[Macworld]

Post your comments for Low-income users latch on to iPhone here

[nmpike]

> Lower-income U.S. consumers are flocking to Apple’s iPhone, sending an early signal that smartphones are changing from a luxury to a necessity, according to research company ComScore Mobile.
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--- quote from story above ---
ComScore Mobile are a bunch of idiots!!!!
Saying that they are not a luxury but a necessity because low income people are getting them???
I don't know about you, but MOST states in our country are full of LOW INCOME people who have an automobile worth $250 but have $8000 rims on the tires...
So I guess because low income people spend $8000 on rims for their tires while their car is worth $250 makes expensive rims a necessity?
I better go out and buy some rims!!!
Analysts are idiots... they get paid for giving worthless babble...
Yeah, no low income people I know will go without feeding their kids so they can have an iPhone out of a necessity to have it. "Screw you kids, I NEED an iPhone, so I am going to sell the food stamps for half their value until I get enough to get the money for an ATT deposit and an iPhone".. thats more like it.
It's called being ghetto-rich... not a necessity.
Don't believe me? Drive down your worst neighborhood.. observe the yards not being mowed, the broken windows, the beer cans all over the sidewalks... and then observe their $8000 rims on a 1978 Pinto (although the Pinto is a classic so make it a 1978 Grand Prix).
I-D-I-O-T-S!

[oneaccord]

Cash-strapped consumers? Is that a tautology?
I agree with nmpike, though I wouldn't voice it as strongly.
The iphone is in NO WAY a necessity. It does make sense for those who can't afford to buy each piece of hardware. But if you can't afford to live, you can't afford to phone... That's the stupidity of consumerism.
Hey, is it true that in some states of US the repo can't take your TV because it's a 'necessity' of life? Talk about bread and circuses... let them eat cake... plena locura!
2002 TiBook, going strong!

[byronkim]

I'm not sure I agree. We're a culture that's been taught to forget our troubles by spending. And while I think a recession will curb that to a significant degree, the sorry state of the economy may actually increase the desire to spend. Shopping is a drug in this country. I think that the major trend is that there will continue to be spending but at a reduced rate. There will be much more of a focus on value and bargains, and there is added value to a gift that "keeps on giving" so to speak. A smart phone can achieve this. Music, movies, texting, email, surfing, blogging, Youtube... They're all great distractions that will help shut out the world. And with a smartphone you can get your fix wherever and whenever. Unlimited or all you can eat plans just add to the appeal.
it may not play out this way, but it makes sense to me.

[moose_n_squirrel]

I read a different version of this article on another site that made more sense. You guys might not be doing the math.

iPhone hardware costs less than
MP3 player cell phone computer

iPhone voice+data service costs less than
landline + broadband internet
or
cell phone + broadband internet

The other article I read said that some low-income people see the iPhone as a way to avoid having to buy a computer and subscribe to broadband on top of a phone, due to the lower total costs listed above.

As for necessities, our society is making Internet access and phone service a necessity. If you want these poor people to be able to communicate with potential employers, and use social networking for job leads and community networking, maybe you should let them have their cheaper iPhone all-in-one alternative. By telling them that phone and internet is not a necessity, that they do not deserve modern communications technology, you might end up helping to keep them on welfare, because you prevented them from competing with better equipped job seekers in this tight economy.

You are seeing the iPhone as an extra, while they are seeing the iPhone as replacing expensive a la carte core telecom services with a single package. Not adding it on to other expenses, but lowering overall expenses, which makes total sense.

[OhBlahDeeBlahDah]

RE: "The iphone is in NO WAY a necessity."
=====================
The ComScore report did not state that the iPhone is a necessity. What it said was that lower income people use the iPhone as a consolidation of products and services.
They don't buy a separate computer, a separate MP3 player, and a separate mobile phone. They don't subscribe to an internet service at their place of living and don't subscribe to a landline service.
They consolidate ALL of these products and services into the iPhone with its voice and data plan.
In other words, THESE PEOPLE SAVE A LOT OF MONEY with the iPhone.
And, for most people "saving money" is a NECESSITY.

[moonmarked]

It's also true that increasingly, our culture is expecting its citizens to have access to the internet---as well as accessible by the internet (or email)--- in addition to being accessible by phone 24/7.
Folks in the west laughed in the mid-1990s when they would see folks in developing countries walking with cell phones, without realizing that it was much more cost efficient to use cell technology than to put down phone cable.
It's not so different here in the US. I live in a poor neighborhood in NYC where the average income is $37,000. While not everyone here has a smartphone, most folks have cellphones as their only phone, rather than have a landline as well. This enables parents to be accessible for emergencies--because many of us work in jobs where we do not have access to phones unless we have a cellphone; to be able to keep track of our kids who get home from school before we get home from work; to be able to respond to getting extra work shifts, or temp jobs, or just a call back on a job at McDonalds.
Some of my neighbors also have smartphone--and some have iPhones. They are much easier to use than other phones. You can check your gmail accounts. You can use visual voicemail to get to your kids messages or the messages from the phone tree at work in whatever order you need to; you can hand it to your kid to play a game while you're waiting at the clinic for 7 hours; you can read the news and magazines online instead of buying paper editions while on the bus after the late shift on your way home; you can show folks pics of your kids and your dad who died last year and your sister who is sick and our friends from high school. We need to be able to get texts easily, to have a calculator to check our payroll, to have google maps to get to the different places I work every day as a housecleaner...you may think some of these things I've names are luxuries if you are poor or have a low-income, but I would beg to differ. Those of us on the bottom of the food chain may find the convergence of an iPhone much more of a neccesity than those who have a MacBook Air, an iMac at home and a Dell at the office, and the freedom to make or take a phone call anytime and to move around by car or cab rather than being the cabdriver.
You know, we poor people come in all shapes and sizes and have all kinds of reasons that our jobs don't make much money. Increasingly we work more than 40 hours a week without benefits like sick time, health care, overtime: we are the gardeners, the day laborers, the linecooks, the taxi drivers, the maids and the nannies. We are the one most likely to be on our feet all day and not have the freedom to even take a pee break to check our phones but yet still need our families to be able to be in touch with us over our long days. And increasingly, our employers who have smartphones, want and expect who us to be ready to work at their beck and call. The culture is changing, and yes, that means we, without much means, we who are low-income are coming to see having a smartphone as a necessity as we try to better in our lives. When my computer died last year, if I had an iPhone I could have continued to be in communications with my clients by phone, and by their preferred email without having to go to the library to use the free internet services where I had to wait for over an hour to sign up for 10 minutes use each day. I could have saved time rather than listening to all the messages I had saved and go right to the ones that I needed. For an extra $25 a month over the least expensive mobile plan I could have something to use while I saved up for another cheap used computer that wasn't as fast as my cellphone and prone to problems,
Not everyone will be able to afford an iPhone, but as with all things, the culture is changing and even us low-income folks are expected to be changing with that culture. Smartphones don't solve everything, but they make my life easier and give me access to the world I live in. To deny that this particular piece of telephony is simply a luxury is to not acknowledge the ways that some of us who do not have them are close to becoming second class citizens. The digital divide exists created in multiple ways across diverse sectors.
It's not the same thing as decorative rims. At all. Please.

[moonmarked]

And I should add that the article is about folks making a low income, $25-50,000 which is much more than an individual or even a family receives on welfare. I'm glad some oter folks could anser more concisely than I did!

[nmpike]

moonmarked:

That was an incredible post. You actually changed my opinion on this issue which is pretty hard to do.

I'm not considered low income by any means. I just get fed up with people asking me for gas money at walmart. And it's the same people day after day week after week.

You said you are a housekeeper. You should be managing a company.

Anyhow I just wanted to say that, your post was moving.


Mike

[oneaccord]

Don't get me wrong, I find the arguments in the article persuasive.
Providing for my family on full government assistance (that translates as less than $US 15,000 per year) the iphone is IN NO WAY a necessity.
I wish you could convince my wife otherwise!!
How are you guys helping the poor get by day to day?

[Lord_Meroving]

Sorry, but i do not agree with this statement "In other words, THESE PEOPLE SAVE A LOT OF MONEY with the iPhone." in any way.






A lot of the low-income folks i know use T-mobile and guess what..the Sidekick (plus the Dash/Wing). A typical iPhone plan is $70 for voice and then add on an SMS package and by the time the usual taxes are tacked on

it's 90 bucks or more. For a lot of the folks i know, that's extravagant. Now a lot of them keep their regular handsets and have iPod Touch's for their music and videos.



Personally i think the iPhone is great but not +/- $90/month (or more) great, just not worth it. My phone bill is much less than half of that, so i prefer to just use an iPod Touch and if need be, i share my Win Mobile's 3G data via WiFi.

[MusicVagabond]

Interesting comments. To offer an additional perspective, I think it's worth keeping in mind that many members of the first-wave "iPod" generation have graduated from college in the last few years, or will soon. After getting used to having an iPod everywhere, all the time - walking through campus, between classes, at the gym, at the coffee shop studying, in the car driving home to visit family, playing music parties...whatever - getting an iPhone is such an easy extension of that lifestyle as they take their first jobs (likely making them $25,000-$50,000) and see the value of a centralized place for their work and personal calendars, music collection, obsession with Google-Mapping everything, and so on...let alone calling and texting. And without a ton of financial commitments yet, they probably have more money around for personal spending. Lucky for Apple, the more kids in high school and college there are who have iPods, the more iPhone-prone young professionals are born, right? Cool stuff.

[moonmarked]

Yes, the Sidekick. AKA the people's Blackberry. I'm not sure why folks think it's cheap though, other than the fact that mostly teens and low-income folks use it. And Paris Hilton. (and the hiphop nation, but that leads to some other questions, too, about word of mouth etc). I know most people don't think Sidekick when you say smartphone, but that's what all my nieces and nephews have--it's the most seen phone in my neighborhood, and it's definitely a status symbol for being on the ball and connected technically. But it's not cheap: $149-199, and the 300 minute plan, plus taxes is something like $50 with taxes. It's these folks who are moving up to the iPhone, I bet, as they want something that can replace ther iPods and sidekicks and do that better than most of the other stuff out there. My 26 year old niece whose pay is in the range we're talking about made the move to an iPhone before I did (and I did because friends pooled their funds to get me a phone and 6 months of the difference between my $65 a month ATT plan and the $90 plan. Every month someone else gets a phone. Ghetto economics.)

I think the truth is that having this kind of access is becoming more and more necessary--which doesn't mean that everyone can afford it . But the real question is what happens for those of us who can't afford it? Do we drop out of the mix or do we find ways to get a smartphone anyway and make hard choices about things like food and shelter and amybe even, small luxuries like going to/ renting movies? As someone said, being able to purchase the right tool rather than an ineffective one is cost effective in the long run, and I am much happier that my next generation was able to supoort me in thinking about how helpful an iPhone would be.

[nyip11]

Wow. Getting up to $50,000 a year is considered low income?
I thought some (many?) communities have legislation requiring the telcos to provide real basic phone service for a real low fee, mainly for seniors and real low-income people, so that everyone can have a phone. This basic phone service would be much cheaper than the iPhone or any cell. phone.