The difference of $35 a month instead of $55 isn't that important if it means owning the iPhone.

Why people pay so much more for a car with similar functionality as an another car?

The price isn't really such a problem if you don't indocrtinate yourself into buying a new one each year.

But this shouldn't be applicaple to teens though, probably?

People like devices with high-quality, long-lasting hardware. They like their phones to be secure and to receive OS updates from the vendors for their entire planned usable life. They want excellent cameras. They want their phone to perform well and just work.

Under these conditions, why would you ever buy an Android?

Apple is a very local company, mostly US. The phone is not better, it's just better suited to that population.

The phone is absolutely better. Better battery, nicer looking screen, more solid feel, faster processor, better game performance, better software integration (if you don’t care about customization).

The only real downside to someone that isn’t a power user is price, and even power users can tweak iOS enough for nearly any use case. An example is that you can currently sideload a virtual machine app from altstore that can literally run Linux with full USBC (or lightning to USB) pass through.

Better battery: you can't do anything with it because it's not supported. Of course you have better battery if nothing uses it.

Nicer screen: with that huge camera cutout it's just ugly.

More solid feel: if you tap the middle of the screen it feels hallow, like a cardboard box.

Better software integration: to make my apple tv to be my home hub or however it is called, I had to look up the answer. I only found the question from 12 years ago with no answer (there is no community in apple universe, just individual customers). I finally gave the answer to that question myself after a week of poking. Horrible sw integration.

Other stuff: you can't move icons where you want (what a joke!), you can't have a link to a picture on home screen, you can't... you can't... you can't... but hey look at that battery not getting drained by nothing!

> The phone is absolutely better. Better battery, nicer looking screen, more solid feel, faster processor, better game performance, better software integration

Better than what, budget phones? Android phones worth half its price have comparable features nowadays. Apple has failed miserably in gaining customers from markets where its hegemony wasn't already established, including the world's largest smartphone markets (China & India). American localisation is absolutely the largest thing going for them.

Except for the fact that the reason many markets buy android phones is because they are very budget oriented devices. Go to Mexico, India, China, Eastern Europe, anywhere where the purchasing power isn’t nearly on par with the US and you’ll find the reason everyone has android phones is because their carrier gives them a free one that happens to be years old and just about as terrible as they come. It’s essentially the equivalent of a galaxy s7 (great phone) in 2022. It’s just a bad phone by todays technological standards

That.. doesn't happen at all. I am from and in India, I would know. The only carrier that gives a free phone here is Jio, and that's a feature phone. In absolute terms there are way more people in India with enough purchasing power to buy iPhones than in almost all other countries except China and the US, just because it population is that large, but I'll agree it won't compensate for % share. It's still ironic that Apple manufactures phones here and has still failed to capture the country's market.

This is the correct answer

I thought so too, but then I got a cheap return iphone and was blown away.

I now help all my friends buy cheap iphones for about $150/phone. They are either openbox or refurbished by apple, still under apple warranty. Currently iphone 11 64gb is that sweet spot.

Cpu is still faster than most modern androids. Nvme ssd doesn't wear out as cheap emmc on androids. Phone receives way better software tuning than any android because apple iterates slower.

And best part: phone can be serviced on the cheap in almost any mall in the world. Everyone got spare screens, batteries,cases sell in dollar store.

I get Latest ios releases. I was using pixels before and when they broke, esp during travel, it was a very uneconomical proposition.

Only thing I miss is termux and gcam.

>And best part: phone can be serviced on the cheap in almost any mall in the world. Everyone got spare screens, batteries,cases sell in dollar store.

Swapping parts like that on an iPhone doesn't work (anymore): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2WhU77ihw8

Easy. Google is a spyware company, and Android is a spyware operating system. Outside of things like LineageOS or GrapheneOS I’d rather not have a phone than support Google or Android.