Having a green text message bubble is sometimes seen as the equivalent of having an off-brand designer bag. It means that—in the heart of Silicon Valley—you don’t have an Apple iPhone. While iPhones are by far the most popular phone choice in the U.S., the pros and cons of other mobile phone brands, most commonly Androids, have been long debated.
Each brand of phone has unique features. While iPhones allow users to react to messages with symbols, use FaceTime, and Airdrop images, Androids allow split screens, varying volumes per app, and guest accounts.
iPhones generally range from $599-$1,200 for the base model, with optional upgrades available that further increase the price. The cost of an Android phone can vary depending on the model—Android is an operating system used by phones like the Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy—but Androids are known to be cheaper, with an average cost of $305 as of 2024.
But owning an Android doesn’t just mean having different features—it can also mean feeling excluded. The U.S. Department of Justice is currently investigating Apple for using business strategies that cause Android users to feel obligated to have an iPhone. The lawsuit accuses Apple of making third-party apps unappealing and less engaging, creating a sense of exclusivity around the device. iPhones also make it clear when someone texts from a non-Apple device displaying green messages and pixelated media.
At M-A, many students without iPhones have felt this exclusion firsthand. “I’m not in any of my friends’ group chats because if you add an Android, you can’t add anyone else,” sophomore Felix Crim said. “It would just be nice if you didn’t need an iPhone to interact.”
“I hear about all these different group chats with people that have iPhones, and I’m not allowed to be in them,” sophomore Malina Gleitsman said.
iPhone users aren’t blind to this exclusivity. “Androids are less efficient and there are stereotypes that people who use them are really weird,” sophomore Emma Cicchetti, an iPhone owner, said.
“Androids are weird and for weird nerd kids,” junior Christ William Aguilar said. “I’m not friends with anyone with an Android.”
“It’s really annoying when I get videos from people with iPhones because it makes the quality of the video completely pixelated and pretty much unusable, which again makes me feel more excluded from whatever is going on in the social circle,” Gleitsman added.
For many teenagers, it’s up to their parents which phone they have, so they didn’t choose to have green messages. Others simply may prefer Android’s unique features and functionality.
However, it looks like many of these issues will soon be gone. Apple recently announced efforts to fix these difficulties, including allowing Android users to react to messages and see high-quality images.
