82% of American Teenagers Own an iPhone?

rgMekanic

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Business Insider is reporting that 82% of American teens currently own an iphone, and 84% say that their next phone will be an iPhone. This information comes from a "PiperJaffray's Teens Survey," which according to the article questions thousands of kids across 40 states with an average age of 16.

Doing a little digging, I think Business Insider may have their numbers a bit wrong. 82% of teens owning an iPhone seems impossibly high. The only info I can find on the study itself comes from a single infographic from PiperJaffray. One thing we can say is it seems you may be able to sell some of that Champion and Tommy Hilfiger gear you can't wear anymore.

The enduring popularity of the iPhone in America's high schools may also be leading to a boom in Apple Watch interest. 20% of teens plan to buy an Apple Watch in the next 6 months, and Apple is the 2nd-most desired brand among upper-income teens, behind only Rolex, according to the survey.
 
My question is, how do these teens afford to buy iphones (or any apple products for that matter)? Allowance and minimum wage jobs must be paying a lot better than when I was a teen....
 
My question is, how do these teens afford to buy iphones (or any apple products for that matter)? Allowance and minimum wage jobs must be paying a lot better than when I was a teen....

"family plans" and subsidized phones mean that parents get nickel+dimed. In exchange they get sanity for 4-12 years of their child's life... which they then pay for in the next 4-60 years.
 
My question is, how do these teens afford to buy iphones (or any apple products for that matter)? Allowance and minimum wage jobs must be paying a lot better than when I was a teen....

Could be hand-me-downs from the parents. My kids typically get our old phones when we're done with them. I probably wouldn't even give them phones except their schools are in a district a ways from our house, so I like them to have them. The thing is this time though, that I've had my phone for longer than I normally would because it just keeps going, so I have bought one or two cheapy phones for the kids in the interim until I see something worth buying again for myself. :D

Also, as lilbabycat said, getting a few phones (while definitely nickel-dimey) is pretty painless overall if you get them with the plan.
 
Based on the devices connected to the student wifi in my buildings I can say that is accurate for my area at least.
 
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Kids are driven by fads and what is "popular". It doesn't matter if what is popular is not practical or the best, only that it is the current trend. Think about clothes they wear, where they shop, shoes, etc. Even who you support politically has become the fad.
 
My daughter (12) has a cell phone that she uses just as an iPod.. YouTube, web browsing type things. When her iPhone 4 got locked out I got her an s6 and she wasn't impressed because it wasn't an iPhone.

I explained the difference and she saw the light, but she immediately thought an iPhone MUST be better.

We don't even HAVE iPhones ourselves.
 
After coming from using strictly Android for years, I decided to see what’s on the other side of the fence and honestly it made me forget the nuances of Android in favor of simplicity. I can’t honestly think of any feature on Android that I truly miss. Although that’s not to say I wouldn’t use Android, I’m very comfortable and willing to use either platform.

In fact I convinced my girl to give up her S7 Edge after two years for an iPhone 8 Plus and she’s content.

The whole family sharing aspect, being able to check on the kids locations (they have iPhones as well) for free, a cheap cloud storage option for all of us to use together and iMessage and FaceTime which she abuses regularly.

iOS isn’t as bad as I often read it out to be on this website, yes it’s locked down but for the most part it’s stable, does what we need it to do, and does things I couldn’t find on Android without a charge being associated with it.

In fact the differences between Android and iOS are more in the little things than overall functionality.

It’s not a fad as most android lovers like to say, if it were Apple would have already come and gone as the way I read it all the time from Android enthusiasts: Android phones are just so technically advanced while iPhones are akin to fisher price toys.

People pay for what works and most don’t want to veer away from that when spending that much on their devices, and some will gladly pay the premium for what they’re comfortable with.
 
If Apple is giving them deep educational discounts, probably a smart move...hook 'em early and keep 'em hooked for life.
In an unrelated survey, 82% of American kids have falling grades and have walked into a wall while instagramming.
 
Sorry, but the iPhone has always been a fad, just like the iPod.
That's the reason the cheaper iPhones have been poor sellers.

Main reason kids want one, is because other kids have one.

As for Android, it does everything my family needs, and the phones (usually older models) we buy cost 1/2 to 1/3 the price of an iPhone (even an older one).
 
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By definition of the word ‘Fad’, Android phones would also fall into that category.

Again though, different strokes for different folks; some prefer simplicity some prefer customization and more control.

I just do not understand how I see both sides critiquing purchases made by someone else with zero effect on the person critiquing other than just show pure fanboism. I prefer to use what I want to use, I could have gotten an S9 Plus but opted for the iPhone X, does that make me a sheep/iDiot?

No, I just prefer my phone to be simplistic since I’ve never once spent hours on end customizing. Never felt compelled to use screen cast, or split screen. Basically, if I have to change my phone around because I’m not happy with what came out of the box then honestly, to me I’ll take the other route where things just work with very little input from me. I spent too much time working on electronics I don’t want to have an extra thing I have to work on.
 
82% is impossibly high... Not buying it.

I would like to see the stratification of the data and how they randomly sampled.

I might buy 30%+ because of hand me downs. My known family and extended peeps may be 15% iPhone and that's financed. I got the two for one lg with vr head sets and tablets and cases deal.
I tend to buy lg ,however my fam likes samsung
 
My question is, how do these teens afford to buy iphones (or any apple products for that matter)? Allowance and minimum wage jobs must be paying a lot better than when I was a teen....

Bought my kid a new iPhone SE for $99 and activated it on a Verizon MVNO for $35/month. Seems reasonable, people who don’t realize Apple sells products other than the iPhone X are idiots.
 
Yeah, my GF's Sister and her Cousins kids are always talking about iPhones. If you don't have one you're consider poor and not cool.

Also, if you get on craigslist there are more iphones for sale than any other item period. Go look. It's pretty insane.
 
My daughter has an iPhone 5s, compliments of a spare one collecting dust my brother in law never used. My son has a $25 pre paid samsung something that has no use other than it makes him feel older (he is 7) and he downloads stupid games on it for when we are in the car for long periods. It isn't connected to anything so he can't do any damage or get into trouble. Wife has an iPhone 7XL..she is a traitor and she just bought a useless fucking apple watch today..turncoat is dead to me.
 
Eh, I'm an outlier here. I'd never buy a freaking $900 phone. All I do with my phone is make calls (very few), use it as an alarm clock and use it as a scientific/programmers calculator (the one App I've downloaded). I paid $59 for the phone (saw it on sale recently for $29) and use it with a pay-as-you-go plan. I'm averaging about $70 a YEAR for my service. Since I have computers with large monitors at home and at work, I feel no need to have internet access on my phone with only a 4.3 inch screen.
 
I believe this. My sisters kids (5 kids) all have iPhones. Only one the phones is new (which the kid bought himself) all the others are hand me down phones or bought used. All of their friends have iPhones. They all have free service (just pay taxes) with sprint right now. They were using freedom pop before. It's not hard to get basically free cell service and a cheap iPhone.

As much as I dislike iPhones, Apple does a good job of updating older phones so they can still be used which is a major factor here.
 
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The comments in this thread are hilarious.

For grins, I pulled stats on a wifi guest network at my church. This is based on 1273 Unique wireless devices in at least six months worth of stats. I excluded obvious laptops. Anything ambiguous I credited to Android (even the 5 kindles that are probably the non-Android Kindles) and what do you know - 48% iOS and 23% Android (laptops make up the missing percentage of the 1273 total wireless devices).

Heck, I just realized I credited the 6 Windows phones(!!) to Android too - whoops!

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An interesting exercise. I have a few other guest networks I admin - I'll have to run stats on those too.
 
Not sure where you've been living the past half-year, but no. I guess you missed it.

https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-is-slowing-down-older-iphones-batteries-faq/

lol - would you rather have a phone shut down/reboot because the battery can't deliver enough juice, or slow down but remain otherwise useful?

While degraded, I think NOT rebooting at random is indeed allowing older phones to be useful longer.

And congratulations - if you prefer to have your phone randomly shut down or reboot, as of iOS 11.3 you can turn off the slowdown and live with random shutdowns as god intended.

Sheesh - I wonder if you even read the link you provided.
 
When it comes to a device that is primarily for communication, buying what everyone else has and is using doesn’t make you a sheep. It makes you smart.
 
lol - would you rather have a phone shut down/reboot because the battery can't deliver enough juice, or slow down but remain otherwise useful?

While degraded, I think NOT rebooting at random is indeed allowing older phones to be useful longer.

I'd rather the phone tell me the battery is degraded so I could replace the battery, not make it seem like my phone is getting to old/slow so I end up replacing the phone.

My Note 4 has a simple to replace battery. It takes me longer to remove the case than to pop off the back and replace the battery.
Even the Nexus 4 the wife still uses has a reasonably easy to replace battery (does take a small screw driver)
 
82% just sounds too high to my ear. With so many school districts having > 50% of students on school lunch programs, I have a hard time believing that 82% of teens possess an iphone.

Nothing wrong with an iphone, though. After years of Android and Windows phones, I bought one of the newer iPhone SE's locked to an MVNO (Simple). For $129.99, the compatibility, app availability is really nice (especially coming from Windows phone, which I really liked, but Wells Fargo dropping their app killed it for me).

I would never pay hundreds of dollars for one of the higher end iPhones, though. To me, $100 is about right for a full-featured phone, and the locked SE's are a really good deal, I feel.

And my 2 cents on teens... After seeing the commitment and hearing the eloquence of those teens from Parkland, FL, I have great respect for the current gen of teenagers. Much more mature and aware than the teens from my own high school class of the late 70's / early 80's.
 
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The comments in this thread are hilarious.

For grins, I pulled stats on a wifi guest network at my church. This is based on 1273 Unique wireless devices in at least six months worth of stats. I excluded obvious laptops. Anything ambiguous I credited to Android (even the 5 kindles that are probably the non-Android Kindles) and what do you know - 48% iOS and 23% Android (laptops make up the missing percentage of the 1273 total wireless devices).

Heck, I just realized I credited the 6 Windows phones(!!) to Android too - whoops!

View attachment 65871

An interesting exercise. I have a few other guest networks I admin - I'll have to run stats on those too.
Maybe it just shows that the people that use Apple devices are much more trusting of unsecure networks (aka less tech literate) and Android users are staying on the wireless network?
 
Maybe it just shows that the people that use Apple devices are much more trusting of unsecure networks (aka less tech literate) and Android users are staying on the wireless network?

Could be, but there are a LOT of iPhones in the US. It's the only place really, globally Android dominates, but in the US the iPhone is still very popular.
 
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