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I've been hearing iPhones were popular even back then. Was I mistaken? AFAIK, a big part of their proliferation was...

... indeed as parents get new phones, they just hand down their old ones for their kids

If they're posting their lives to social media, then they've done that themselves
Oh iPhones were for sure popular back then, but there was a much bigger Android footprint in America back then. Anywhere you went, there was usually close to a 50/50 spit. I'd say around 2014'ish, you could sense a shift happening.
 
I haven't read every single post but no one has mentioned

1. Hand Me Downs
As parents buy a new iPhone and as older iPhones are still going strong, that means more of the kids in the family can easily have an iPhone. Heck, I still use a 6s as a work phone, so there's many generations available to pass down.
This is even more exacerbated by

2. iPod Touch is Dead
Parents used to buy kids iPod Touch to play games and message friends without having to shell out for a cell plan.
If there's no new iPod Touch to buy, your only pocket size option is an old off contract iPhone.

If "active iPhones" are measured by iCloud activation, it doesn't matter if they're using them as phones or as WiFi only devices.
 
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I want to delete WhatsApp as soon as possible, but can't find a single person in Europe that wants to communicate with me via iMessage. As if ones iCloud address is too private to share with strangers, only family. 🤷

I see these type of posts often on here, that nobody use iMessage and everybody’s on WhatsApp. As a Swede, I don’t recognise this at all. I left WhatsApp quite a while ago, the only one who I used it with was my wife. We used WhatsApp since the early days and stayed as a habit.

On a rare occasion I get an offer or request to join a WhatsApp group, but it’s rare. None of my friends or colleagues use it. All are on iPhones using iMessage, with the rare occasion of an Android user, but they are less and less common, at least in my circles.
 
Focus on youth. The older a generation gets the more stuck in the past they become.
We ride along the technology wagon and decide to jump off at random. Once we jump off we stay there. Just like how we are with hairstyle and fashion. You'll notice how some of the older generation have styles that were all the rage decades ago. I'm glad I didn't jump off the fashion wagon in the 80's.😬
I'm a college student and have seen the effects of this firsthand - when I've had an android phone I've been LEFT OUT of group chats that are 100% iPhone because my green bubble would ruin the chat. This has happened multiple times, and it's social suicide.
Peer pressure.😑 Reading about stuff like that makes me glad I ain't young anymore more. I'm old enough not to give a rat's (_!_) what anyone else (except the Missus) thinks. A lot of the adults I know look down on me for liking children's books and stories instead of grown up Rom-Com:rolleyes: and stuff. Rom-Com...phffbbtttt... 99% of the problem occurs because of a misunderstanding. Boring. In kid's books a worm drive an apple car.😊
lowly-worms-applecar.jpg
 
Why are people still making fun of others regarding green text bubbles?
It's not so much making fun, but with blue bubbles, I can be confident knowing the data is encrypted end to end. Not the case with green bubbles.

Also, as others have pointed out, green bubbles is just straight SMS and there's a ton of great functionality that disappears.
 
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It's not so much making fun, but with blue bubbles, I can be confident knowing the data is encrypted end to end. Not the case with green bubbles.

Also, as others have pointed out, green bubbles is just straight SMS and there's a ton of great functionality that disappears.

Why on earth would people be using SMS like it's the 90's?

There are loads of options other than just iMessage or SMS
 
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Steve would never have allowed this.
He is long dead. We don't know what he would or wouldn't do. Between then and now, he could have and probably would have morphed in the way he thought about many things. He wasn't perfect as much as so many would like to believe. So there is really very little basis to speculate and what he would or wouldn't have done. If you want to say this and make it sound like something other than blathering babble, provide something in his past statements or actions that would back up this conjecture. Thanks so much.
 
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How are they affording it though, rich parents, after school jobs, mowing the lawn, constant begging?
For a sizeable number of cases, parents are done with their current iPhones, buy new ones, and just pass down their old, used ones to their children.

For one anecdote, they can't afford it. I talked with a millennial who went through college in 2015. A classmate of hers used to have the top-of-the-line iPhone until one day, it became a midline Android phone. The iPhone broke, she needed a new one. She had an extended family member paying for her iPhones until something happened and this was no longer the case. When she went to replace her phone, she had no idea that it costs $1,300! She was on a budget, so she had to downgrade to something that was 1/3 of the cost. Oh, and she was also clueless that when you're a cell phone user, you need to pay cell phone bills in order to make calls, and add a data plan to use internet stuff, which made the "sticker shock" even worse :D :O
 
This is because iPhones are supported for twice as long as android.
I can pass my iPhone down to my children, and we all upgrade together.

With android your out of luck after 2-3 years.

It’s more cost effective to go with Apple.
 
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For a sizeable number of cases, parents are done with their current iPhones, buy new ones, and just pass down their old, used ones to their children.
I just posted the very same thing.

Both of my children are still using the phones I used to own.

One of them is on the 6s. It works, just about. But at his age, it’s still acceptable.

Next year he will be getting the XS Max his brother currently owns, and his brother will be getting my iPhone 13 Pro.

This is how it works in most families.

It’s also NOT possible with Android, as they aren’t supported long enough.
 
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How much money does one save, when using an Android phone, anyway?

A cheap android phone is supported for 2 years. Just like the expensive ones.

You need to factor in the support level on the price of a phone.

That you need to buy AT LEAST two android phones in the space you can own one iPhone basically makes Android TWICE as expensive as the sticker price if you consider total cost of ownership. Realistically though, you’d need to buy THREE android phones if you wanted them all supported in the same time frame as your iPhone.

If buy car A and it lasts me 12 years. But car B only lasts 4.

Which one is more cost effective to own?

Now, you could say, ah but there are Car B makers that cost a third of what Car A charges.

To which I say, great, you’ve gone through three **** cars and paid exactly the same amount of money as my quality one.

Congratulations, you’re obviously a winner in life.
 
This is because iPhones are supported for twice as long as android.
I can pass my iPhone down to my children, and we all upgrade together.

With android your out of luck after 2-3 years.

It’s more cost effective to go with Apple.
People easily use Android phones after their support span. When you need to save money, you need to save money. You're not going to scrounge for an iPhone when people have more pressing costs and bills to pay.

I myself used an LG G4 that was 4 years old. It was only $200, and then $100 afterwards when I ended up getting a replacement. I've since upped my new phone budget to $500. Good tradeoff of quality, while not spending so much on a new phone.
 
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People easily use Android phones after their support span. When you need to save money, you need to save money. You're not going to scrounge for an iPhone when people have more pressing costs and bills to pay.

I myself used an LG G4 that was 4 years old. It was only $200, and then $100 afterwards when I ended up getting a replacement. I've since upped my new phone budget to $500. Good tradeoff of quality, while not spending so much on a new phone.
Part of this "saving money" is also marketing.

Samsung makes lower cost versions of their flagship phone so non-tech people think they're getting a really good deal.
For example, the flagship is the Galaxy S20, the low cost is the Galaxy J20

So when people are shopping, they think the new low-cost Galaxy is a better deal than last year's iPhone, even if the carrier is charging the same monthly fee.
 
Why on earth would people be using SMS like it's the 90's?

There are loads of options other than just iMessage or SMS
Because most people don't want to be downloading third-party apps that require their friends and family also be on that same third-party app. Using what's built in guarantees you'll be able to chat with whomever, regardless of what they have on their phone or their patience for getting set up with their fourth chat-app because it's the one you use which is different than the one their family uses which is different than the one their other circle of friends use, etc.
 
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Because most people don't want to be downloading third-party apps that require their friends and family also be on that same third-party app. Using what's built in guarantees you'll be able to chat with whomever, regardless of what they have on their phone or their patience for getting set up with their fourth chat-app because it's the one you use which is different than the one their family uses which is different than the one their other circle of friends use, etc.
Also, some things require SMS, so it's not like you can decide to not use it. Like 2 factor auth and reservations at restaurants. So if you decide to chat on a 3rd part app, that's great! But it won't make SMS disapear.
 
I want to delete WhatsApp as soon as possible, but can't find a single person in Europe that wants to communicate with me via iMessage. As if ones iCloud address is too private to share with strangers, only family. 🤷
iMessage can also use phone numbers "to match", still apple could introduce privacy-focused, one-time, easy-to-deactivate IDs.
 
Because most people don't want to be downloading third-party apps that require their friends and family also be on that same third-party app. Using what's built in guarantees you'll be able to chat with whomever, regardless of what they have on their phone or their patience for getting set up with their fourth chat-app because it's the one you use which is different than the one their family uses which is different than the one their other circle of friends use, etc.

This just isn't true at all, certainly not globally.

WhatsApp = 2 billion monthly active users

We Chat = 1.2 billion monthly active users

Facebook Messenger = 988 million monthly active users

QQ = 574 million monthly active users

Snapchat = 558 million monthly active users

Telegram = 550 million monthly active users


Of that list only Telegram isn't in the top ten list of the most downloaded iOS apps of all time.
 
Also, some things require SMS, so it's not like you can decide to not use it. Like 2 factor auth and reservations at restaurants. So if you decide to chat on a 3rd part app, that's great! But it won't make SMS disapear.

SMS isn't secure for 2 factor auth and will eventually die out in favour of more secure methods like the autheticator apps

In a lot of developed markets SMS is rapidly declining
 
SMS isn't secure for 2 factor auth and will eventually die out in favour of more secure methods like the autheticator apps

In a lot of developed markets SMS is rapidly declining
Possibly true
But if you're a new member for some service that wants 2FA, you'll have to get an email or text at least once.

As far as SMS marketing, I don't know, but SMS overtaking what used to be dedicated hardware for customer notifications- it's absolutely on the rise in the US.
No restaurant gives you a pager anymore to wait for a table, it's all text. Same with pharmacy and doctors waiting room. They don't shout your name or have displays with who's up next. Reminders from the Vet, DoorDash notifications, it's all as SMS.
All of these service's texts are the only reason I use 50 SMS a month.
 
This just isn't true at all, certainly not globally.

WhatsApp = 2 billion monthly active users

We Chat = 1.2 billion monthly active users

Facebook Messenger = 988 million monthly active users

QQ = 574 million monthly active users

Snapchat = 558 million monthly active users

Telegram = 550 million monthly active users


Of that list only Telegram isn't in the top ten list of the most downloaded iOS apps of all time.

Of that list, I would be considered a 'monthly active user' of all but two.
That said, 99.9%(not sure how many 9's) of my messaging is done through Messages on my iPhone.

This list also makes my point. Who wants to keep track of which friends/family/colleagues/coworkers/contractors/service providers/etc use which messaging service? "Need to message Alice, uh, she's on Telegram ... now I need to message Bob, hmm, that's right, he's on WhatsApp".

Yes, those apps have huge subscriber counts. While I haven't done the research, I would hazard a guess that a very large percentage of actual regular users (ie. ones that use those third party apps every hour of every day) are Android users because SMS is insecure and limited in functionality.
 
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