Gentlemen Prefer Androids, Ladies iOS 483
Ponca City writes "PC World reports that women are more likely to buy an iPhone for their next smartphone purchase, while men prefer Android devices. According to data collected in October 2010, 31 percent of women wanted to buy an Apple iOS device next, followed by 22.8 percent interested in a Google Android device while among men preferences were reversed with 32.6 percent of men interested in an Android purchase and 28.6 desired an iOS phone. 'So where is the extra appeal of Android to men coming from?' asks Tracey E. Schelmetic. 'More male-targeted commercials that emphasize cool gadgetry versus usability? More techno-macho phone brand names like "Droid"? Extra advertising on the Spike channel by phone makers using the Android platform?'"
I'd suspect... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also (Score:3, Insightful)
Males tend to be more tech-savvy.
Oh, before you mod me flamebait, correlation != causation.
More likely ... (Score:5, Insightful)
31 vs 32.6 falls within the unspecified margin of error for that "survey".
It just works. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see how you need much more common sense to be able to operate a Droid in comparison to an iPhone. They're nearly identical.
I think part of the draw for Android is that you can tweak and customize it more. And I don't just mean installing a custom OS. Also just customizing it with widgets and other stuff. Even just the stock "customizations" of manufacturers, like SenseUI and all those others. Android is pretty powerful and flexible there. And I suspect men are on average slightly more likely to tinker with their phones than women.
Re:Mac suit women and gays (Score:4, Insightful)
My guess is, that it is for the same reasons Macs suit women, gays, and/or artists.
Sorry if it is a cliché, statistically bound, by the way.
And those man who are not that insecure that they need to announce their manhood by their choice of "masculine" gadgets...
Re:Mac suit women and gays (Score:1, Insightful)
Why have I busted my balls duffing around with shit when It just works outa the box over in the gay camp lol
Re:Android's privacy questionable (Score:5, Insightful)
In the "settings" of android, there's an entire section where you can get the privacy information from Google et al. It tells you exactly what it's recording. Maybe you think they're violating that? I find that unlikely, as they would be breaking the law pretty blatantly.
Not exactly directly related but.. People seem to forget that android isn't "just google's", it's the OHA. So you should, if you're going to worry about them stealing your privacy, worry about more than just google.
Re:More likely ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It just works. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More likely ... (Score:4, Insightful)
This could be for a lot of reasons, but the idea that Android marketing is aimed at men sounds reasonable.
definitely fake stats! (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly.
To repeat what TFA said, 31% of women want an iPhone and 22.8% want an Android. In order to determine if this difference is statistically significant (alpha = 0.05, beta = 0.2) they'd have needed to ask 508 women.
Did they really? Who knows. There's no confidence interval. Maybe they asked everybody.
Logic is overrated. (Score:4, Insightful)
Any logical argument is only as good as the assumptions which went into it. I'm not saying that logic and quantitative analysis are useless, but they are never perfect or complete. A reasonable person must take emotions when making decisions. And if you are a human being, your emotions influence your decisions, so if you don't realize that you are in denial (which is highly illogical). You are every bit as guilty of making snap judgements as any woman if you don't realize that.
As a side note, I've never seen an iPhone user change their mind about their purchase. Ever. I don't believe that everyone I know who has an iPhone (inculding myself, and my entire immediate family) is an overly emotional nutcase.
Re:No no no... (Score:4, Insightful)
The more technical folks realise that when performance starts to suffer, its probably because of something they did to their phone, so they go and look for something using stupid amounts of memory...
The people who are less technical blame the phone...
If your having problems and you dont know how to fix them, then reflash your phone to factory, and dont enable testing/development
If you actually know what your doing look for the memory hogs ( and yes one of the flashlight apps is a know memory hog )
Nokia sold you a phone that works great! it runs a standard linux system and isnt locked down!!!
its not their fault if you modify it to the point it runs like crap
if you need to be protected from yourself go buy an iphone ( or get someone who knows what they are doing to lock down your n900 for you )
End Rant
Re:Also (Score:5, Insightful)
Males tend to be more tech-savvy.
I'll agree with your generalization and offer you another. Women tend to be marketed to for purposes of fashion more than men. iPhones are "cool", "hip", and "trendy". Android phones have a larger feature list which is inherently none of those three things.
Re:More likely ... (Score:2, Insightful)
The iPhone, like all Apple products, is really just a piece of high-tech, fashionable jewellery. Jewellery generally tends to appeal to women more than men.
Re:I prefer Symbian (Score:4, Insightful)
I am from Joliet, Illinois. So yes, I am in the "Third World".
Some times herd mentality just makes people run to Android or iOS like sheep to the slaughter.
Symbian^3 on the N8 is totally awesome, and incredibly fast, and totally stable. It does a great job of managing internet connections. has wonderful power management, and, since Comcast is down right now, allows me to tether via HSPA modem from my MacbookPro to Slashdot to write this.