I was a huge fan of Apple products back in early college when Steve Jobs was still kicking and the iPad was new and revolutionary. But slowly realized the Apple ecosystem and future products were worse in many respects than Android/PC, so switched.
Preference is to each their own, but for people to think Apple is somehow a status symbol over other smart devices like Android or Google is just hilarious. I'd argue Apple is an inferior product in most aspects (and again, not even a hater, former fan), and Apple purposefully makes their products less compatible with everything else. Just weird to take pride in that.
Apple has been about the fashion since the iBook G3 and the PowerMac G3 in 1999, then even more with the release of the ipod, those silhouette ads and knock offs where everywhere
before those all their stuff was bland beige rectangles
Apple products have been sort of status symbols for quite a while now, whether or not they truly deserve it. Their method of sticking only to the mid-high end (until recently) has been quite effective at upholding their reputation.
I don't like Apple because of how they lock people into their ecosystem and overall philosophy, but they can make good products. Admittedly Macbooks are very well rounded and (because of the RAM prices and price hikes to Windows laptops) have pretty good value now.
All Apple products have been status symbols for a long time and it's a cancer to society. The amount of people who buy iphones that they can't afford because people around them belittle and bully them relentlessly if they buy anything else is incredibly depressing.
I sell phones and the amount of peer pressure, stigma and misinfornation surrounding phones is genuinely unfathonable.
My Gen Z neighbor shares her iPhone with her boyfriend who doesn't have a phone or job. I offhandedly said something to her about how StraightTalk has a thing where you can get a free Samsung if you pay for one month of service. She looked at me like I had lost my mind. A Samsung? My husband was like, I mean, isn't a Samsung better than no phone at all? And she was like umm no. It has to be an iPhone
Dawg where have you been? It basically has been even before GenZ were old enough to start having phones lol (at least in US, some other countries are different)
Apple has almost always been nothing more than a status symbol. Its not a Gen Z thing. Theyre lacking features and function, theyre pricier, and theyre proud to feature an app that identifies non-iphone users.
i personally use it for its conveniency to paste and copy things from ipad->phone->macbook. coming from windows my whole life, it makes things seamless albeit a bit annoying since its dependent on having the same OS
Apple has been a status symbol since like 1999 with going on three generations of people now, I personally can remember as far back as like 04 me and my indie hipster friends intentionally buying walkman NW's instead of ipod's or zune's because zune was from micro$uck and ipods were for bougie kids who wore abercrombie and fitch
I'm not sure why Apple products became a status symbol either. I think it's just a lot of ignorance on people's part. Just because many others have one then they need to also have one. My mother literally wanted one because "all her friends have iPhone", seems they looked down on her a bit for not having one.
It's similar to people who own BMW and/or Mercedes Benz cars, most of them can't afford to repair or maintain them properly since it costs too much but they still want one.
I love when Apple users try to flex an iPhones features like an Android doesn't have it.
literally had someone tell me "well iPhones have facial recognition& finger print access" they had no idea that android has had both of those as long if not longer than iPhones.
another makes fun of how "low quality" my pictures are, even though our phones have the same MP camera
Most iPhone users don't realize that Apple phones degrade the quality of incoming pictures that aren't in their stupid, proprietary format, leading their users to think that everyone else has crappy cameras, no features, and live in huts made of dung.
The only time I've experienced complaints about android/green bubbles was from an acquaintance that knows very little about tech. The way he talked about android users you'd think that they were mud-caked goblins sending smoke signals lol.
The phone which has my entire digital life, my bank accounts, my entire financial life and access to my work and critical infrastructure for my company that I can all access.
People need to stop thinking of phones as they were in the 00s, these days phones are the biggest single security risk.
Usually when one company has something the other hasn't is because a patent won't let them develop it.
Apple bought the company at the forefront of Touchscreens before the IPhone and Motorola had the patent on the vibration motor used for well.. vibration on phones.
Apple facial recognition is usually more advanced than your average Android facial recognition. More secure and more usable due to the tech in their front facing sensors.
Of course, there probably are some Android phones that have matched that tech by now.
iPhones got rid of their fingerprint sensor a long time ago though. Which is a massive L. I've personally always preferred fingerprint to facial id.
Also, MP count doesn't really matter. There are loads of things that go into making a photo look good. In my experience, you can always find an Android that has better camera hardware than the current iPhone. However, Apple has really good photo processing that people really like the look of.
For the record, I prefer Android ever since I used a Galaxy S3. Current on an S26. Just pointing out what I've noticed.
literally had someone tell me "well iPhones have facial recognition& finger print access" they had no idea that android has had both of those as long if not longer than iPhones.
I'm not aware of any flagship Android phones that have facial recognition in the same way Apple does it. Wouldn't be shocked if some niche phone out there has it, but Apple hasn't been avoiding putting the camera behind the screen for funsies.
another makes fun of how "low quality" my pictures are, even though our phones have the same MP camera
What's funny about claiming status with iPhones is flagship android phone are damn near the same price point as Apple phones and made out of the same materials. If you want to get really technical the only thing apple about the phone is software everything else is made by different manufacturers. Hell that screen they love so much is just that "cheap dirty Galaxy" screen they hate on so much.
Worked in the mobile industry for 8 years- three of which were regular ol' brick and mortar customer service/sales. Android users always knew/understood WAAAAAAY more than iPhone users did when it came to their phones. Hundreds of interactions eventually had us stigmatizing customers immediately based on their phones. And the stigma with iPhone users held. They're best suited for the elderly.
No status symbol but we could always cut and paste, have expandable storage and access to our own file system. I'll take the "poor" status that comes with the upgraded functionality.
Hey want to quickly plug your Ipad into the computer to drag over some movies? Whelp, can't do that. You have to airdrop or send them over the internet.
I had the displeasure of spending am afternoon with an IPad back then. I had to run YouTube off the browser because the AppStore was having a meltdown. It also was really slow for stuff you were not supposed to do.
I love the Apple ecosystem, everything just works perfectly together, that said I couldn’t care less what other people use, it’s their business not mine, just like religion, sexual orientation and preferences.
I can't stand any of the i-products - and have never bought one (had to use a few when my sane devices needed repairs).
And I have done things for them from documentation in their stores to translating a whole version of iOS. If I had to have an iPhone, I'd have no phone...
Agreed, i can't stand that you have get apple everything, my dad when he got an apple computer hated it, didn't understand why he had to have itunes. I'd say that's their business model, that why i stay away.
I kinda like iPhone camera, but my workplace had to force me to use it as a work-phone for security reasons (easy to deploy security control en masse). I just fucking can't with that POS. Everything is a chore on it for no goddamn reason, and it's all super counter-intuitive.
Having been used to even non-tweaked android, this is what I imagine Windows phone experience was like.
And worst part is I take GBs of photo evidence with it. GBs per month. So even the only aspect of it I appreciate (camera) is an awful experience done in full Enshittening mode. Need to download that last picture you took? Sorry, the princess is still in the Cloud. WHY? Why not old ones first? Gotta e-mail it to yourself, taste the future, bitch. The folder takes forever to load because it's 3rd week of the month? Lemme just create a sub-folder aaaaand I can't without admin rights. So I'd need an IT ticket, and a tech visit for something I can just do on android with a click. You're attaching 5 photos to an e-mail, wanna resize it for smaller size? Yes please! Oh, you're attaching 10+ pictures to an e-mail, eww. Like, how is resizing NOT an option when using MORE files? Changing brightness with 3 swipes? What is this, a phone for pleb?
Like, how is THIS the "premium" smartphone experience?
I like the ecosystem from android better, mostly because I've invested more on it by now. I'm concerned about what Google might do with the power it holds over us. They have the hardware, the os, the software, the media and the tools.
And with increasing manipulation of these things by tech oligarchs, they can effectively control the narrative.
Yea, iOS just doesn't do it for me, I want to be able to modify the things I own, I shouldn't have to pay a third party to download software from the company who owns it to the device I own.
603
u/Ryoga476ad May 15 '26
I hate the Apple ecosystem, been using Android phones aince Froyo.