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."

Comments

BAH!!! - Re:No money? Just use a credit card!

[earlymon]

This is just another sad example of the American tendency to live beyond one's means. This is another symptom of the disease that is eating this country: financial illiteracy.

As I did RTFA to confirm that there's no mention of credit card, I question if you're referring to living with credit cards - completely off-topic but still highly modded (?!?) - or if you're asserting that the phone and plan are beyond the means of the poor and therefore postulate that in addition to living beyond their means, they're idiotically subsidizing the credit card companies.

In the case of the latter, you're not insightful at all. In fact, you're so far out of your depth that it's not funny.

I have a son - single parent, almost full-time college, full-time job - in other words, a man of limited means. He has a couple hundred dollar phone - gifted from me - and an unlimited voice/data/roaming plan for $99/month.

For $99, he gets full phone service, voice mail - for his boss asking when school's out, for his profs asking if his papers will be in on time, for daycare to let him know if his kid is sick - and caller id to avoid slacker friends at inconvenient times.

It's his complete email portal - the phone will USB to his laptop where he can offload a PDF of a paper and email it to his so-understanding profs when his dad duties keep him at home. He doesn't have time to surf and play on the net, but it is way handy for WebMD, class changes, syllabus updates from home, etc.

He has no broadband at home. He has no land line at home. Just an unlimited 3G voice/data plan. Not paid for by credit card.

BTW - that pesky built-in camera that most of us don't care about is his only way to track his kid's growing up right now.

Find me a better deal. One that REALLY helps someone of son's means cope with life's rich tapestry. I'll tell my son all about it.

Until then, I don't think you know what the fuck you're talking about - you're just getting points spouting off cliches.