Android, on the other hand, offers a suite of fully customisable tools, designed to be arranged in any way you choose. It lets you configure pretty much everything so that your Android device is fine tuned to you. It's available on multiple phone brands and tablets. Anyone can twist it to their whim. In other words, Android is democracy incarnate.
Now let's think about that for a second.
By choosing Apple, we're basically saying, "We don't want to decide, we just want to be told what to use and what to do." Apple's popularity is a sign that we don't want choice, we want the result of the right choice. We don't want the responsibility that choice demands. We want the passive peace of mind that dictatorship delivers. We don't want to be free. We just want to be.
Android users are the hackers who want more. I say this as an Apple user, living in a monarchic society in the Middle East where freedom is vast but restricted for the well oiled social fabric to hold together. It works so well I don't want to leave. I revel in the solace that constraints provide. Android users live for the customisation of life, but I'm not as passionate about tweaking my life with icons and features. I just want to be.
A third of mobile users are like me, or at least send that signal from their chosen iOS device. A third of us, or roughly the population of the entire United States, prefer dictatorship over democracy. This begs the question: why?
Are we disenchanted with democracy? Are we so lazy that we don't want to change, even potentially for the better? Or do we simply not care?
I believe we just can't be bothered. Life is too fast to stop and customise. Too short, too intense to waste any of it pushing buttons around so our phones list just the right kind of apps on our home screen. We don't want to give personalisation any of our attention because we prefer the personal to the virtual. Democracy changes the wrapping but it doesn't change the package, so why bother?
In the end, we choose whatever makes our lives easier. If democracy is too demanding on us and doesn't deliver what we expect, we turn to simpler alternatives. Apple taps into our weakness for simplicity. Dictatorship makes our lives easy to live.
We still have a choice. But Android users exercise it more than Apple aficionados do.
What will you choose?
