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."

The high cost forced data plan + vioce plan is a..

The high cost forced data plan + voice plan is a trun off me. I want to get S60 based phone running Symbian OS with WIFI and just use WIFI I have ATT DSL so I can use there hotspots for free as well as not being forced to use 1 app store I can get apps from any one with out the app lock in.

No money? Just use a credit card!

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.

One of the reason many poor stay that way

Horrible decisions made from the financial standpoint.

Still I am curious, how many of these people in the income brackets live at home, did not list their spouse's income as part of it, or share a house/apartment which could minimize their income needs?

I know it seems heartless to some but a lot of people just don't get ahead because of their own actions. Go by an apartment complex and your bound to see many cars that make you shake your head. A great example is where I work. In our own support staff we have two guys with expensive cars, like a fairly current Mercedes or year old BMW 5 series. Throw in the cool cell phone and I just sigh and walk away when they bitch about not having sufficient money to do things other people do. Yet these same clueless individuals will buy into whatever politicians tell them, specifically that somehow its not their fault and its not fair. They really believe this to be true!

An article in the AJC earlier in the year was showing the plight of the homeless in Atlanta, the impact of the story fell on its face as all but two of those pictured had a cell phone - a few were using them when the picture was taken.

What it comes down to is that people fail to set proper priorities. They refuse to understand that they just can't have everything unless they have the real means to do so. Yet instead of spending that very same wasted money on improving their means they squander it forever setting themselves back. We used to be a society which tried to help each other out but that fell by the wayside when many began to demand that help without making any sacrifice themselves.

Re:One of the reason many poor stay that way

I have a job, I work as a PA to the disabled. I made less than $16000 last year. Do you know why it pays so low? Because the majority of people who do it in the cities are african american women. And thusly the work is devalued.

No. The pay is so low because there's a greater supply of would-be PAs there there is a demand for them. Contrast with, say, an accountant: it's hard to become one, so the supply stays relatively low and they get more pay.

Drop the wanna-be victim crap. You chose to work in a low-skill job and can't expect to get paid a lot for it. I won't bother replying to your failed logic tying lesbians to social work.

Re:No money? Just use a credit card!

Poor people are poor because they're stupid with their money. If or when the Democrats get control next week, we can see more money going down the poor people money pit: sales of consumer electronics, junk food, fast food, Walmart junk, etc... will all increase.

It's easy to be smart with money when you have a lot of it, you have more choices. Compare the price per ounce of orange soda vs orange juice sometime. Healthy food costs more than unhealthy food, that's why you see all those slender affluent women in the suburbs (plus they have the money and time to excercise) but when you head down to less affluent areas you see more overweight women. No money for healthy food, no money or time for regular pilates and yoga.

Did you know that the government requires "food stamp" (they're now debit cards though) recipients to take a class in how to spend their food dollars before they get their benefit? They say things like "buy healthy food, buy fresh fruits and vegetables, don't buy junk." but every recipient knows that if they followed that advice their benefit wouldn't last the month.

It's folks like you that cause politicians to talk about helping the forgotten middle class? How can the middle class be forgotten when everyone talks about them and wants to cater to them. It's the poor and lower class that are truly forgotten. When's the last time you ever heard a politician say, "hey let's index the minimum wage to inflation and the CPI and make it retroactive to 1980" or "Let's increase the "food stamp" benefit so that people can actually afford to follow the food buying advice we give them." or "Hey lets tighten up labor laws so we don't have grocery chains hiring teenagers because they can: pay them less, know they're less likely to unionize and are less likely to complain about sexual harassment or bad workplace conditions."

Re:No money? Just use a credit card!

I had no problem eating well when I was a poor college student. For me it was easier to eat well when I was poor because all the pre-made frozen/boxed/canned meals were unaffordable. Now I have to work quite a bit harder to avoid the temptation to simply let Tombstone and friends do all my cooking for me.

The poor people I know who eat like crap don't do it because they can't afford better. They do it because they have no willpower. They not only eat junk food, they eat out for junk food. Nobody who can afford to eat regularly at McDonald's is going to have problems affording healthy food.

And really, I don't buy your argument at all. Eating healthy is harder if you're a lazy poor person. But potatoes, beans, and in-season vegetables are all cheaper than junk food.

Oh, and food stamps? I don't live in an area with a lot of food-stamp recipients. But the last time I saw someone use food stamps at my local grocery store, she was buying two large bottles of Odwalla juice, clocking in at something like $15 total for perhaps half a gallon of juice. Obviously she's having no trouble affording healthy food!

Re:No money? Just use a credit card!

Nobody who can afford to eat regularly at McDonald's is going to have problems affording healthy food.
My sister, her baby and her baby's daddy used to live with me back when I was first out of college. I asked her to help out by paying some rent and she told me that she was so broke that she had to eat at McDonalds. That statement almost caused me to choke on my ramen.

bling

The iPhone is comming to be widely regarded as "bling". You always see more bling among low-income people.

Re:bling

Bingo. It's the same reason low-income people drive Beamers, Benzes, etc., especially amongst the low-income African Americans and hispanics. They might be livin' in da hood, but they wear more diamonds than anyone in the 'burbs.

Re:bling

'Black' is not a skin color, it's a state of mind. I grew up in Detroit -- the "D".

Re:bling

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.

Re:Why Jump To (Racist) Conclusions?

He never said black. Bling is a slang term, and is used in the hip hop culture, which as also spread to white, latino, asians and other races. It's now a universal theme. There is no racism here, you're just being over-sensitive.

Low income?

$50k/year is considered "low income," now?

Opera on the iPhone

I was asked about Opera not being allowed on the iPhone yesterday. My immediate gut reaction was that Apple was being a douche. All my instincts cry out that programmers should be able to put anything they want out there and let the market decide.

I got to thinking about it though. To the best of my knowledge, there is no global preference in place to set which apps respond to which data sources. What I mean is, when I click on a link in an email, Safari opens the page. When I click on a phone number in google maps, an email or a web page, the phone app opens it. Same thing for music, podcasts, videos, etc. You get the idea.

This keeps the phone simple, intuitive and predictable. All the other apps I install are all for doing some *other* specific task than what is provided by the core applications/functionality. What would happen then if I loaded Opera, Konqueror, Firefox, etc. on the phone. Which one would open my web links? Obviously the one specified in my preferences (which don't exist). What if I wanted to open this particular link with FireFox this time? I can't right-click and say open link with. Do I have to quit the program, open preferences and temporarily select Firefox?

I realize that it would be rather simple for Apple to address these issues and add this functionality, but once that camel's nose is under the tent you are now dealing with people demanding a preference and underlying mechanism for modifying the behavior of all the core functionalities. I want Skype to open when I touch a phone number in an email or on a web page (or in my address book), but I only want it to come up when I'm not connected to wireless. When I'm on wireless I want MyVOIP to make the calls. This also applies to which app you want sending emails, text messages, etc.

While the geek in me can get into this sort of configurability, I've already seen the whole other level of complexity added to the preference system with just the addition of push and Exchange connectivity. If users had to go through page after page of preferences just to find the right place to indicate which app they wanted to store their contacts in and have that tie into their Exchange push connection, it would be a nightmare.

I don't think the masses are ready for that or even really want it. That sort of complexity will make the iPhone just like every other smart phone out there. My coworker was bragging up his WinMobile-based smartphone at lunch the other day. He was saying it could do so much more than the iPhone. I don't doubt it, but my god, the gyrations he had to go through to tweak a setting to get it to do things. Just setting up a new wireless connection or a new IMAP email account seemed ridiculously complex. He said it was just due to the fact that he'd downloaded other email apps and tools and that each one had a different place to set up some of the preferences.

Is there a place for a mobile device that lets a geek configure every possible thing and choose exactly which software performed what tasks? Absolutely. That place should rightly be filled by Android and matched with the particular hardware design that that geek has chosen for their particular needs/fetish. I don't think the iPhone is where it belongs.

It may be the height of irony but I can see the iPhone becoming the phone people refer to when they say "Dammit, all I want in my smart-phone is to be able to make calls, surf the web, email, mapping, music, games and movies! I don't want to have to mess with all that other crap." in the same way purists today say "I just want a phone that makes calls."

That's Medium, Not Low, Income

$25-50,000 annual income isn't "low income". It's middle income, since real median income is about $25-50,000 [wikipedia.org].

Re:Antitrust?

"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."

Antitrust lawsuit, anybody?

You can't have a successful antitrust suit against someone with a minuscule marketshare.

Re:Antitrust?

Aha, but market share of what? The browser market? The mobile browser market? The iPhone browser market?

not Antitrust

Antitrust lawsuit, anybody?

Jesus, no. Please go read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law [wikipedia.org]

Re:not Antitrust

No, no, no. If I wanted to RTFA I wouldn't be posting on Slashdot. I'm here to make wildly speculative statements on issues on which I have no expertise.

Re:Antitrust?

At least on Nokia's S60 (Symbian) devices you can run what ever you like.

Re:Antitrust?

Nobody ever suggested you could run anything on Windows, and that makes it no different than most of the other OSes out there. It comes down to the simplest of playground rules:

My ball, my game.

There's a reason we're reminded of the 90's and Microsoft vs Netscape. But hey, at least Microsoft didn't stop Netscape from happening, they just competed unfairly. Apple is doing both -- they're bundling Safari (just like Microsoft bundled IE), and they're actively working to prevent Opera from even being sold on that platform.

The only reason I like Macs is that they tend to work. Apple has been more closed and more anticompetitive than Microsoft ever was -- and I'm not just talking about the iPhone.

Re:Antitrust?

Opera is free. Apple are preventing a free and arguably better browser from appearing on their gadget. They bigger the market share apple pick up, particularly real people and not apple zealots, the more shit like this is going to come to ahead. Many people already regard apple as the new MS bastards.

Re:Antitrust?

that's the carrier locking you in, not the handset manufacturer. this kind of blatantly anti-consumer policy may be routine in the cellular service industry, but Apple is setting a new precedent for it in the handset manufacturing industry. so now consumers have to put up with, not just being screwed over by their cell phone carrier, but also by their handset manufacturer? this seems like a new low in consumer rights/freedom. Apple seems bent on going in the exact opposite direction with the iPhone as Google is going with the Android platform.

hopefully with the rising popularity of municipal WiFi & WiMax, the growing movement behind open spectrums/networks, and the increased focus on wireless broadband technology, we'll eventually see closed/proprietary cellular networks replaced with VoIP over open wireless networks.

when ubiquitous open wifi access becomes a reality we'll start seeing wireless VoIP handsets replace conventional cell phones that have to be approved (and locked down) by cellular carriers. when that happens it'll only be handset makers who are able to deny users the freedom to install/run the applications that they want on their handsets. so if manufacturers go the Android route, users will have complete freedom & control over how they use their phones, whereas if Apple's attitude catches on user will be stuck in the same situation as before.

Re:Antitrust?

Usually, linksys routers such as yours are incapable of running a standard linux router distribution.

It's like saying, "It's antitrust that I can't run Safari on my VIC-20."

It's a technical limitation, not a political/strategic one... which is the case with Opera on the iPhone.

I'm glad I bought an Android phone. :)

Re:Opera

Well I thought the American Revolution was silly because the British didn't want another country.