Android is struggling to keep its market share in the United States, as Apple continues to take over in the market. But, despite Android as a whole losing ground, Google Pixel phones are becoming a bigger slice of the US market.
Counterpoint Research reports that, in Q2 2023, US smartphone shipments dropped by 24% year-over-year. That includes both iPhones and Android phones, and virtually every brand saw a drop in shipments. Samsung saw US shipments drop by 37% while Motorola saw a 17% drop. TCL saw the biggest decline at just shy of 70% year-over-year, and even Apple saw a 6% drop.
Well there’s your problem. You’re looking at Samsung phones.
Honestly, they’re one of the worst when it comes to bloatware. They do it because their devices are so popular that they can get away with it. Stick with a Pixel, and you can’t go wrong.
(BTW, what’s with iPhone users’ obsession with iMessage? Google Messages has the same capabilities. Not trying to hate; genuinely curious. If your only experience with texting on Android is with using whatever came with your device, then I understand why you’d prefer Apple’s implementation. That’s the whole appeal of Android: if you don’t like how a component works, you can swap it out.)
To answer the iMessage thing.
I’m from the states but live in a different country. It’s the easiest free way to stay in touch with family and friends.
A number of people have been like “just move to X and if they don’t follow, then forget about them.”
But it’s not really realistic to ask all the people I might contact throughout the year to switch to a new app in case I contact them.
So I truly feel locked in because of that.
You don’t really have to choose. I have WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal and Threema installed all at the same time. I don’t like Apple and since there’s no iMessage for Android (I guess), I can’t use that. But that’s not really my choice, it’s Apple’s choice. I won’t let them lock me down into their ecosystem. Just send SMSes to the people you only have on iMessage and that don’t understand why they are implicitly forcing their opinion on others.
