Okay, this is not an iPhone vs Android Phone debate. I respect your right to choose whichever platform that you want.
I mean, iPhone seems so antithetical with the idea of freedom. You have to connect it to a server to even use it, all apps have to go through a centralized server, no option to install whatever apps you want, which means, you literally cannot have any third-party apps without an online account.
Most of my fellow americans seems to love the idea of freedom so much, yet just buy into a closed ecosystem with no freedom? 🤔
Like almost 60% of Americans use iPhone, kinda weird to preach freedom when you cant even have an app without a corporation’s approval. If it were any other country, I wouldn’t find it weird, but for a country that’s obsessed with the idea of freedom (so much so that they disobeyed mask mandates), it’s really weird to be using a device with zero freedom.
I mean apple has spent at least the last decade using iMessage as a way to bring people into the platform and keep them there. Ie the articles from a few years back about using it to manipulate teenager behavior a la Instagram, or the epic games discovery documents which indicated this was a deliberate and cruel strategy from apple to lock ignorant people into their platform to avoid losing their social network.
Tldr: they deliberately try to make people lose friends if they leave the platform. You might say “shit friends” and I’d agree, but this is the FUD that apple spreads.
So they used the first two years to build a consumer user base in the way that RIM couldn’t and then was able to defend its market share.
The iMessage strategy couldn’t work if people didn’t buy in.