Why do people choose Android? Good question. It can’t be self-loathing in all cases. Could it?
Well… could it? The Macalope supposes it’s possible. Or mass insanity. It happened once before during the rectification of the Vuldrini but…
No, no, no. There are legitimate reasons. Seriously, the Macalope is only joking about Android. He has nothing against it. If you’re an Android user, the horny one hopes you and your phone are happy together.
Even if your life is a bug-ridden cesspool devoid of good apps and cut short by bad battery life. Go in peace.
The Guardian’s Charles Arthur quotes a UK survey of smartphone owners, which reports that more Android phone owners said they liked the cost, multimedia capabilities, and the OS brand. The Macalope’s going to assume that means they like Android, not the junk the carriers pile on top.
It would be a flawed interpretation, however, to say these numbers are why Android owners chose their phones over the iPhone as Adrian Kingsley-Hughes does.
What’s interesting here is where Android trumps iOS.
Uh, no. These are really post-purchase rationalizations, reasons people picked to justify their decision. If there is any kind of comparison implied it’s to all other options. It was probably a mistake for Adrian to excise the column with RIM in it, as that might have made that point more obvious.
First, ease of use. There’s not much between the two operating systems in this category but it’s still interesting that Android beats iOS in this category, especially given how hard Apple works to make the iPhone easy to use.
When slightly more Android phone owners than iPhone owners said they liked the ease of use of their phone, it says absolutely nothing about Apple’s reputation for ease of use. An iPhone might not have even been an option for the Android owner because of a prior decision made on cost, carrier, or an aversion to good taste and the Macalope is joking again.
Adrian doesn’t get that.
OS brand score is a real eye-opener. It’s easy think [sic] of Apple’s iOS as the be-all, end-all mobile OS and that it holds the top spot in consumer’s hearts. It doesn’t, at least not in the UK.
Adrian, quick question: How do you know that when they were deciding between phones their only choice was between Android and RIM or Android and a feature phone? You don’t. What you could say is that it’s surprising that more iPhone owners don’t say the iOS brand is the reason they bought an iPhone. But even that would be idiotic. Apple doesn’t market iOS. They market the iPhone. Carriers market Android heavily to differentiate it from the other crappy operating systems they sell.
Ask your average iPhone user what OS their phone runs and they’ll either look at you with a blank stare, guess “iPhone OS?”, or call the police because there’s a strange British man in their house asking weird questions.
So there you have it – people choose Android over iOS because it’s easier to use, customers prefer the plans and the network operators, they like the OS brand, and the handsets are cheaper.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Those are reason they chose an Android phone, nothing more.
Look, the Macalope likes to kid about Android, but he knows iOS isn’t for everyone and Android is a reasonable alternative. He just asks that we not ascribe rationales to buyers that they aren’t actually using.
[Editors’ Note: In addition to being a mythical beast, the Macalope is not an employee of Macworld. As a result, the Macalope is always free to criticize any media organization. Even ours.]