I often meet a friend and find him telling me that he feels that the iPhone is a "boring" device and therefore does not understand why he is finding such huge global sales. Is it just because of the speedy performance or the magic of the apple? The truth is, I felt something similar in a period where I thought about the growth in device sales over the past years and compared it to the advantages. Until I found myself changing the question from "Has the iPhone become boring?" To "Or is it just boring for us?"
Important clarification
Before I start this article, I would like to clarify a point, which is that this article is based on a personal opinion, meaning that no one is required to feel the same thing. I also write it, taking into account the demographic dimension, “an Egyptian Arab person living in an Arab country.” If you are an Arab, but in Canada or even in the Emirates, for example, you may not feel what I am saying.
It's boring for us, not for them
There are no statistics showing the distribution of the iPhone in the Arab world and the percentage of its sales. But my personal estimate is that it is approximately 5% or less, meaning that the region does not represent a weight for Apple. In addition to that, there are many restrictions in most countries and our technical delay (I hope no one considers it an insult, but rather a reality in some Arab countries), which makes Apple every year reveals many advantages, but we do not see them in our Arab countries, and this means that there are new advantages, but not We find new features. So whoever lives in America finds an important and influential feature in his life, and thus continues to buy Apple, and his friend who owns Androids there is thinking of switching to using Apple devices because of this feature. Hence the feeling of boredom and that it has no real advantages for us, but not absolutely without merits.
And before you accuse me of favoring Apple and mentioning a sent word, here is an example of this matter
Apple Pay payment system
We've been hearing about Apple Pay for years (Read more about it here). Yes this technology that makes you push your phone, nothing influencing but we don't really feel the effect. Whereas in the West, specifically America, it has managed to change entire corporate concepts. Google has an old payment service and developed it after the release of Apple Pay, and Samsung launched its service, but Apple's service remained distinctive. Has any of you heard any advertisements from Google, Samsung and others about huge support for their services? Apple is different, as it is widely supported, for example Wells Fargo, a bank in America that has 14000 teller machines, has updated 5000 of them to support Apple's payment service, and this number increases daily. That is, you can go and withdraw money with the iPhone only and without a credit card. You can pay from movie tickets, transportation, merchandise, and even soft drink machines. Yes, you can buy Coca-Cola or Pepsi with the iPhone from the machine. A year ago, a report was published that more than half of Apple users and 25% of Americans had tried the service. Reports now talk that most of the supermarkets in America are supporting it. Imagine yourself an iPhone user there and you will automatically find every week a new store in which you shop that supports your phone. Cool doesn't it just feels like your phone has got a new feature. But in our countries ?! Nothing Although Apple's payment service has recently been supported in the UAE, most Arab countries are still waiting for this service.
They avoided the attack and that Android Pie and Samsung offered the same functionality. Yes, this is true. They support providing the same job, but they are not supported by the same global acceptance. In a statistic published 3 months ago, it said that 90% of Americans' payments from these services were Apple Pay, while the remaining 10% were Samsung, Google, and all other services. Imagine Apple controls 90% of the payments! And do you remember above, I mentioned that 25% had tried Apple Pay ... the number in the case of Android decreases to only 10%.
Of course, the numbers may not be accurate, but they do show us the prevalence and use of the feature
Your doctor is on the iPhone
The iPhone includes, for several years, a special medical system that began with adding medical information about yourself and reached the support of medical research laboratories. Where the system began with HealthKit and then evolved and Apple revealed ResearchKit, and with this, your doctor really became with you with virtual clock functions. The doctor can know your condition and when you are exposed to danger, as well as you can participate in research to develop treatment. Of course this article is not intended to introduce the feature, but we think the idea has been clarified. Now in our Arab world, most or all of this feature will be lost.
Smart home system
Apple is so interested in this feature that in iOS 11 it has an entire tab in the Control Center. The bottom line is that you control your home, appliances, lighting, cameras, and everything else with an iPhone. These advantages can work in our countries. All you have to do is buy the devices intended for it, but there is a problem. You will almost not find it easily, especially if you live in a country where you feel in danger of anything connected to anything else, whether Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. But in Europe and America you will find hundreds of companies and tens of thousands of products at very low prices.
Conclusion
If we assume, for example, that Apple adds 10 advantages every year to the iPhone and the iOS system, you will automatically find 5 of them or perhaps 7 advantages that are basically not directed at us. Of course, you remember sending money with Apple Pay and remember when Apple supports videos and channels like HBO, for example. Universities and medical research centers will not find any of them. Sometimes there are even car companies that launch support for the Carplay system in a certain model of cars and then provide it in some Arab markets without the feature "I am talking about Egypt specifically here", and also there are features in calling such as talking over Wi-Fi, voice mail or hourly call support. Recent Apple TV, and a lot of carrier offers to make it easier to buy Apple devices.
If you feel that the iPhone has become boring, do not be surprised, as we get half of the true advantages of the iPhone
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