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Low-Income Users Latch On To iPhone
narramissic writes "The iPhone crowd is still dominated by affluent males between the ages of 18 and 35, but in a series of surveys ending in August, ComScore found that iPhone purchases grew fastest among people with annual household incomes between $25,000 and $50,000. The growth rate in this group was 48 percent, compared with just 16 percent among people with incomes above $100,000. And the down economy isn't going to turn this trend around, says ComScore Mobile analyst Jen Wu. 'I don't see there's going to be much of a slowdown, just because wireless devices are so much more of a necessity than they used to be,' Wu said."
In other iPhone news, an anonymous reader points out a NYTimes story about the rise in car-related applications and uses for the iPhone, which points out that programmers are just beginning to "appreciate just what can be done with an iPhone and other advanced cellphones that know where they are and just how quickly they are going someplace else." Another iPhone story mentions that "Opera's engineers have developed a version of Opera Mini that can run on an Apple iPhone, but Apple won't let the company release it because it competes with Apple's own Safari browser."
This story concurs with my own observation; I take the Broad Street line in Philly from Center City and go pretty far north every day; there are many apparently low-income people with iPhones and iPod Touches. It actually amazes me.
But unlike the article, I never thought the iPhone/Touch were chosen based on frugality; rather, I think they are status symbols, vulgar displays of wealth like knock-off designer clothes and cheap bling. There are much cheaper devices, or combination of devices, available.
The article is more like industrial cheer-leading, which apparently concludes that the iPhone has become a necessity. Please!
Normally, I'd wait for a non-AC to make the point, but since you're probably going to get modded up, I'll just have to snuff it out right here:
Are you retiring in the next year to two? If not, them you have nothing to worry about.
Right, because I wasn't planning on using the money in my savings account until I turn 65, is that it?
Okay, so let's just look at the "long-term" savings accounts. Given the recent downturn and the still-pathetic earnings yields, the stock market over -- yes, the long term -- will probably return 5% nominal, since it first has to make up the ~40% downturn. (The 10-year S&P fund return was 4.5%/year *before* the recent downturn, and even that isn't enough to cover the taxes+inflation+volatility. Even in a tax-advantaged account, that's not a good deal.)
So, in exchange for giving up most of my wealth when it's most valuable to me (at a young age), I get to have a whopping 1% inflation/tax/volatility-adjusted return by investing till 65.
If your personal time discount rate is more than 1% -- which it is for almost everyone -- it just doesn't make sense to save, I am now sadly forced to admit. So frankly, I can't really criticize people who took advantage of way-underprice interested rates to buy durable consumer items. Show me risk-free interest rates (money markets) of 8% real, and I will change my mind.
Btw, anyone notice how the reasoning I'm responding to is sounding more and more these days like, "oh, don't worry man, the roulette wheel can be kinda mean, just keep playing, you'll make up your losses, totally, the guys in suits have it all figured out."
Now before you get really down on the system, keep in mind, you'd be worse off (less money, less control, watching much of your money paying for shit you don't want, and money going to the politicians' buddies) if the Government took care of everything for you.
Relevance to what I actually posted, please?
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Amen.
I heard an Ad Council ad on the radio a few years ago that dramatized a "Savers Anonymous" meeting.
"Hello, my name is Dave... and... I drive a car... that's SEVEN YEARS OLD!!! (*sob*)"
"Hi, I'm Dana, and last week... I couldn't help myself! I CLIPPED A COUPON!"
Etc.
The whole point was that in this world it is almost politically incorrect to be financially responsible.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Perhaps they don't have all of the costs you describe because they live within their means. $25k per year is over $2k per month. In my case, for example, I make $1900 per month, spend $850 on {mortgage, utilities, property taxes, maintenance} (I live in an expensive area), $400 on food, nothing on a car, nothing on gas, nothing on tuition, next to nothing on clothes, and minimal amounts on entertainment.
Which means each month of my $1900, I have $650 of overhead that either goes to savings, or electronics projects.
We don't all have your expenses. If I wanted to afford $70/month for a phone (I already pay $30/month for just a regular cell phone, so only a $40/month marginal increase, btw).
Sorry, but technology doesn't always make life easier; don't need fluff I won't use.
"jPhone" or iPhone shuffle??
1 button phone: answer/hangup; hold for power
1 slide switch: silent mode; during conversation it turns on speaker mode
Voice recognition: RECITE numbers to dial them
Speaking interface: like voice mail menus- I never want to mess with options so its no big deal to wait for a talking interface whenever I want to setup speed dial or see the last call's number (it does have a tiny screen.)
simple ring sound; if custom just have it record your own with it's mic
Water resistant: sound quality often sucks anyhow
Simple small B&W display; wrist watch like; callerID
2 AAA NiMH batteries: new batteries shouldn't cost more than the phone! (I don't care if I have to swap batteries it doesn't have to charge them; I'm not that lazy...) /. is the wrong place to talk simple but I'm shocked nobody has made a phone that doesn't go in this direction.
At least this is more Star Trek: push button, speak name of person to speak to - and it calls them; perhaps using other people's tracking info you can ask it where somebody is and have it speak an answer as well? It could speak their name when they call (known people only.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Well I for one make pretty close to $100k and I can not imagine spending several hundred dollars on an iphone, nor the $70 a month cost for the service. But yes, pretty much half the people in my office have one, and they take delight in pointing out how they have one by complaining about how it won't stay synced with Outlook or how it is difficult to view such and such webpage on their iphone (though it would probably be easy to view it on their 21" monitor right in front of them. And of course, since they have all this texting and e-mailing and other automated junk sending to their phone, important e-mails occasionally slip through the cracks, but no more than a couple of times a day.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The poor whites I know don't go in for diamonds and necklaces. They go in for personal watercraft, big pickups, dirtbikes, recreational vehicles and such.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
We're talking about Apple's rejection of applications which are deemed to "compete" with Apple's own functionality, or even planned functionality. Here's a (probably incomplete) list of higher profile apps that have been rejected by Apple, for various reasons.
Regarding Opera's rejection -- if Microsoft could have locked users into using only Internet Explorer on Windows, they would have. Once IE had killed Netscape, most internet-savvy people were even okay with using IE. Just because most of us are okay with Apple, and Safari doesn't suck, doesn't mean that Apple is justified in locking its users into its choice of software.
Don't blame me -- I voted for Roslin.