[patwolf]

My grandfather was a Ford man. He would only ever buy a Ford, even during periods when other manufacturers were making vastly superior vehicles.

I used to think such loyalty was a silly generational thing. My generation was a fickle consumer. We would research and decide on a purchase based purely on merit. That's how I was with phones. When iPhone was the most compelling phone, I would buy an iPhone. When there was a more compelling Android phone, I would buy that.

However, as I get older I'm starting to understand loyalty, and it's not what I expected. It isn't a dogmatic belief in a brand. It's recognizing that sometimes it's easier to stick with what works and not worry about whether there's something better out there.

Now that we've been living with smartphones for a while, and they mostly just work, I don't expect people find as much value in switching between Android and iOS. As long as both exist, neither will ever reach 100% market share.

[agumonkey]

It's a form a wisdom. At first you try to maximize every variables, later on you realize that meh, that part (car, phone, foo) is alright as it is, let's do something else. Instead of amplifying the market turmoils, you try to act as a capacitor, smoothing out the noise.

[lj3]

I agree there will always be Android and iOS, but for different reasons. Brand loyalty taps into the same part of the brain that team loyalty does. Being a die hard Apple fan is the same as being a die hard Red Socks fan, as far as our brain is concerned. So to create that brand loyalty, there has to be two separate teams to compete against, a rivalry. Mac vs Windows. Android vs iOS. Mets vs Phillies.

Having two separate and competing ecosystems actually makes Apple more money than if they had a monopoly. You're not just buying a mobile phone, you're on our team now. You're one of us. And we all have Apple laptops too.

[vlan0]

I find a lot of those brand loyalist tend to be foolish in many ways. They make decisions based on emotion, rather than analytical thought.

I worked in retail for a good part of a decade, and I was dumbfounded by the number of people who would never buy another product from X manufacture based on a single poor experience with one product. It's simply an emotional response to their unpleasant experience which results in the person making a decision without statistical data to validate their idea. Which seems like nothing more than just plain ignorance.

[mathgeek]

Keep in mind that many people spend a lot of analytical time on other aspects of their adult life: work, vacations, insurance, children (including paying for college), home maintenance, etc. Sometimes smartphone and entertainment fall into the group of things just not worth spending your limited thinking time on.

[allengeorge]

Maybe it's because they value their time/money more than giving the manufacturer another chance? It's a hassle to have to deal with a defective product. If you're lucky, you catch the defect early and can return it (though shipping is a hassle). If you're unlucky, you'll do the repair-dance: all the shipping hassles plus not having the use of the product for however long it takes to be fixed.

Yeah. Life is too short to deal with those kinds of problems.

[Touche]

Or making the statistically correct purchasing decision is not the most important thing in their life.

[JohnTHaller]

You mean someone who spends days sleeping on the sidewalk in a tent to buy the new version of a pocket computer isn't buying based on analytical thought?

The thing is, I can understand staying up late and going to a midnight release of something like folks have done for a new Harry Potter book or a new Halo release. Following that up with staying up late reading the stories of the characters you already know to find out what happens next after waiting for a year. Or buying Halo with a buddy to head home and play the story in co-op for a few hours to have fun and see what the next chapter of the story is. With each of those emotion comes into play but for a reason and a purpose. But, in each case, you're satisfying a curiosity of what happens to a story/characters and you're spending no more than maybe 20 minutes of your time. Plus, you get to incorporate it into a fun evening with friends (having dinner and playing games for a couple hours before heading to the store to grab the game and coming back and playing for a couple hours). But, camping out for days to buy a new version of a pocket computer designed for consumption of content just seems silly.

[lnanek2]

A new smartphone enhances your capabilities, though. They are tools. So the guy waiting for a smartphone instead of waiting to see Harry Potter is going to come away from the experience with more capabilities than he had before. New entertainment like movies just wastes your time and money.

They are also powerful status symbols, like having an expensive Rolex. Someone who is first in their circle with a new iDevice is like a minor celebrity and gains attention and status. Depending on their position that can be converted to things like enterprise sales, intimate partners, etc..

[JohnTHaller]

The people in line for an iPhone 6 have an iPhone 5s with them. Nothing life changing is occurring at all. Someone buying a smartphone for the first time isn't camping out in line at the Apple store.

There is no difference in having an iPhone on day one vs day two in terms of social status or business status. And certainly not romantic status.

[collyw]

The iPhones that people queue for are usually incremental upgrades not "capability enhancing" devices.

[serge2k]

I have a Sharp TV. I noticed a while after I bought it (still fairly new, <1 year) that the left half of the screen is dimmer than the right. This is not a big enough problem that I will deal with Sharp about the warranty (I tried, they wanted me to jump through hoops so I said screw it). You can be sure I'm not going to buy another product from them. It's a minor QA issue, I don't mind it about 95% of the time, but when Samsung or LG make basically the same thing for a similar (lower?) price then why would I bother with Sharp again.

In the case of Apple vs. Android. I've used both, developed for both. Owned an Android phone for a long time, have no intention of ever going back. iOS is just that much better for me.

Exception being if Apple decides to be a bunch of fucking assholes and drop the 3.5mm jack.

[r00fus]

While I find those who hop from one product to another are often doing analysis without enough data. They're the ones who are making rash decisions, and if not, then they should be able to show me their data.

"You don't know what you have until it's gone" is relevant here - those who don't switch may value what exists (and the perceived/tangible benefits of the vendor/platform they're using) well over any new snazzy features/improvements.

How many new "problems" or "missed expectations" will happen when I migrate that I didn't factor into the switch? About half my office switched to Android in 2012, then switched back in 2014 with the new iPhones.

About the only "leap of faith" that worked for me was moving to T-Mobile in 2013 - very very few problems with them, and the removal of bill anxiety is a blessing I cherish every month (I still have a monthly reminder telling me to check my ATT/VZ quotas - I haven't deleted those - they're my reminder of how shitty it was with them).

[raddad]

I ran into a rural agricultural phenomena in which people wanted the biggest, baddest, newest, fastest, whizzbang available. One was particularly upset when I informed him the place he purchased said biggest, baddest, newest, fastest, whizzbang was a discount store and thus didn't have the biggest, baddest, newest, fastest, whizzbang; all they had was older tech.

I think I ruined his life.

[Zigurd]

It's not like "Ford or Chevy?"

It's more like "Toyota or Mercedes-Benz?"

Even that doesn't quite capture it. Apple will defend a position at the high end of the market, even though they might give some ground in profit margins. They will do that by controlling the hardware and software, by vertical integration in CPU design, and by getting the best, newest technologies in the supply chain by locking up exclusivity. Samsung will try to chip away at this at the high end, but Samsung doesn't get how Apple attracts and keeps customers.

On the other hand, both the current dominance and the future potential for Android is understated by the article. Android is already above 75% share in handsets alone. Android N previews desktop features like resizeable windows. Android will be the basis of the vast majority of embedded screen-based UIs. Google's IoT OS is essentially a headless Android. And if Google can get tablets right, Android will become the dominant desktop productivity OS, too. Android will be in a class by itself, the way Windows used to for about 25 years, and the dominance will probably be as long-lasting.