Why do iphone users still see their phones as a status symbol

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

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

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.

Because they're teens

It's expensive

Only poor people think a phone is a sign of wealth

As a person with a nice income, an iPhone is a device that‘ll get security updates for 5-6 years. Meaning that I can just put away 30 bucks a month and get the replacement immediately. On Android I had to get a new one every 2-3 years to get consistent security updates. I switched to an iPhone X when it came out, now I have a 14 Pro and don’t to plan to get a new one anytime soon.
- I think this comment highlights just why people still think iPhones are a status symbol. They don't know any better or even anything of the market but they are sure confident about it.
  IPhone will get 5-6 years of updates, but Android phones from Google, Samsung, and some others will get 7 6 years. Somehow that means the iPhone is better?
  What next, they will claim that iPhone is private and Apple doesn't spy on everything they do to sell them ads? Something that if they read Apple's privacy policy quickly would find out is also wrong. Or then claim it is somehow more private that Android which can actually block most of the adware spying with apps like DuckDuckGo which are officially on the Play Store?
- What? Samsung guarantees 7 years of security updates for most phones. Google does the same.

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

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

It is still cliqueish even if they don't do it intentionally when you have things like they assume you have apple things like the iPhone charger( deprecated now) or airdrop.
Bullshit. Adults absolutely care. It's human nature to try to project your status in the social hierarchy. That takes different forms and may instead be projecting status with a Stanley flask or Canada Goose jacket, or whatever.
- Most adults don’t use their iphones as status symbols. Look at 10 random adults iphones and over 9 of them will be damaged.
  I’ve managed iphones for hundreds of people and only encountered a few that care at all.
  BlackBerry holdovers would be a different discussion though.
- Those aren't adults. Those are geriatric children.
- "Adults".
I may consider "many adults"... I still get grief about it from older adults (I'm talking people in their 40's and older). Though either of us could be correct.
These are people who can't be bothered with how things work, but... are amazing at what they do. So it's an interesting circumstance to observe, and I haven't come to any strong conclusions.
- Those adults might still be children.
I disagree, kids are taught by adults, so whatever they are learning its from their teachers and families. In my experience I have seen more adults give a status symbols to Apple products than children.

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

My labubu bandolier says there is.
- labubu
  What the hell is that? Are beanie babies popular again?
cost is an easy reason/ barrier. but there's others like membership and other exclusivity options being offered out there.

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.

They don't. You do.

explain how the people who always have the newest iPhone and show it off to all their friends DONT think it's a status symbol
better yet explain how, I, the person with a several year old android phone who HATES apple considers an iphone more important than they do
It’s just a phone? I’d have an android or fairphone if my job didn’t have apple devices and apps I use all the time. Just makes sense to not need two sets of a lot of things.

That is how they market their products.

And those demographics are very susceptible to marketing and peer pressure. The chat bubble colors are designed to make you think of alternative phone users as outcasts. Used to be the same with photos and videos in MMS.
By your late 20s most people don't give a shit about being labeled outcast, but by then you're locked into their ecosystem.
- This is definitely one reason for their design, and Apple is shit for that, but the primary reason and the one that many iphone haters miss or trivialize is that SMS/MMS are absolutely fucking trash. There has to be a distinction because if you’re using imessage and relying on all your messages being e2e encrypted and your photos/videos not being compressed to shit, it’s important to get a blatant visual indicator when that’s not actually the case.
  I’m not trying to downplay apple’s bullshit social engineering about this, that really is fucked up, but this gets misconstrued all the time as irrational users being upset by green bubbles when to (many of) those users it’s actually a huge downgrade in security and functionality that they’re reacting to.

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

I don’t. I just use the phone because it works well with my laptop. My previous one was all banged up and scratched, so I wouldn’t really call it a status symbol.

I don’t really care about status though. My friends are a bunch of misfits. If it bothers you that people are using something as a status symbol, perhaps you’re more concerned about status than you realize. I’d love to just advise you to stop caring about that but it’s not that easy. Status seeking is a pretty common, normal behaviour.

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.

I‘m the tech guy most people ask for help. If they want a new phone, my first question is for how long it should last and what their price range is - then I mostly suggest an iPhone. You get 5-6 years of support for $600, while Android you need to pay that every 1-2 years.
- I‘m the tech guy most people ask for help. If they want a new phone, my first question is for how long it should last and what their price range is - then I mostly suggest an iPhone. You get 5-6 years of support for $600, while Android you need to pay that every 1-2 years.
  Incorrect. A Samsung Galaxy A16 (USD $200) has 6 years of security updates.

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

Once something becomes statusy, is seems pretty rare that it ever stops. You can't outcompete Apple at being Apple, and to stay exclusive they can just keep prices up.

It genuinely was revolutionary when it came out. I guess they managed to leverage that into being a luxury brand, when no further world-breaking innovations were forthcoming. The only thing those really have to worry about is staying relevant, as opposed to going the way of fine china and monocles.

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.

I have never ever ever encountered a single person who treated their iPhone as a status symbol.

you definitely have, they probably just didn't mention it to you specifically
That's nuts, you've never heard anyone tease about green chat bubbles? Never heard the joke "I don't talk to poor people"? Didn't see all that stuff blow up extra when the air pods came out?

Wait people really give a shit? Never seen or heard about that

Source: I’m also a college student

Nope - no one gives a shit what phone you have. Maybe I’m just old but I haven’t heard this from literally anyone or anywhere.
Her iPhone is a status symbol to my wife. Filipinos are kinda weird about brand names as symbols, like they're living in the 80s.
It used to be much worse. I remember being excluded from group chats in high school because of the color of the chat bubble for android was different or some shit lol
- You weren’t ousted because of the colour, that’s ridiculous. You were ousted because your phone didn’t support group chats with iPhones. Obviously still an Apple issue but it’s pretty stupid to claim it was because of the colour.
- Some people really got to get a personality outside of the shit they own

I don’t see it as a status symbol. Hate is a strong word… I could describe the process I go through just to save a jpeg, but I don’t have the patience. It’s simply the cheapest phone that I consider secure.

I'm a college student and I don't feel this way at all. Maybe you'll get some quick jokes about being a poor Android user sometimes but it's mostly playful.

I convinced my college friend to try out Android and he likes his moto flip fold phone now.

Apple has cleverly made their phones a luxury symbol. In 2014, Apple hired the CEO of Burberry, Angela Ahrendts to be their Vice President. I believe this was the period when their Apple stores got a huge revamp to look all clean and minimalistic.

But in general, I don't think anybody really gives a shit. Even less so the ones ones who actually know about technology.

Uh, I don’t. It’s just a phone I use. That’s it.

Teenagers and students are just that; teenagers and students. Very often they care about ‘status symbol’ but also sometimes they don’t care.

I would recommend to stop generalizing.

It’s not the phone, it’s your age bracket. You can say the same thing for other stuff like shoes/clothes, cars, etc. It’s peer/societal pressure, FOMO, and other factors that teenagers and young adults feel are important. People care less when they get older. My iphone is a utility device to me, and I’ll keep using it until it dies or security updates stop, instead of upgrading every year.

Why do you think they do? That’s not a thing in reality. That said, I don’t chat about mobile phones with a lot of college students at this point.

Android users do this as well, they just normally have to squabble with Apple users rather than feel they can punch down on someone else. I don't have a smartphone. But unlike them my phone is cheap to replace if it sinks while kayaking.

I also don't like iOS or Android

okay but then you just need to carry a separate mobile computation device
- Why?

I think originally because they used to be only for AT&T customers and were the most expensive, then android started flooding the market with cheap shitty phones.

This is the real reason. The iphone was the original tablet-like smart phone and it was marketed as a premium offering and as a result has always enjoyed that status.
Android was second to market and a competitor to the iphone. Because every manufacturer wanted to make a tablet-like phone, they copied the iphone's style and made hundreds of shitty knockoffs over the years that effectively bolstered the iphone's premium status. Yes there are flagship android phones made by Samsung and LG that cost more than the most expensive iphone - but they are loaded with bloatware and bootlocked so you dont get updates and is held back by garbage so it works like shit in only a few years. So even the premium options are shit. The google pixels are good hardware but they're made by a company that makes every one of their trillions of pennies by spying on you.
- android phones made by Samsung and LG
  LG hasn't made a phone in over four years.

As a grown adult, I don’t care what people think about phone brands or multi billion/trillion companies when compared with more of the same. But it’s like sports teams. It doesn’t mean much but it can be fun with friendly rivalries. People who take it seriously though? Not to be taken serious.

I use one because I value privacy. I also have an Android phone from 2019 I like more for a few reasons. I like both. I also like both Xbox and Nintendo. And I don’t hate PlayStation. I don’t use Windows, I use Macs, but at work I’m unofficial IT, people come to the Mac user for help with Windows 10/11 because I know that too, it’s just not what I use at home. I still have like 30 years of experience with Windows. I also have a favorite (gridiron) football team. And I’ll tell you why they suck but I’ll never stop rooting for them. (Don’t have a favorite (association) football club.)

I think tribalism is for people who use things to identify themselves. When you stop doing that, tribalism starts to look dumb.

I see mine for what it is. A phone. And a serious threat to my privacy. (I'm well into my 50s, if this matters)

If you're looking for privacy, I highly recommend (weirdly enough) a Google Pixel. With GrapheneOS it's way more secure and private than basically anything else on the market.
- Thx (a lot) for the suggestion.
  I've been considering what will be my next phone so, yeah, I've toyed with this idea. But I'm also averse to renewing my devices needlessly (reducing my e-waste production). I kept my last iPhone 8 years or so and only changed it because I broke it and it was way too much to have it fixed. So, when comes time to renew this one I'm not sure Google will still allow Android users to change their OS for a more privacy respecting one, but if it still allow it, it's most probably what I will do :)
- I second this. Been using a Pixel with GOS for 3 years now.

My daughter wanted an iPhone when she was in high school because her friends played the arcade games together on it. That was the only reason she wanted it.

Apple tells them to.

How does that telling happen, actually?
- Companies pay groups to run marketing campaigns that push the idea that their product is missing from your life. Exact methods vary but it's often in the form of video and printed advertising. Sometimes you'll see celebrity endorsements or conspicuous product placement in TV/movies. Whatever the people-nerds think will convince the general public to buy.
- Marketing.
  Go back to the Apple/PC ads in the 90's,where the Apple guy was hip, and the PC guy was an old fuddy-duddy in a brown suit.
  Apple has always traded on the slickness of their products. They often claim to be the "first" at something, when they really just developed the first seriously marketable version.
  iPhone wasn't the first smartphone by years. Just the first one that was slick enough for consumers to bite on, when a year before it was geeky to have such a device.
- Marketing.
- Simulated intellect. The same way that big, fake boobs sell products to a particular demographic, so do fake, big brains appeal to another.

they haven't outgrown being incredibly stupid and some never will.

That’s why I make sure mine is old and cracked, dented, and scuffed to shit to make sure no one makes that mistake.

They bought it specifically for that purpose.

Can't be any other purpose in my personal opinion. Android is better, to me.