Two Tribes

It's amazing how many things in our world come down to dichotomies. Coke/Pepsi, Leno/Letterman, Capitalism/Communism, Edward/Jacob, Bloods/Crips, VI/EMACS, over-the-top/down-the-wall, VHS/Beta, tastes great/less filling, Nintendo/Sega. And now we can add the latest: iPhone/Android.

Except this one isn't really shaping up the same way. For one thing, in each of the other pairings, each side (or its fanbase) was keenly aware of the other side, and had a hate on for them. But not many people really hate Android. A fair number hate Apple and it's devices, but many Android users are only dimly aware of the options. As many have observed, a large number of Android users bought Android phones only because the don't make non-smartphones anymore. As I think I've shown in this blog, Android phones will do anything iPhones will do, though most seem oblivious to it. Everyone knows who Siri is, but how many are aware that pretty much all phones today can respond to voice commands.

And the enthusiasm only seems to go one way.  iPhone users tend to be proud of their products, but you don't see anyone boisterous about Android.  Arguably, the remnants of Blackberry nation have enough pride to give it a bigger impact on society even today.  Huge numbers of people are buying a product that they're not really using, and it's not having much of a cultural impact.

There have been many rivalries where one side is bigger than the other (like Coke vs. Pepsi) or even where one side ultimately wins out over the other (VHS vs. Beta) and there have been rivalries where one side isn't well known (say, Windows vs. Linux.) But I can't think of any other situation where the side that has pop-culture's attention is the one that is far less successful.  You could point to the PC vs. Mac rivalry as one where the users of the winner have no enthusiasm. But Mac users were seen more as an odd cult rather than typical computer users.  For instance, I note that people discussing technology often refer to "iPhones" as shorthand for all smartphones, since everyone knows what an iPhone is, but some people will be confused by smartphone/cell phone/mobile etc.  I couldn't imagine someone in the desktop computer era referring to computers as "Macs," on the assumption people don't know what a PC is.

But, now that I think about it, I do know one similar rivalry situation. And despite the lucky timelines of this example, I swear I hadn't thought of it when I started writing: Android is Tim Duncan to the iPhone's LeBron James.