Ask Lemmy

Some Iphone users behave as if they're in a cult. Worse, Apple treats customers without Iphones/Macs as inferior to their golden children even while selling services that don't require Apple hardware.

I subscribed to Apple TV+ and dealing with the company was infuriating. Every single support rep instructed me to do something to solve a problem using my Iphone or Mac. The last straw was when I wanted to add another profile to my account and was told the company has made it impossible without Apple hardware. The rep actually told me to find someone with an Iphone to help. I cancelled Apple TV+ instead.

One member of the Iphone cult I know was going on and on about a problem she was having receiving calls. When I mentioned a relatively minor problem with my phone her immediate response was "That's because you have Android." It was comical.

People shallow enough to believe they're superior because they own an Iphone aren't worth being around anyway.

Some people need to justify their choice to overspend on something...

Nobody will actually mind if you brag about how you bought a new phone. Also if you are not a rich person you having an expensive phone means you did something smart to "cheat the system."

As an example I had an old coworker when I used to work at a warehouse and he would combo things like service provider sales to buy an iphone.

He did sound smart when explaining the roundabout way he got the phone despite making same money as us. And I don't mind what other people chose to spend money on.

What I do mind is college students thinking macbooks are some "programmers' laptops."

I had to constantly hand-hold group members that think they can get away with not learning how to code and using AI for all the homeworks because they bought a mac and that makes them a good programmer anyway.

"But I thought the program should automatically wait for the threads on this line since it's POSIX."

Yes I love troubleshooting professor's makefile for an OS I don't have because you never learned your own laptop has a symlink from gcc to clang.

Not a youngster, but I would say because it’s a simple choice. Don’t have to think which brand sporting Android is better and definitely don’t have to worry about what custom ROM to install. Troubleshooting between different models can be a pain. People just want something that works out of the box without having to be an expert.

1 choice (mainly) vs (too) many choices.

It's expensive

Only poor people think a phone is a sign of wealth

Kids are like that. Most adults don’t care.

Because they're teens

If there was another decent mobile phone, the same size as the SE, I would seriously consider it.

.. is there ever any logic to what people think are status symbols?

The only reason I have an iPhone is because our car only has Apple CarPlay installed (or whatever it's called). I can never go back to mounting my phone on the dash and using the tiny phone screen for maps and music.

That is how they market their products.

I see my deGoogled Android device as a higher status symbol than any overpriced stock Apple device.

I remember a friend of mine whining about how my text bubble was a different color and it "made it weird" to text because of that.

By then I was already super over the whole tribalistic iphone/android bs from people I know when it wasn't being meme'd on, so I just told her "you can either get over it, or we can stop talking and being friends"

Wouldn't you know it, the color of a text bubble isn't enough to end a friendship over.

Cuz they're overpriced? More money = More "exclusive."

Cheapest iPhone is $600, cheapest android phone can go as low as $20 (like those walmart prepaid phones locked to a carrier).

When the average person think of android, instead of thinking about a flagship samsung phone, they think of the lowest budget phone.

So in their mind, if you have android, you're automatically categorized as "poor"/"cheap", regardless how much it actually costs.

Tribalism didn't end when civilization started. Anyone not in the tribe is lesser, because the alternative would mean your tribe is lesser.

More specific to an iPhone, if you have one, you can do all the social iPhone things like FaceTime. Don't have one? You can't FaceTime, so there is a social friction or impediment to socializing. Then there is the "othering" of the green bubble and blue bubble thing. You can't share photos or videos the same if you don't have an iPhone. Since we are in a digital age and less physically present, not being able to digitally socialize the same way also inhibits socialization.

All of this is by design. Apple intentionally creates an ecosystem that will excert social pressure on people to buy their products so they can be part of the group like their friends.

Because they paid a lot of money for them and they need to convince themselves that it was worth the cost.