Commentary

Why Can't Apple and Android Users Just All Get Along?

SeamlessWeb app

As the New York Observernotes under the headline "Study: People Who Own iPads Are Tiresome Hipsters With Awful Personalities" and AMNY splashed across its cover under the word "iSnobs," a report from the social personality site MyType concluded that "iPad Owners are an elite bunch." Thank God they don't make their living doing market research. The report then goes on to describe iPaddies further: "They're wealthy, highly educated and sophisticated," it states. "They value power and achievement much more than others. They're also selfish, scoring low on measures of kindness and altruism."

Now obviously MyType was trying to make a name for itself and threw out some easy bait it gathered from what is apparently a sizable amount of information it collects from people in order to help them "put their personalities on the Web," whatever that means. But whatever the conclusions of MyType, one thing is certain, this is an attractive group for marketers (also, it sometimes seems that most people with iPads are actually in advertising, so, sorry if the report makes you sound like self-obsessed dicks).

Fun fact: of the Seven Deadly Sins, iPad owners are most susceptible to Lust and Gluttony. They want your product and they'll eat all of it, too. This probably basically describes anyone who shops at Wal-mart, but I digress.

MyType also describes the basics of the personality of iPad critics: angry young men locked away in their rooms dithering about angrily with their XBoxes -- not in so many words. Now, the report did not address iPod owners and specifically referred to iPad owners, essentially just a dickier subset of the larger iSpecies. And it didn't say anything about Android users, but let's just call them "everyone else." But isn't it about time we put all this "I'm a Mac, you're a PC" nonsense to rest? Especially in light of Apple's fallibility as evidenced by Antennaegate?

There is no reason to discriminate against anyone because of the color of his or her phone.

Trade and tech editors have their mailboxes besieged daily by all the latest apps, and still, even in our post-racial era, many, such as this one for the food delivery service Seamless Web, are only for those with iPhones. Maybe, in this case, this is because the Seamless Web server crashes as often as it goes through when you are ordering, and they are trying to minimize traffic by only catering to an elite clientele.

But there are those out there who get it. And there seem to be more of them each day. We are all trying to get along. NYmag.com recently added an excellent Android version, as has The New York Times, which has had an iPhone app seemingly since day one. And The Fader on Thursday simultaneously released its iPhone and Android versions (with the Android version immediately taking its place as one of more robust offerings from any publication in Google's market). You can almost see the day when the children of iPhone users will clasp hands with the children of Android users and walk off together into a bright tomorrow.

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