Conformity... with Smartphones?!?

It seems like in the school that I went to last school year everyone had at least an iPhone 4 or higher.

I don't know if teachers your high school do this or not, but in my English class everyone had to put their cell phone into the cell phone bucket before the class took a test.  (Personally, I thought this was stupid but I always got away with it by saying I put my cell phone in my backpack.)

When I looked at the class' cell phones, I obviously saw a bunch of iPhones.  A good number of the teens from that school seem to be too thrifty to buy a good case for their iPhones.  (There are numerous sources online that show how fragile iPhones are...  There's this post/meme that shows this guy's shattered iPhone that had fell on the floor just after taking the phone out of the box.)

Then I realized something (given that "anywhere" refers to the US; this fact is not necessarily true in the rest of the world):  All the phones looked the same.  If the iPhones had no cases or the phones were not (shabby but unique) feature phones, it would be impossible to distinguish one's iPhone from another.  This is especially true when they are the same model, whether it's the 4(S) or the 5 model, and you don't wake up the phone to identify your phone based on the wallpaper.

It's a common thing to hear in the fashion and product industry: "Be different."  Also, many teens that are my age are too preoccupied with the contradictional and eternal task of standing out while fitting in to no avail.  (Those same teens tend to be obnoxious hipsters as well.)

Apparently it's not the same for smartphones.

I remember reading in a Metro Boston newspaper that the iPhones were for liberals and Blackberries were for conservatives while the newest iPhone was in the 3G/3GS phase.  Now it seems like the iPhone has flipped on its political spectrum and has been the flagship phone for conservatives.  The iPhone's user interface has remained relatively unchanged since the very first iPhone (until iOS 7 comes out... but that's not now).  The iPhone is the only true benchmark that other (mostly Android) smartphones are pitted against in YouTube video comparisons.  It also seems like that the iPhone design is very resistant to change, since not much was added to the iPhone 5 for both software and hardware... but enough about how conservative the iPhone is.

I was talking to a classmate of mine at the end of the school year.  We were discussing how we didn't have smartphones.  We actually found it to be okay because... of the reason she stated it perfectly: "I wouldn't want a phone that half the [US] population has."

I totally agreed with her, since I'd want to be able to find my own unique phone if it was thrown into a pile of other phones.

Then I asked her what phone she wanted.  "A Samsung Galaxy S4."

I did like her choice but...  "That's a phone that probably over half the population has in Asia, especially in Korea."  (There's only one Korea I could be talking about at this point in history.)

"But that's over there, not here."

I did give her points for that.  But for me, the Galaxy S4 was even too common for me.

I stated that I would prefer the Samsung Galaxy Note II.  "It'd be perfect for me because I have big hands and the screen size would be perfectly proportional to my hand size."

"But I'd want a phone I can actually fit into my pocket."

"Well, it would fit in my pocket.  Besides, I like the S Pen."


(Okay... maybe the conversation didn't go exactly like that but...)
I find it really hard to stand out while owning a smartphone in a society that believes one is nonconformant while owning an iPhone 5 while one is comformant if s/he doesn't own an iPhone.

...If I could own a Samsung Galaxy Note II as an unlocked smartphone, I would have the only company manufactured smartphone I'd ever want.

And as Monkey Joe said: "A little product placement doesn't hurt!"



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[I do not own the picture of the black and white "iPhone 5"s or the picture of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Note II.  It is used for identification and educational purposes in this blog post.]