I asked if people chose iPhone for the blue bubbles elsewhere a couple days ago, and while there was some good discourse on that post, the blue bubbles definitely also came up as a reason.

In my experience, when people find out my texts are green, they oftentimes would rather switch to a different platform altogether like Instagram or just not text at all.

Is this actually a deal-breaker in friendships out there?

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[–] 26 points 3 years ago (2 children)

If they don’t want to text you because you don’t have an iPhone they’re not friends you want to have.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Seen this sentiment that green bubbles = bad a few times online but never it's never come up for me. I assume this is a teen - early adult specific issue where the idea is mostly to be part of the group

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago* (3 children)

    It's been happening in high schools, to the point teens are bullied and pushed out of peer groups if they have Androids. It's frankly disgusting that apple willingly creates this division to profit off teenagers bullying each other, and they don't get called out for it enough.

    But in the larger picture, it's definitely going to be more common among the young, because iPhones themselves are ubiquitous among the younger. It's something the tech space is slowly starting realize: Apple has almost total market dominance among the rising demographic, and this has led to increasing tech illiteracy due to the way Apple designs its software, and inability/refusal to learn anything else. That is a huge problem for the tech industry when the only thing they can do to find customers is dumb their software down to appeal to people that don't know how to use anything other than iOS

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Perhaps in the US but it's not so pronounced elsewhere. I think I only know one person with an iPhone.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    It's still about 30% here in Germany. It is rising though. And I think this is because of "clever" marketing. The highschools here in Germany started forcing parents to buy Ipads for their children a couple of years ago. Children with low income parents get it from the city for free. Nominally it is, because it is "easier to maintain", but I honestly really doubt this.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    But you don't understand! The USA is the entire world! Everybody else in the world is just like Americans or wants to be!🙄

    I know five people with iPhones here. I interact with almost three orders of magnitude more people than five...

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    If anybody wants to judge me based on the brand of electronics I use, my favorite band or the brand of clothes I wear, I have no interest in interacting with them lol. This whole consumerist worship-culture is just toxic.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago*

    The worst thing you can do as a consumer is be (blindly) loyal to a brand.

    E.g. I like Columbia jackets, footwear, outdoor wear, etc. If however their quality goes down, or there is another comparable product that happens to be on sale (and assuming I like the look/style) I wouldn't NOT get it because it isn't a Colombia product.

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  • [–] 16 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I think this must be a cultural thing because no one in the UK sends SMS messages. Everyone just uses WhatsApp or signal or telegram. I'm android and have literally never had anyone mention the colour of my bubble. I didn't know this was a thing!

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    If you live anywhere outside of the US, the question is irrelevant, because everyone uses whatsapp etc.

    Within the US, if you are over the age of 30, it probably doesn't matter.

    if you are under the age of 30 AND in the US, I mean, if someone does judge you for it, you at least have a great way to filter shitty people out of your life lol.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    I'm over 30 (in the US) and have an iPhone, but before I got my current job I was almost never reachable by phone, either out of service range or phone was dead, so I give out my google number so that messages and calls go to my email and get forwarded to my phone. So I make green bubbles from my iPhone.

    When people see me pull out my phone for the first time they get SO MAD. "WHY ARE YOUR BUBBLES GREEN?! YOU HAVE AN iPHONE!!" I don't understand. I know I could reverse things so that my cell number forwards to my google number instead of the other way around, but it's just not something I've ever gotten around to. Why you so mad bruh?

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    Yes, but it's a feature, not a bug.

    It's a super low investment and quick way to identify people you should avoid.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    If you think you're better than me because you have an iPhone and I run an Android, I don't want to talk to you anyway.

    People are so fucking petty and elitist over the dumbest fucking things.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I live in the US and this was never a problem for me? If it is then these people aren't really your friends. Think of it as a litmus test for finding friends.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    I did run into some friends who were just surprised people bought phones outside of iPhone. But they were still my friends. It didn't matter to them they just hadn't thought of a world without iPhone users

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    no I'm not saying that there aren't non ahole iphone users but there outliers it seems like. I guess me and you got lucky because it seems like for the average teenager in the states your "friends" treat you poorly if you have an Android.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    in my experience nobody texts anymore anyway, its all signal or some other messenger.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    I mean I was born in 98 so I'm just barely Gen Z and even when I was in middle school and high school SMS and MMS was the predominant way students communicated with each other. this was around mid 2010s so not that long ago HS and middle. schoolers were using SMS. the amount of people using non SMS messaging services is a lot less than you think. the most. The USA has 259mil active users sending 2 trillion texts every year. as. of 2023 in the USA signal has a 100mil downloads but only 40mil active users. the two most. popular non SMS service in the USA are Facebook messenger at 52% of the population using it and WhatsApp at 25%. so no it's not all signal or some other messenger not by a long shot

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    Let me guess, you are from the United States? Every time I heard about this is only from the US, never see anyone outside giving a single fuck about that.
    Also, do you really wanna be friend with someone that choose friendship by the phone their friend uses? Wtf

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    It's bewildering to me how this continues to be an issue only in the US, the rest of the world figured out this problem around 2010, and I'm not kidding. It's like you guys are still arguing about Beta vs VHS in 2023

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    It's so exclusive to the US that I didn't even understand what OP was saying before reading the comment section for clues.

    Blue bubbles, green bubbles? Wtf is that and how is it related to Android/iOS.

    For reference, I live in South East Asia and use Android, but I have never heard my friends using iOS complain about some kinda bubble colour.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    Apple is deliberately not supporting the global standard of RCS for exactly thai reason. They want green bubbles to stay.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    You can have a preference, even a strong one. You can also discuss it with people. But shutting people out because of their phone? That's a major personality red flag anyway.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    I live in a country where the dollar value of iPhone makes them more of a luxury item, sought by people of means or by hipsters.

    Most people here tend to communicate via WhatsApp. People with iPhones probably discriminate others for many other reasons before even reaching the bubble color for messages, so they self-select out of the lives of most people.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    I'm an Android user and I have no idea what any of this means.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    When on Apple and texting another apple user the text bubbles are one color. When texting any other brand it shows up another color. So iPhone users can act like dicks because they are the in crowd when messaging eachother.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    So iPhone users can act like dicks because they are the in crowd when messaging each other.

    They can interact with their messages in more ways than others. Direct message reactions (like, heart) and they can see the dot-dot-dot when another iPhoner was typing. I actually had a girl give me a hard time over this because she was iPhone and I'm android.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (2 children)
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    [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    This is so American...

    "Let me send an SMS, while I ride my horse to go to my bank and do other things that people used to do in 1870."

    "Oh, their SMS color is different! I dislike people with a different color than me."

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago*

    I love the blue bubble thing being a .... thing.

    It makes identifying people who are a waste of time really easy. Making a big deal out of the colour of a text message bubble? Smell ya later loser, you ain't worth investing any time in.

    Move on lads. If someone's shallow enough to care about the brand of phone you use they can go sniff farts for all I care. I ain't following them in their campaign to give the worlds richest company more money. It reminds me of that fundraiser to make one of those reality TV dickheads a billionaire by donating them cash. Like how does transferring some of your small amount of wealth to their giant pool of wealth somehow boost your own... anything?? Probably the second stupidest thing I've ever heard.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    Are you 14? In that case maybe.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    Its only a dealbreaker if you are dealing with someone who is exceedingly vapid and worthless as a human being, and you should be grateful for it, because it lets you know real quick not to waste another ounce of effort on their dumb asses.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    I don't know what you mean by blue or green bubbles (I use Android, Chomp for SMS, Discord to IM, WhatsApp for the stragglers) but I've never met anybody so shallow that they'd give up a friendship over what brand of phone you use. That's the kinda thing a very childish 13 year old might do.

    I think you might need to re-evaluate who you think your friends are, if they'd rather cut off contact with you than receive a slightly different looking text message. That's incredibly, INCREDIBLY weird.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    If someone's gonna cut out a person out of their lives because of the choice of their phone, you're better off without that person in your life.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    If your "friends" make so much fuss over text bubbles, probably the best course of action is to find better friends.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago*

    so the whole world uses mostly whatsapp or some other messaging app. nobody not in the US gives a damn about the color of the bubble or even knows whats the device on the other side. we all use whatsapp its much better in any way possible (except that it belongs to facebook, that is bad... anyway we were there before it belonged to facebook, so.....)

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    The OS of people’s phone isn’t relevant at all in my social circles. I don’t even know who’s using what. The whole green bubble stigma is an extremely American thing. Everyone else moved away from the default messages app at least a decade ago. I only get some 2FAs there.

    I know for sure that I bought Whatspp in 2010. It was a paid app back them.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    Just a reminder, Lemmy is VERY biased on topics like this.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago

    Absolutely definitely yes.

    In high school and continuing into university, everyone would play the iMessage/Snapchat games that only work with iOS. The few Android users, including me, were 2nd class citizens.

    Using Android has absolutely cost me several potential friendships and looking back I genuinely should've spent the money and bought the inferior iPhone.

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