What I find amazing about this is that, if I think about it, the majority of people that I know use iPhones. I have only 5 friends with android, and two want to switch back to iPhone. I know it's a really small population to look at, but does anyone have a large group of friends that they know aren't using iPhones and instead are android users?
Nope, pretty much everyone at my school uses an iPhone. I know only 3 Droid users, and one of them hates his Droid.
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No. Actually, Apple want total profits. A lot of those Android phones go to people who don't have or spend enough money to produce a decent profit from selling them anything.
A huge portion of the population will only pay peanuts for cheap junk. It's doubtful that Apple will ever sell them anything. Some sad portion of the lower income population is not even functionally literate. My guess is that some significant portion of that 50%+ Android installed base doesn't even use their device as a smartphone, they just got it because some vendor was offering a really cheap deal that day.
Actually, the iPhone is cheaper than an Android phone in the long run because it holds its value so well. You can sell your $200 iPhone after the 2-year contract for at
least $500 (w/o contract). I just sold my 4th gen iPod touch after 2 years of use for $163.
Look for a few used Droids on eBay that also came with a 2-year contract and are being sold used w/o a contract. I found a few for $50.
Oh, and the same is true for Macs. The best thing to do is get a used but latest-model Mac every 2 years and sell your old one. The $/year to own a Mac is actually pretty low if you do that.
My iMac was my dad's old one that he got for about $1500 new I think, and we've been using it for 6 years combined. This is not good because so far, the cost has been $250/year, and it would have been better to keep buying and selling newer ones (I would also have a nicer computer at all times). I can keep it for a long time and deal with an older computer, but that would not be worth it really. I guess it's too late now; I'll use this until it breaks completely.