In South Korea, 69 percent of adult smartphone users use a Samsung device, while only 23 percent use iPhones, a Gallup survey of 1,001 adults found. But the survey reveals a starkly different trend in one demographic: younger millennials and Gen Z. Among the younger generation, aged 18 to 29, iPhone’s share rises to 65 percent, double the Samsung's 32 percent, the survey found. This represents a 13 percent...
  • phx@lemmy.caEnglish
    472·
    2 years ago

    Young Koreans favor whatever is new and cool from year to year. One year I was there everyone had iDevices, a couple years later it was Samsungs. Trendiness with electronics is a big thing.

      • phx@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        Yeah, although to some extent stuff like app-store lock-in does restrict easily jumping from one ecosphere to another.

        If one is an Android user, there is at least some flexibility in switching between different phone vendors and styles, but in many places Samsung is pretty dominant, while others like LG have dropped out of the game entirely.

          • angstylittlecatboy@reddthat.comEnglish
            3·
            2 years ago

            Honestly at least a lot of Apple products from 1998 ~ 2017 were actually stylish. Now Apple products just look boring and yet they’re still treated as fashion accessories. Like, I could actually see how an iPod Classic or an iMac G4 was a fashion accessory. iPhone 14 or the M1 iMac, no.

            Also RGB looks garish and I wish it weren’t the predominant look of PC customization, but also it’s admittedly one of the only forms that’s accessible.

    • WiseThat@lemmy.caEnglish
      10·
      2 years ago

      My first thought was this was a punk thing, like, if you want to think of yourself as a bit rebellious you can buy the American phone instead of the phone made by the company that owns your nation.

  • SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    2 years ago

    There was a time where Samsung flagships had features that iPhone didn’t. Samsung slowly stripped their phones of these features.

    If you don’t need an android platform, and aren’t after a foldable, there’s a lot less of an argument to be made to be on Samsung these days.

  • hark@lemmy.worldEnglish
    257·
    2 years ago

    I’ve used samsung for all of my smartphones until my latest (when I switched to oneplus), but it’s still an android phone. No way would I switch to ultra-locked-down apple.

    • hismajesty@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      2 years ago

      Ye oneplus is great you just need a dns to block those chinese queries over vpn for example because it wont allow you to change the dns manually. (op8)

    • rm_dash_r_star@lemm.eeEnglish
      43·
      2 years ago

      Yeah I have some serious ethical issues with Apple. I’ve never bought any of their products and never will. Aside from the anti-competitive walled garden of their tech and exorbitant cost of their products, their labor practices violate human rights in low cost labor markets. However Google and their partners such as Samsung are not free from guilt either. Unfortunately there’s little choice in phone products, Android or iOS, pick your poison.

      • hark@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        2 years ago

        The major brands selling Android phones also lock things down, but at least I can do things like install apps outside the app store. I can also do Android development without having to buy a Mac and pay a license fee.

        • Colitas92English
          2·
          2 years ago

          You have root access in pixel phone and can install custom ROMs like graphene OS.

      • vzq@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 years ago

        I’m an Apple person, but for customizability you can’t beat a google pixel with an unlocked boot loader. You can literally run anything you want.

      • PlexSheep@feddit.deEnglish
        42·
        2 years ago

        So are you saying that apple is better, or just saying proprietary mobile OSes Bad?

  • LoganNineFingers@lemmy.caEnglish
    17·
    2 years ago

    I’ve had Samsung for around nine years. The thing that kept me married to them was the SD card slot. Now that it’s gone, after my Note 10+ stops getting updates, I’ll be looking at something else. I have the Samsung watch, buds and tablet but I’m assuming they’ll work with a pixle if that’s what I land on. I like the Samsung nearby share but that’s such a small thing and doesn’t keep brand loyalty. Otherwise, what do they offer that say the pixle doesn’t?

    • weew@lemmy.caEnglish
      5·
      2 years ago

      It’s basically the reason I’m using a mid-range Samsung. But they got rid of the headphone jack on the last generation A-series and it’s only a matter of time before the SD card disappears too. Gonna look elsewhere for me next upgrade

    • Ibaudia@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      2 years ago

      I’m just hoping either Fairphone irons out it’s kinks or legislation catches up with removable batteries and locked-down operating systems. I’m tired of feeling like I’m owning a device just until the manufacturer decides to turn it into e-waste.

    • Ferris@discuss.onlineEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      Galaxy S10 with 128GB internal & 256GB microSD. Play anything from the entire music collection with the aux port in the car. Frequently listen to podcasts with bone conduction headphones. Couldn’t be happier with a pocket computer.

    • jBlight@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      I agree with you. One thing that keeps me with Samsung though is Dex. Everything else is replaceable with a time adjustment, but Dex is pretty big for me and other phones don’t have it… Yet.

  • kamen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    2 years ago

    A bit weird to see LG in the charts (given that they’re out of the smartphone industry now) and yet none of the other big manufacturers (Xiaomi, Huawei, Google).

    • shoomba@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      61·
      2 years ago

      I believe LG is also a South Korean company compared to the Chinese ones you mentioned so maybe there is a little patriotic incentive for LG over there.

    • miseducator@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      2 years ago

      The brands you mentioned aren’t widely available in Korea. Since LG left the market, all the carriers, to my knowledge, only offer Apple or Samsung devices.

      Source: I’ve lived in SoKo for a long time.

      • kamen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        Thanks for the insight. Is what you’re saying that there you can only buy a phone through a carrier?

        • miseducator@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          You can buy unlocked phones of other brands like Google or Xiaomi on the Korean equivalent of Amazon (Coupang), but they’re substantially more expensive. I’d bet you can get Chinese brands at the little mom and pop shops that cater to Chinese students and immigrants.

  • leekleak@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2313·
    2 years ago

    Not much of a surprise, at least to me. Granted, my knowledge of the place is limited, but from what I’ve heard they really care about symbols of status (Fancy watches, jewelry, and, of course, expensive phones). Add that to the fact that kids nowdays aren’t as patriotic (a good thing imo) and care less about local brands and the fact that tech literacy is not great either… Well it puts thing in perspective.

    • Streetdog@lemmy.worldEnglish
      216·
      2 years ago

      You seem to be pretty judgmental of something you admit you know little about.

      • leekleak@lemmy.worldEnglish
        22·
        2 years ago

        Yeah, sorry if I came out harsh. In all honesty I am just frustrated by the incredible growth of Apple. It really confuses me how with such a tight ecosystem and anti-consumer practices they have managed to attain such mindshare that it’s not even funny. And I am saying all that despite this very comment being sent out of an iPhone.

  • FrostyCaveman@lemm.eeEnglish
    6·
    2 years ago

    I think I was done with Samsung as a phone brand when the photos app asked me to sign in, rate it and send feedback. So much bloatware.

    Probably doesn’t help the perception of high end status.

  • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    2 years ago

    I’ve dealt with Samsung as the developer of a large app. They will pre-install your app on new phones if you pay them, which I think is pretty seedy. It’s also not very good for the dev because who knows if anyone will ever launch your preinstalled app. Samsung even claimed not to know. So we had no idea what we’d be paying for. Samsung’s Galaxy app store is also a totally laughable mess, far inferior to Google Play and AppStore in functionality. It even has spelling mistakes 😖

    However I’ll keep doing business with Samsung. They’re just janky and it’s not surprising that users think they’re just as janky as I do.

    Now Huawei…fuck Huawei. They created a big work mess for me by networking their way to a high ranking executive at our company and then telling them our app was “broken on millions of Huawei phones.” They made it sound like a bug in our code. But here’s what it actually was:

    Trump banned Huawei from doing business in the US due to their ties to the Chinese Communist Party. This meant Huawei had to stop using some very core Android code libraries, since Google is an American company and couldn’t allow use of those libraries. So Huawei whipped up their own replacements to these libraries, but developers basically need to customize and republish their app specially for Huawei.

    So because they got in trouble with Trump, Huawei needed all devs to rewrite their apps for Huawei phones. Instead of being honest about this, they got me in trouble, convincing an executive that something was wrong with our app. They generously offered to meet with our tech team and “help us fix it.”

    I met with them, and once I understood what they were doing, I told them to get fucked. Then I wrote up a memo about what happened and let our executive leaders know that we wouldn’t be on Huawei phones ever again, going forward.

    Samsung’s not THAT bad. Not even close.

  • gunpachi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    2 months ago I bought a regular samsung galaxy s23 and it’s been running great so far. I expected MIUI levels of bloat, but surprisingly it is not that bad.

    I had to disable a few samsung apps and for the most part, the phone stays out of my way and lets me do whatever i want.

    I wish the s23 lineup gets good custom rom support. Would love to run a lean LineageOS / any AOSP based rom with MicroG on this phone.

  • Vuipes@kbin.social
    54·
    2 years ago

    The majority of youngsters will always pick a fashion brand (apple). However, the majority of them cannot afford it.

    • Mereo@lemmy.caEnglish
      4·
      2 years ago

      In its analysis, the survey credited iPhone’s appeal among young people to Apple’s premium branding – for the same storage size, an iPhone 14 (128GB) costs 1,250,000 won ($989) compared to the Galaxy S23’s 1,150,000 won. Introduction of Apple Pay, Apple’s mobile payment service, to Korea earlier this year was cited as another contributing factor.

      According to the article, cost is not a factor in their choice as they nearly cost the same.