>Today's youth are definitely not the rebellious counter-culture youth from my younger days.
They absolutely are, you have just become part of the culture they’re countering. Of course there’s conformity within a group or it wouldn’t really exist, but the main reason young people are so turned off by Android phones is that they are mainly associated with older family members who wanted to save a few bucks and substantially compromised on utility in the process. I’m in my 20s and I know this from experience, my mom gets substantially more utility out of her iPhone than my dad who’s an order of magnitude more technologically literate gets out of his Android phone. It doesn’t matter to teenagers that an Android phone could be as good as their iPhone when the optics are so bad. It doesn’t help that, for them, there isn’t a meaningful difference between the platforms beyond price and maybe piracy either. The actual movement among youth against iPhones is against phones in general, it’s a trend to use “dumbphones” because many feel smartphones are taking too much space in their lives.
Thank you, this is very interesting indeed and does make a lot of sense given my anecdotal experience. I suspect a good marketer could do wonders for Android's brand image given the misperception, although I doubt such thing ever happens. I get the impression that Google is only half-heartedly behind Android, controlling the reins tightly to ensure their own interest isn't harmed, but by no means truly fans themselves of Android. Every year it seems the great things about Android are slowly tightened away. I hope this changes because as it stands I worry the difference between Android and iOS is becoming an implementation detail.
I too hope Android thrives. Even though I enjoy my iPhone for it’s design choices and it works for my use, I do understand the issue of ceding so much control to a single entity. Android’s existence as an “escape hatch” is certainly part of the value proposition of the iPhone to me.
They absolutely are, you have just become part of the culture they’re countering. Of course there’s conformity within a group or it wouldn’t really exist, but the main reason young people are so turned off by Android phones is that they are mainly associated with older family members who wanted to save a few bucks and substantially compromised on utility in the process. I’m in my 20s and I know this from experience, my mom gets substantially more utility out of her iPhone than my dad who’s an order of magnitude more technologically literate gets out of his Android phone. It doesn’t matter to teenagers that an Android phone could be as good as their iPhone when the optics are so bad. It doesn’t help that, for them, there isn’t a meaningful difference between the platforms beyond price and maybe piracy either. The actual movement among youth against iPhones is against phones in general, it’s a trend to use “dumbphones” because many feel smartphones are taking too much space in their lives.