iPad Owners Are 'Selfish Elites' 780
An anonymous reader writes "It's not exactly official, but should also surprise no one: According to a new study the psychological profile of iPad owners can be summed up as 'selfish elites' while have-not critics are 'independent geeks.' Consumer research firm MyType conducted the study, in which opinions of 20,000 people were analyzed between March and May. The firm's conclusion was that iPad owners tend to be wealthy, sophisticated, highly educated and disproportionately interested in business and finance, while they scored terribly in the areas of altruism and kindness. In other words, 'selfish elites.'"
Re:Duh (Score:5, Interesting)
Though, I have been considering an iPad for my technophobic grandfather-in-law, who "has no patience for" Microsoft Windows, OS X, or Ubuntu.
My dad is a techo-illiterate. A few months ago he came back from a trip to the US with an iPad (!!!) He was doing all sorts of whatever he does on it. I was quite blown away, here's a guy who never used or owned a computer suddenly buying this at age 75.
I was impressed enough with it that when they became available here (.ca) I picked one up. And I don't really have a butler...
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no wonder (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Troll article. (Score:4, Interesting)
It is trollish. But the Slashdot community certainly has changed their opinion of Apple over the past year or so. Once cheering for the underdog, is feeling suppressed as the hacker within its walled garden.
We must feed the trolls.
So that makes me.. (Score:4, Interesting)
a selfish independent elitist geek? (translation, i dont have one, but i kinda want one)
Yesterday at the big box store i saw the ipad for the first time, and used it to search imdb for some movie reviews before buying a dvd, and the thing that massively annoyes me about the ipad is, that from a usability point of view, they got it right, it works very nicely for webbrowsing and such. The reason i still wont buy one, it runs iOS instead of OS-X, and thus is tied into apple's view of the world
Re:Sampling Bias? (Score:5, Interesting)
From March through May of 2010, MyType surveyed over 20,000 of its users on Facebook
As much as I want to describe my self as a "self-directed young [person] who look[s] down on conformity and [is] interested in videogames, computers, electronics, science and the internet," I can't say that this study is even remotely non-baised.
Re:The iPad is not that bad (Score:4, Interesting)
I own one, as do two of my close friends. We all fit the late 20s, middle-class, lower/middle management, computer geek stereotype - we love gadgets and are early-adopters.
I understand full well that the iPad is only a fraction of what it could be if it had been produced by a company other than Apple and ran Android instead of iOS. But I happened to be in the market for an e-reader anyway, and the iPad happens to excel at that (iBooks is overrated, but there are now apps for just about every major e-book store), and also lets me read news feeds, check email, look up video game stragegies online, etc. It's also a great airport time-waster. Apart from the price difference there was just no reason to NOT buy an iPad rather than a Nook or Kindle or whatever.
Anyway, I don't think you're particularly wrong.. there's just another class of us out there who bought the iPad because it filled a niche that no other product currently fills. There are a lot of Android tablets slated for this holiday season, though :)
Except... (Score:3, Interesting)
Except they're not the ordinary Americans. They get all the soundbytes (and as such, appear to be the norm) because they're nutjobs, but really, they're not the ordinary ones.
Re:Generalization time (Score:5, Interesting)
The documentary Macheads [imdb.com] sums this up pretty well. There was a hipster in that doc that refused to date men who owned a PC. If that's not drinking the Kool-aid by the gallon, I'm not sure what is.
The sad thing is that a lot of Mac fans think they're being rebellious and independent by using Macs. In reality, nothing makes you *MORE* of a conformist than using those overpriced, locked-down status symbols. It's the old "I'll show how rebellious and unique I am by dressing, acting, and talking like all the other rebels."
I have one. Meh. (Score:3, Interesting)
From a "user" standpoint, it's... A neat toy. I bought my daughter an iPod touch, and effectively that's all it is. Bigger, heavier. The book reader is nice, some of the aps are pretty decent, but really isn't anything ground breaking. Not by a long shot.
Now, taken from my profession's standpoint, it has the potential to be a very useful device. Currently we use laptops in our cruisers ("MDT", mobile data terminal) which we can use to connect to LEAPS (Law Enforcement Automated Processing System) and run plates, wants/warrants, BOP (bureau of parole) etc. I don't know if you've ever lifted a Panasonic Toughbook, but you could use one of these things to beat a whale to death. With a relatively simple ruggedized case, and at only about $900 (as opposed to $5500), iPads would be a great alternative for officers on foot patrol, bike, Segway and the like. However AT&T sucks balls. I am aware of talks that Verizon will be an available option for the iPad, which is currently the provider we use. They give us fixed IPs, restricted connections (i.e. goes from MDT to Verizon, from Verizon to our building's router, then off to LEAPS). Officers wouldn't be able to write reports since our and most report writing / case tracking systems for law enforcement require at least Java, but still, they'd be a great addition to the tools available.
IF Verizon offers normal business plans (which AT&T won't for these devices or iPhones), and IF Apple were to pull their collective heads out of their collective backsides, iPads have the potential to find their way into a lot of industries, and I can see many uses in emergency services. For EMTs, for fire and rescue, for law enforcement, the ability to bring up floor plans of buildings, maps, health records, I could go on and on. However, limited choice of providers and a lack of any sort of discount make it unlikely. Beyond the "Well HE got one, we need one!" attitude which landed this thing in my lap, the purchase never would have been made had we not faced an end of fiscal budget, and "spend it all or next year you get less" (which boggles my mind, frankly... I would get penalized if I didn't spend ALL of my budget). But Apple insists on offering no price breaks, they insist on going through iTunes to activate the stupid things, they insist on going through their company for any sort of new application installation (yes yes, I know about the court case and jail breaking), and currently they insist on using AT&T.
Anyway... Ramble ramble. They're neat toys, power to the people, off with their heads, bad social elite snobbery, blah blah.
Re:So that makes me.. (Score:3, Interesting)
On my handheld device, I'd rather have an OS that was designed to be operated using my fingers or thumbs rather than one that was designed with a mouse and keyboard in mind. While I know that it is theoretically possible to use Windows or OS X on a tablet style device, most of the apps that run on those platforms are not designed to be operated on a small-ish touchscreen.
I imagine the ease of use that iOS provides on these devices would be far superior to OS X or Windows. So on that note, I will be staying away from any tablet style devices running OS X or Windows, and opting for iOS or Android instead.
Other Paralells (Score:5, Interesting)
Like the SUV driving "soccer mom" who is concerned about the environment and recycles her husband's beer cans but drives a vehicle that gets 7 mpg.
Boutique lifestyles of the nouveau riche. Wealth coming out of their eyeballs but morally bankrupt.
The 60's generation, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss".
hogwash (Score:1, Interesting)
First of all, the iPad is not that expensive, so you don't have to be a well paid, highly educated business person to buy one. Second, we bought an iPad for mom, who is 60, and works as a caretaker. Hardly a 'selfish elite'. She uses it to view pics & vids of all her grandkids, and gets email and surfs the 'net (as much as she knows how). It's perfect cause the size is right, the on-screen elements are large enough for her to see, and she can figure out how to use it (she's technology illiterate).
Hate Speech (Score:3, Interesting)
You know it feels to me, that as a minority (racial) some people at Slashdot seems enjoy inciting anti-apple people using the kinds of hate speech that other people once (and still occasionally is) used to describe us minorities. Back then there were plenty of "studies" that purported to show how various minorities were inferior in intelligence, moral character, physical attributes, etc. I guess in Slashdot's case the key phrases would be "selfish", "elite" and previously "fanbois", "Stockholm syndrome sufferers", etc.
If the only purpose of journalism is to now provoke controversy (and worse) for the sake of ad revenue, then my respect for the profession has vanished. (No, I don't consider Glenn Beck and Limbaugh journalists). While Slashdot may not aspire to "only print all the (tech) news that's fit to print", it does claim to publish "stuff that matters". I fail to see how this posting reaches even that vague standard.
And yes, this was sent from my iPad. (also, as a matter of anecdotal record, I live in Vietnam and this weekend I was at a volunteer site where they're building a school for the children of extremely poor parents. Many of the the parents (and kids!) work in brick making factories and have severe respiratory ailments from the dust. I also just gave my maid enough money to pay for the medical costs of her husband who appears to have had a stroke. Their dumbshit son lost a lot of money betting on the world cup thus wiping out their family's meager savings.)
Re:They are "obviousness investigators" (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, you are obviously relatively wealthy.
But I don't see how that is specifically related to the iPad. Wealthy people are always more likely to own any specific product, simply because wealthy people can afford more stuff than the average person.
I am critical of the iPad mainly for one reason: the most obvious use for a tablet is as a content creation tool for the visual arts. It should ship with a touch-sensitive pen and a suite of visual creativity software. The way Apple made it however, it's just a consumption device. Yawn. We already have laptops that we can view movies and read ebooks on. They even ship with an integrated stand/keyboard...
(The iPad is also a bit oversized if you compare it to a typical paperback book, which history has shown is ideal in size, but I'm sure Apple will fix that by releasing an iPad mini next year.)
Re:Seriously, I want to know (Score:3, Interesting)
Frankly, I think Apple is a very good company for its shareholders. Its also great if you want something that (generally) just works without thinking. With that "ease" comes the problem of very limited choices. You're on an entirely proprietary platform, especially on their phones, ipod, ipad, etc. That's part of what makes it such an easy to use system.
That's not an inherently bad point, but it is one that makes me not want their products. Why? Because I like to run programs I want to run. If you make a program and I want to run it, I want the choice to do so. I don't want Steve Jobs saying "oh, I'm sorry, that doesn't work for us so we're not going to allow it to be distributed.".
That entirely kills the deal for me.
Plus the smug attitude Apple tends to take with regards to their sense of superiority. To sum it up nicely with a recent paraphrase of a quote: "You're holding our phone wrong". Great thing to tell your customers and great thing for those that aren't customers to hear. No, Apple didn't make a design that is sub-par in certain situations, no, you're holding it wrong. Holy arrogance.
I admit their gadgets are neat and tidy and seem to work with zero brain power in most cases. But me being a tech geek, I like to toy around with my toys. I like to get things working that normally wouldn't or that need tweaking to get a power use out of it (classic hacking).
On the other hand, am I a Linux fanboi? God no. I like it because it's free and allows me to hack around. Is it perfect? Holy crap far from it. The amount of times I've wanted to pull my hair out because simple things just don't work out of the box (sound, graphics, etc, etc). Am I a Windows fanboi? Eek, no. It does the job for things I need Windows for (apps I use for work, certain games, etc). But on a whole, Windows ends up being full of security risks and bloat like no other.
The one thing MS does allow you to do, besides pay them a lot of money, is install whatever you want. So that's a plus.
Apple charges you a lot and tells you exactly what you can and can't run. But if the twelve apps you want to run happen to be stuff Apple allows, enjoy! Just don't complain when there is some tool you want to hack around with that Apple simply says, no, you can't have it for x and y reasons.
So do I hate apple for legitimate reasons or just because they are fun to hate? They don't work for me. That's the way I see it. I want to mess around with my devices and not be told I'm not allowed.
However, I will agree that since I don't use them, they are easy to knock, but I try to do so only when it is deserved and not merely because its fashionable to do so.
TL;DR - I don't like their offerings at their prices along with their strict, allowed vs not allowed walled garden.
Re:The iPad is not that bad (Score:2, Interesting)
Can't speak to the GP's experience, but for me the following:
Basically it's lightweight, uber-portable, can carry a bunch of media with me (so for a vacation it's ideal), and it's generally much less like a traditional computer. Between my photos, music (straight out of my MP3s in iTunes), movies, ebooks, web browsing, and games -- it's somewhere between a web-browsing console, a Kindle, an iPad, movie player, and a Game Boy.
I actually find I do things I've done thousands of times before, but in a slightly different way (or at least place, like a hammock). If I'm not writing something, but more passively reading, playing, web surfing ... being away from the desk and keyboard is nice. It just feels different. Heck, I've looked up recipes and put it into the same book holder I use for my cookbooks when cooking.
Not everybody needs or wants one. But, it really is a nice thing to have.
How are they not still about interoperability? (Score:1, Interesting)
They also used to be all about interoperability
They still are. Have you not heard of Webkit and HTML 5? Apple is strong supporters of both.
The hardware they use uses USB, and Bluetooth to connect external devices. They use standard hard drives now in systems, standard PC ports in desktop systems.
The iPhone can receive and open Word/Excel docs just fine. They sell music online that any device that supports AAC can play (like the Zune). They would sell video the same way but we all know content producers will not let that happen - but you can put video on from other sources just fine. You do not HAVE to buy video from iTunes in order to use it.
Only in one aspect are they not about interoperability - compiled binaries for the iPhone. But why would those be interoperable? It's not like I can get a universal binary that runs both on Windows and the Mac. Different platforms have an inherent lack of interoperability unless you use some platform like HTML5 that is inherently designed for interoperability.
You might not like them because of how they are closed in some aspects, but that is a different matter than interoperability.
Re:Hate Speech (Score:1, Interesting)
Conflating criticism of Apple with racism? You've reached a new level in fanboi hyperbole. Thanks for making reasonable Apple users, the vast but quiet majority, look like a bunch or mindless toadying zealots.
Re:The iPad is not that bad (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:The iPad is not that bad (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not a troll (Score:3, Interesting)
The skewed subset of the population that represent the average ipad user however. Because --honestly-- what subset of ipad owners aren't facebook users too? And how many of them are unlikely to post about their ipad and thus get selected for the survey?
Actually I wouldn't be surprised if such definition turned out to comprise over 50% of ipad users. So it's a sample of the projected demographic.
Re:Surprise, surprise (Score:3, Interesting)
It comes down to the affirmation of self. It is the justification of existence. It is the rationalization of an otherwise meager, minute, insignificant, uninteresting existence. Because they believe themselves to be unique in some way, their existence has some meaning and purpose. Only, by being "rebellious" they are merely being another member of the pack that is not the member of the pack from which they originally started.
This problem doesn't plague those who already have another means to affirm oneself. But human beings are delusional regardless of the object of their delusion, be it the self or the other. That is truly the human condition. That is the curse and gift of self-awareness.
this says more about Apple marketing (Score:3, Interesting)
A tablet is just a tool. Who will want it depends on what they perceive they can do with it.
I've got one. It's an Android-based, and I bought it direct from a Chinese vendor (you'll probably be able to get it retail by Xmas season) because I need it as a development platform for some greentech-oriented controller applications. I paid $133 for it including shipping. I hardly consider myself a member of a selfish elite any more than I consider myself an Apple customer. My tablet has an adaptor for a USB port and wired ethernet... two things you can't plug an iPad into.