from Manhattan tend to come from iPhones. Tweets coming from Newark, N.J., tend to come from Android phones.
If you live in the New York metro area, you don’t need to be told that Manhattan is where the region’s rich people live, and the poor live in Newark. Manhattan’s median income is $67,000 a year. Newark’s is $17,000, according to U.S. Census data.
This fascinates me, as it seems to be a very American thing. In The Netherlands, Android has an 80% market share, and we have far lower poverty rates than the US (that Newark median income is crazy low by Dutch standards). I’m pretty sure the situation is similar for many other West-European nations.
This raises an interesting question: is it ‘Android is for poor people’ – or is it ‘Android is for poor people in America‘?
Poor Comes in a couple flavors. It’s not just economic but also social standing.
I think you are right and wrong at the same time.
The key to the situation is that iPhone IS a social standing icon, but only in certain parts of the world.
In others, people gives a damn about the difference between Apple or Android, no matter what the price is.
It’s kind of the same as driving a Mercedes in a Middle East country, or wearing Adidas in many South American countries.
Edited 2014-04-07 22:07 UTC
Can’t tell you how often I see poor people who can barely feed their family texting on an iPhone…
How do you know they are too poor?? in any case the survey is bogus, i can’t believe people repost this stuff without realising what is going on
1. Did you notice the complete absence of weighting in the linked article?? iPhone users are generally way over represented in app usage stats..
2. Common sense will also tell you that the people living in the “poor” areas are actually spending most of their time working in the so called in “rich areas” of manhattan.
So i bet that this map simple shows where people go to work, rather than a rich /poor divide.
Because I know many of them personally.
There is nothing that frustrates me more when people complain about how poor they are, as they watch TV on their $100/month cable and chat on their $100/month iPhone.
I’ve come to the conclusion that some people just have their priorities completely screwed up – perhaps that is why they can barely make ends meet to begin with…
It’s not a unknown fenomena that people will spend bundles on clothes and car, but live in a dump. This because few know where they live, but everyone they meet see what they wear and drive.
I suspect this is because we new have “communities” that are so big that very few of us know everyone we meet down to their tastes and habits. Supposedly we can only organize some 100-150 people in our heads before those we interact the least with fade into noise. End result is that first impressions become key.
Edited 2014-04-08 00:53 UTC
Reminds me that if you compare the case offerings across brands from Otterbox, they have gone out of their way to put in a window for the fruit logo. No such logo window on any of the cases for Samsung, HTC, or others.
And this is not just Otterbox, i have noticed it again and again while browsing cases for phones and tablets…
I have seen many people who can’t afford smart phone plans own iPhones via AT&T and Verizon and other people own Android phones either for the features or because that is what is supported by 3rd party carriers.
I have seen Window Phone zealots swear by tile UI being better than the rest (but only 2 people, thus far I have ever seen have Window Phones). I, also, know wealthy people who switched from iPhones to android phones for better battery life, signal strength, quality of voice-to-text texting, and freedom to customize settings (built in, or changeable by adding a app), while still using iPads for using the web.
But most of all, I have seem most people unaware how to use any feature of their smart phone except for phone calls and texting. Either because they are afraid to explore, or don’t have a need for anything else.
Edited 2014-04-08 02:25 UTC
That is saying the same, only better
So how come my mother (young at 92) who lives on her UK State pension loves her iPhone? I son gave a 4s to her for her 91st birthday. She took to it like a 5yr old.
The whole premise of this article is IMHO bogus. There are an awful lot of poor/unemployed with iPhone’s in their hands on the council estate near me.
A phone is a phone to me. As long as I can make calls and send texts I really don’t care what type of phone it is. My own phone is a Nokia 6310i. My company gives me an iPhone but is really only used when I’m away on business.
Each to their own I guess.
Because if you’re poor it’s your fault and you deserve to be mocked for it, right?
Right?
Anyone?
In other news, most poor people are too busy working 14 hour days, dodging bigoted cops, and praying that they don’t get sick to know what the hell “Android” is.
If you’re in America and you’re over the age of 30, then it probably is. There are entire college curriculums online for people to consume; with Android tablets being as cheap as $50 and free wifi hotspots all over town, you might be poor, but you don’t have to stay that way. That might not be enough to get you a 6 figure salary, but it should be enough to get you above the poverty level, where you can start taking some real classes.
You must not be from the US because that is a load of crap. Lets start with if you are over 30 and poor, you probably work 2 jobs to survive. When are you going to do all this learning? Not to mention that while much of what is online might be decent, without a degree from a college or experience, you are not going to get a better job. There are people lining up to get mail room jobs that have a MBA. Having a HS diploma won’t get you anywhere.
Most of the poor in the US don’t work two jobs. Maybe some do, like the ones that have multiple kids. Which goes back to my original point… unless you were raped or the birth control failed, totally your fault. In all honesty, I haven’t met a single poor person in this country who didn’t get to where they are by a long list of very bad decisions. Of course, I know some people had bad upbringings and what not, but that doesn’t amount to anything in the marketplace, so if you’re in this position, you better start taking some responsibility, because the market doesn’t give a shit where you came from. This might sound like a curse, but it’s actually a blessing. It means you’re not screwed for the rest of your life because you grew up on the wrong side of the tracks.
Horseshit. I live in the US. I was working a McJob in my 20’s; I got there because I was too busy playing video games and chasing pussy to do anything productive with my life. Then I got a couple of computer certs (like A+/MCP) just by reading books. That got me into a low-level CSR position, where I could at least move into an apartment that wasn’t infested with roaches and stop eating Ramen. Then I got better books and an internet connection. (We didn’t have tablets back then.) I eventually worked my way up to engineering. I have no college degree. I’m not making fat stacks, but I live comfortably in a 2bdr apartment.
Of course, when I tell my story, I constantly hear that I got lucky and/or the only reason I got to where I am is because of white privilege. (Usually, the person on the other end has no idea whether I’m white or not, but whatever
) If you’re in the same position I was, you can go on strike and hope for a higher minimum wage while waiting for the government to fix your shitty situation, but there’s a VERY good chance you’re going to die penniless and miserable that way. Fortunately, I chose a different path so that, barring some sort of worldwide economic collapse (in which case we’re all screwed anyway), I won’t have to suck off the government’s teet for the rest of my life.
Because all poor people are single 30 white males with no children.
And if you had kids while living below the poverty level, who’s fault is that?
Because every person who has kids while in poverty had those kids during poverty. They could NEVER have had kids when they could afford it, then slipped into a state of poverty because of external factors.
Because everything in the world happens according to a strict predictable order and any deviation from that is 100% the fault of the “victim”.
Bad local economies NEVER happen, and EVERYONE should automatically be able to find a job because America.
You didn’t answer the question.
It’s not a question. It’s begging the question.
I’d wager most who had kids had them while they were unable to afford them.
That has been my experience with humans. I see children going without while their parents collect welfare then go out and buy the latest iMustHave.
Thankfully, I know a few CPS agents…
Sometimes, but it’s still a broad over generalization. There’s just so much prejudice against the poor, to the point of pretending they’re all just lazy worthless bums. The thing is there’s a tendency to rope them all together as though they all deserve to be in that boat. This overlooks the real hardships of the situation, and that very few of us could realistically hope to escape from if we were the ones in poverty.
15% of the US population is officially in poverty, which is bad, however looking at the official income levels used to measure poverty in the US, this seems to be under represented for political purposes.
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/14poverty.cfm
Single: $11,670
Couple: $15,730
Family of 3: $19,790
Family of 4: $23,850
There’s just no realistic way *anyone* can afford to pay for modern housing/food/childcare/medical/clothing/savings/etc bills at those levels (ie pick one). Even doubling those incomes won’t dramatically increase true self sufficiency, because expenses are just getting out of hand even at the median level.
It is a real problem that’s gotten worse in recent generations even as GDP has grown (owning to the fact that most/all of the gains have been distributed to the wealthy). I don’t think it does justice to brush this off as solely a consequence of bad personal financing.
Well, if we say that stereotyping is bad, we will overlook the rampant stereotyping by liberals of rich people as seal-clubbing bastards and focus on the issue at hand. Although I know for sure that some poor people are lazy worthless bums (just as some rich people really ARE seal-clubbing bastards), I do not feel this way about the majority of them. For most of them, they made a lot of stupid decisions when they were younger, and then are like ‘oh crap’ when they hit their 30’s. By then, their financial situation is in dire straits, they probably have 2 or 3 kids, and I doubt their health is all that great either, due to poor lifestyle choices. I’m sure that for many, they would go back and do it all again if they could.
And sure, we can give them more. But having already accumulated a lifetime of poor decision making skills, it isn’t likely that they’re going to do anything constructive with it, like continuing their education or putting it into savings. As it is, these people are always only going to have barely enough to survive, because they will likely squander the rest. (I once knew a lady that won $100,000+ in a lottery. In less than 3 years, it was all gone.) You ever see people that stand in line for 36 hours to save $300 on a big screen TV? What do you suppose their financial situation is like? These are the exact people that SHOULDN’T be buying big-screen TVs.
So no, I don’t necessarily object to giving them a little more, but the people who are striking for $15 an hour for working fast food are smoking crack
Edited 2014-04-09 00:42 UTC
WorknMan,
I know most of us make stupid decisions at some point in our lives (internal factors), that has always been the case. Your earlier post indicated this was the case for you as well. However we are witnessing a great shift in distribution of wealth, and I tend to believe this has been caused by systematic changes in our economy amplifying inequality rather than personal factors.
In other words: there is a tendency for us to blame those worse off than ourselves, but in the same shoes I really don’t think we’d be doing any better. Long term unemployment is worse than for previous recessions, the “recovery” has been anemic and “jobless”. Older generations hurt by the recessions are deciding not to retire, which they’re perfectly entitled to do, however it creates even less demand for new workers.
http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2012/recession/pdf/recession_bls_spotl…
College graduates are assuming great debt only to enter the market underemployed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/us/many-american-workers-are-unde…
Tech skills, which traditionally have good prospects, are also facing weaker demand, which has been the case around my area.
http://www.epi.org/publication/issuebriefs_ib198/
This is exactly the kind of prejudice I was talking about… Anyways, welfare may make their lives more livable, but it doesn’t address the causes of social stratification IMHO.
Also, do you realize your figure is off by a factor of 2? Most of those jobs are pegged to minimum wage:
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=McDonald%27s_Corpo…
Fast Food Worker $7.72
Cashier $7.74
Fast Food Manager $9.20
Restaurant Manager $9.68
Country: United States | Currency: USD | Updated: 5 Apr 2014
Edited 2014-04-09 04:58 UTC
You are right. The difference is that some of us don’t blame everything and everyone else for our stupid decisions.
You know, I used to make some of these same, bullshit excuses. ‘Those goddamn, evil 1%’ers!’ And you know where it got me? In a cheap-ass motel, making $6 an hour, and surviving off Ramen. You really don’t think these arguments existed prior to 2007?
I don’t know what you mean. The $15 is what they were striking for, not what they’re making.
Edited 2014-04-09 06:06 UTC
WorknMan,
I wasn’t blaming anyone else, only trying to point out the reality of the situation.
I don’t see how anyone can call it a “bullshit excuse” unless they are in complete denial, the growing wealth inequality is a fairly well documented fact.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-am…
I agree the “top 1%” is an arbitrary point of division, which may not be the most helpful in driving change. However the point remains that the distribution skew has gotten worse over time, to the detriment of lower and even middle classes.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/04/23/a-rise-in-wealth-for-the-…
What made you mention 2007 in particular? I actually think it’s a much more long term trend with the inequality continuing to widen over time. There’s no need to take my word for it, or even my links, I’m confident your own research would turn up the same.
Sorry I misunderstood you. I see raising the minimum wage as a short term solution that is unlikely to resolve the fundamental problems. But I expect we can both agree that today’s minimum wage is quite dire. This year the president called for congress to raise minimum wages to 1968 levels adjusted for inflation.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/raise-the-wage
“The real value of the minimum wage has fallen by a third since it’s peak in 1968”
Edited 2014-04-09 08:16 UTC
Oh, I’m sure it is. But the growing wealth inequality and you (not you specifically) being on the lower end of it are two separate, non-related problems. I don’t know how you fix the first problem, and personally? I don’t really care. I long ago stopped concerning myself about how much money rich people are making, once I realized that it was never going to get me out of that motel. If I were still fretting about that, I’d still be there, making whatever the minimum wage is now. If I really had an answer to such problems, I’d probably be a politician.
If you as an individual use the wealth inequality as an excuse as to why you’re not doing well, you’re going to end up in a very bad place. Even if by some miracle the government one day decides to have pity on you and takes from the rich to give you a little more, you’re ever only going to have just enough to live on. And I’d say even chances for that are not all that great. You can get FAR more on your own than you ever could with the government’s help. If you’re going to be one of those poor sods who decide to just wait for the wealth inequality problem to get fixed, then I’ll see you in the bread lines one day as I drive by.
WorknMan,
I understand what you are saying, but they are not entirely separate though. Rising expenses and debt along with stagnant wages/lost benefits for lower/middle classes implies that they’ll have fewer assets to invest with. A wealthy person, by comparison, can afford to make more mistakes and still have higher chances of success due to having more assets to use as investments.
There’s an expression that says “the first million is always the hardest”, this is true because the millionaire might take home more income in dividends on investments than the middle class worker can by working full time AND investing his disposable income in the exact same investments. This is even more pronounced given that the millionaire’s investment income gets taxed at a 15% rate, while a typical middle class employee might have to pay state+federal income taxes in the 30-40% range. These factors create a strong feedback loop such that money becomes easier to make the wealthier you are. A middle class worker will have to be even more responsible to remain in the middle class than a millionaire has to be to remain a millionaire.
I get it, there’s lots of apathy towards social issues these days because there’s a widespread consensus that they won’t be solved no matter what we say or think, so why bother? I’m halfway in this boat myself, although I personally believe solutions are viable and that the problem is that there is little interest among those in power to achieve them.
Nobody is waiting for the problem to get fixed, we all live our lives however we can. I still feel you are a little too nonchalant over the whole thing. It’s easy to make fun of those beneath you until it’s your family, then suddenly your world view changes.
http://www.newschannel9.com/news/top-stories/stories/more-middle-cl…
Yeah, and you could also say that the proliferation of junk food lining our store shelves is not an entirely separate problem from the growing obesity epidemic. Fortunately, the fact that there’s a McDonalds or one of its ilk every few blocks in most cities doesn’t preclude one from making better choices about their own, personal health.
I haven’t mentioned yet that my own mother is one of these people; she was an alcoholic for most of her life. I visited her a lot when I was a kid and lived with her for awhile too, so I have first-hand experience on the matter; I know how a lot of these people live, because I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
Several years ago, I was visiting my mom and stepdad (like the fifth guy she married), and they could barely walk around in their early 60’s, because they had done so much damage to their bodies, and they were in a tiny, one bedroom apartment, living off whatever the government sent them every month. They were in constant pain, because they had no money to treat their various ailments. In a moment of candor, my stepdad admitted to me that they never took care of themselves, and never thought about the future… always living for the moment. And still they shake their fists and complain bitterly about how the government is not doing this or that for them.
I will tell you this… as much as I hated seeing my own mother in that position, I couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry for her, esp with all the stupid shit she did over the years, including leaving my sister alone most nights with no food in the pantry, while she went bar hopping, and brought many men home with her, some of whom sexually abused my sister. And her story was not unusual among all the people she used to run with, so you will have to forgive me if my heart doesn’t bleed for all of the poor people across the nation
Of course, I’m not saying they’re ALL like that, but the original poster asked:
Because if you’re poor it’s your fault and you deserve to be mocked for it, right?
I’d have to say that based on my own experience, for the majority of them in the US, the answer is an emphatic yes. I never met a single one of them that got to where they are because of a series of unfortunate events that they had no control over. I didn’t realize this until I turned my own life around, and came to understand that they were not in fact victims. They were more like dumbasses, and I used to be one myself.
I should mention as a parting note that my sister, who went through a lot more than I did, now has a nursing degree and makes more money than I do. She put herself through school while working full time.
Edited 2014-04-09 21:09 UTC
WorknMan,
Haha, this is completely O/T from our O/T discussion
It doesn’t help that fresh/nutritious foods are more expensive than preprocessed ones. It’s sad, but price does influence my family’s diet even today and we’re above the median levels.
For the record though, I was against the bans on bad food in Manhattan on the basis that people should be free to make their own choices.
Of course, everyone has their own experiences and many of us know someone like this. This may manifest itself as a deep resentment, and I suppose that’s kind of understandable. But the issue I had was the over-generalization, like claiming the poor categorically deserve to be mocked for being poor.
Anyways, I’m not trying to say people have no control over their lives, obviously we have a great degree of latitude to screw up and/or succeed within our means.
Yes and no. My diet is far from perfect, but I eat a lot better than I used to, and I spend about the same amount. Sure, the food is more expensive, but I eat a lot less of it, primarily because it doesn’t taste as good
Some people will argue that a salad at McDonalds costs more than a double cheeseburger, but people who go to McD’s aren’t going for the cheeseburger; they’re going for the double quarter pounder extra value meal, super-sized. Or if not, as much as they can afford. Processed food is designed to be addictive, which means you eat a crapload of it. Only the most destitute would ever get a double cheeseburger without fries 
Also, the oatmeal they sell there; you could get a HUGE container with about 30 servings from the grocery store for about $3, which is enough for a single person to last an entire month, if eaten for breakfast every day.
No, I wouldn’t say they deserve to be mocked; that was an extra that the OP threw in. But I would say that, in the majority of cases, it IS their fault. As in, if you looked at the life history of these people, you could probably pinpoint certain key events that, if they had made different decisions at those times, they probably would not be in the situation they’re currently in. (I’m speaking strictly from a US point of view. I have no idea how it works in other countries.)
That’s not to say that some of them didn’t have the deck stacked against them from birth, but if we just give them more than what they’ve managed to get on their own, it’s never going to solve anything, and will continue to have generations of families on welfare. If nothing else, they’ll probably just blow whatever extra they get beyond living expenses on booze, cigarettes, and whatever else. I say that because that is exactly what my mom did, and also what I did as well. At some point, we’ve got to teach them to start taking some goddamn responsibility for their lives, and I never hear anything about this from those that are insisting that the rich aren’t doing enough to hand out food stamps and universal healthcare to every deadbeat assshole on the planet.
Edited 2014-04-09 23:06 UTC
WorknMan,
I was actually referring to grocery prices, I go out very rarely(fast food or otherwise).
I acknowledge that poor decisions can hold you back, obviously. But by itself this doesn’t explain why the middle class is collapsing as a whole over time. I still think you are neglecting to factor in macro economic conditions. That’s not to say one can not succeed under such conditions, it just means the barriers are steeper, and it’s that much harder to do.
You know I’m all for people pulling themselves up from their bootstraps, really. The thing is this happens even less in the US than other western countries. It’s almost as though the illusion of upward mobility is more important than the real thing.
Alright, but I already said that I don’t think welfare or minimum wage are the solutions because that merely treats the symptoms, not the core social problems. Alas, neither of us are going to solve those here, so I guess there’s isn’t much more to talk about.
Edited 2014-04-10 01:32 UTC
Cool story bro…
Cost wise both Android phones and iPhones are about the same, especially the mandatory data plans. In Manhattan, the rich on Wall Street usually want Apple just because it’s Apple. That is not indicative of the rest of the states. It would not surprise me if that was a paid for article, especially with the source of Business Insider.
Yes, and I think it’s also complicated by the fact that they use tweets, assuming that the entire population uses twitter equally. It definitely looks like twitter using iPhone owners are more heavily tweeting in wealthy areas, but actually looking at the maps, Android has a much more even coverage. As in, perhaps iPhone’s are only for wealthy people, but Android is for everybody. You have to assume that twitter is a fair way of determining usage though.
On other notes, towards the end of the article, one of the diagrams has text which says:
But their diagram shows Apple having 100% of the market, due to the fact that developers can’t sell Android apps in China. That just seems shoddy journalism. There is plenty to report on here (including the huge disparity in the amount of money to be made in the different stores) without the need to abuse statistics.
The statement “Apple has roughly half the app market in China” is very missleading. The original diagram, those that shows 100% Apple, compares with only Google Play which is just not used in China. The half-argument is made only comparing Apple with the alternate Wandoujia. Same thing, it keeps silent that there are a dozen more Android app stores and Wandoujia is just one of them, not even the largest.
Edited 2014-04-08 15:06 UTC
since apple has nothing to offer in low-end and mid-range prices (yeah, the 5C doesn’t cut it).
This is old “news” — it first ran last summer. It’s BS. Classic data visualization bug — the site draws Android data points first, then draws iOS data points on top of them thus hiding many of the Android data. If you bring up two browser windows, side-by-side, and toggle one to only show iOS, and the other Android, you get a very different impression. I did some side-by-side screenshots when this first ran (and Danny Dilger at AppleInsider picked it up) – http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/158143/twitter-heat-map-shows-ipho…
In addition to the visualization problems there also appear to be problems with the underlying dataset: http://cartonerd.blogspot.com/2013/06/3-billion-tweets-on-map.html
In short, Twitter use is skewed towards young, urban males, and very few users geo-tag their tweets. I wonder how and if these biases were controlled for in the analysis? Just plotting lots of data points on a map is not analysis. It’s map porn.
This story highlights several problems I have with the popularization of so-called “Big Data.” It can lead to lazy analysis. Too many folks seem to think that volume of data makes up for sloppy analysis and questionable sampling. It doesn’t.
Wall Street prefers Apple; hard-working self-starters prefer Android. Proven by the same map….. whatevr.
Since the other “Open” OS was supposed to be for poor people I supose that now only Android is left.
“In The Netherlands, Android has an 80% market share, and we have far lower poverty rates than the US….”
Pay back the aid you received after WWII and then take back the descendents of slaves you brought to North America (the first slave ship arrived at Jamestown in 1619…….and was Dutch).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep4rh2aj4VY
Edited 2014-04-07 20:48 UTC
There’s so much wrong with this statement:
1. That’s not how aid works. You don’t give money for reconstruction and then hold it over someone.
2. An overly simplistic statement such as the preceding fails to recognize the very American-centric nature of the ERP – the funds were largely used to buy American goods and done in such a way to benefit America’s interest over Europe. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that (certainly not a criticism of the policy) – just something to consider.
3. Beyond that, if the Dutch felt compelled to pay that back, it’s about $1.3b USD in 2013 money. The budget of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is more than $420b USD. Since you seem to be making this comment out of spite, you ought to aim higher. But, while were making claims that repaying loans and debts are necessary for critique, China’s calling and would like their 1.1 trillion dollars back before the US government criticizes them (that’s 86b USD in 1945 dollars by the way, a significantly larger amount than the 100m USD sent to the Netherlands as part of the ERP).
I’m sure there’s a point in here but you fail to make any form of one. The fact that you’re trying to blame the Dutch here (for bringing over 19 slaves from a seized Spanish ship) for the systematic enslavement of people supported and encouraged by the US government is beyond me. Secondly, the slaves that the Dutch brought over were baptized by the Spanish which exempted them from slave work (and thus, they weren’t really slaves at all in the US).
I don’t want to go to deep into this, since the OP only wanted to insult, but the Dutch involvement in the slave trade – a gigantic crime against humanity – should not be, in any way, swept under the rug, or made less. Us Dutch have contributed greatly to this crime, and while it may have been a long time ago, the reverberations of it can be felt all over the world to this very day – including in the United States.
The OP’s intentions with bringing it up may have been cloudy, but the point in and of itself is a valid one. The Netherlands’ role in the slave trade is something our schools would rather not dive into too much, but every historian knows what’s up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery#Netherlands
That’s the end of this particular subject. Back to technology please.
Edited 2014-04-07 21:49 UTC
How about you guys give the country back to the American Indians?
No, 17,000 is crazy low. I think the median income nationally is right around 51,000.
It looks like you’d be talking about median *household* income. While the one mentioned in article could then be adjusted to a person?
17,000 is per capita median income, 50,000 you are looking at is household income, which for New Jersey is about 34,000.
It could be a third, obvious option: Android is for everyone. You can pay anywhere from $50 to $1000 or more for a contract-free Android device. The cheapest contract-free iPhone is $400, and that’s two generations behind. If this means that more poor people have Android devices than iOS devices, well…duh!
Obviously Android is for poor people in America because poor people elsewhere in the world buy pricey Apple products. Poor non-Americans may not have much income but they have their standards.
USA == world.
Here in Sweden most newly arrived immigrant kids has more expensive clothes than most swedish kids and owns an iPhone before the first year since arrival. source: sibling works as immigrant officer.
How the hell do you live in Manhattan with an income under $67000? There are lots of places in New York where you can live on that much money. Elmira, Onondaga, Utica, Corning, Binghamton, Owego, Cortland, Rome, Manlius, and numerous upstate places you’ve never heard of. Hell, there are places on Long Islang where you could live on that money, like Montauk. But Manhattan?
Maybe frugally or miserably?
Edited 2014-04-08 06:10 UTC
We should all be aware of pars pro toto. It can be a fatal fallacy when used carelessly.
It’ simple really. Android is for people who wants a smart phone but don’t care enough about the Apple brand to find the iPhone good value for money.
..if by poor people you mean people who prefer not to waste the money they have.. getting no where near the functionality or usability and a terribly small screen for almost twice the amount of a great Android value device.. then yeah! i’m poor as hell!
some people just want to belong and if all they have to do is pay a lot extra for an iPhone, then let them. let them continue their insecure lives in a bubble of illusion!
and what you have to say about Windows Phone? Where it is most popular within its popularity index is India (which is poor country). Also receiving message from android does not mean its been messaged from low cost android phone! It can also come from Samsung Galaxy Golder phone or from Sony Z1 which are more expensive then iPhone.
My experience has been that Windows Phones are the absolute best value in the low end phone arena. You can get one for less than $100 contract free that, performance wise, will wipe the floor with most $200 Android phones (apart from the Moto G, that thing is an enigma). That said, the app situation on Windows devices is nothing short of pathetic, but if all you want is a great, cheap social media phone that won’t bog down every other time you touch the screen, you can’t beat them.
Now, once you get into the midrange and above, Android gets very competitive. For $350 you can get a Nexus 5 that beats the pants off of just about any other phone in its price range. Jump up to $500 and pretty much any Android phone at that price is a great pick. While I still have a personal preference for Windows Phones, I can’t deny how far Android has come.
And here’s the punchline: It’s not until you get to that $500 (again, contract free) price that you find the iPhone, which apart from cult status and app ecosystem, has nothing to offer that you can’t find in a comparatively priced Android or Windows phone.
To put it another way, if someone were to offer me a choice, for free, between an iPhone 5s ($649), a Galaxy Note 3 ($549), or a Nokia Lumia 1020 ($506), the iPhone wouldn’t even be on my radar.
Class & social division is much more acute in USA than in Europe.
Europe still dreams of a middle class encompassing from the poor to the riches, with minimum people out of it. But even in Europe this vision is being hammered and slowly disappear overtime.
USA is more and more looking like South Africa or Israël : Rich people living together in protected places, while slaves, sorry poor people/uneducated moron/dangerous dealer/potential terrorists, are parked into their own separated area (with preferably a fence to separate both worlds).
The future of USA, as dreamed by its most wealthy members, is something like Elysium.
I train up to Newark every day for work, and I see a mix of iOS and Android devices on the train. At my enterprise in Newark, I also see a mix with a growing number of Galaxy phones and Notes, but our management team uses iPads and iPhones mostly. Newark is a mix of folks with and without money, of course.
IMO, there is no broad brush that accurately reveals the truth.
I’ts strictly a US thing. Australian wages are generally much higher* than in the US yet Android phones are the norm here.
*In Australia the minimum wage is equivalent to USD35,000.
The median male wage is equivalent to about USD67,000.
And Apple is targetting high end only.
So why would they be present in areas where low end matters (like in whole damn USA)?
Anyway, Apple got to late to Europe,Asia,Africa or any other market that matter.
They are either too expensive (Asia, Africa) or too late (Europe) to ecosystem game, or late to innovation (Japan) game.
Not that Apple is struggling to keep its market…
Just they do not have what most people wants, and most people do not have cash for what Apple have.
(And Android ecosystem is at least good enough to stop Apple advance if Apple starts second)
made to the insights of Darell Huff.
“How to lie with statistics”. 1954
Do not believe it.
Everyone I know who’s technical dislikes iOS and prefers Android. It’s unfortunate, but sensible that iOS gets more developer attention because it’s customers have more money than sense.
I would not say I am poor, but I choose not to use an iPhone given as I prefer the flexibility of the android platform and the fact that for the majority of the iPhone’s existence in the USA, AT&T had a monopoly on it. I very much dislike AT&T’s customer service and rates.