Social Lock-In
Apple flourishes as a company—it's the most valuable corporation in the world, as of 2023—in part because of its walled-garden approach to building things.
Its devices are largely interoperable with the rest of the tech ecosystem, but important components of its hardware and software offerings work best with each other, their functionality diminished when connected to non-Apple devices and apps.
One of the more subtle but increasingly meaningful (to some people, at least) manifestations of this partition is the blue-versus-green bubble divide in Apple's text messaging app, iMessage.
It's a subtle distinction if you're not looking for it, but messages from folks who have iPhones show up in blue text bubbles in this app—which is the default text massaging app on Apple devices—while texts from folks using Android or other devices show up in green bubbles.
On a practical level this visual cue indicates the person with the non-Apple device won't be able to interact with you, an Apple device user, the same way a fellow Apple device user will be able interact, because they don't have the same iMessage-granted texting powers.
This color differentiation is a useful component of the iMessage user-interface, then, but it's also become something of a social class marker, as it tells everyone who in the chat doesn't have an Apple device, and Apple devices tend to be more expensive (and in some contexts and cultures at least, perceptually high-class) than their Android-based kin.
This perception is far from universal, and there are plenty of Android devices that rival or surpass Apple's offerings in terms of the heft of their price tag, quality of their hardware components, polish of their apps, and so on.
But because iPhones are by far the most popular choice amongst young people in the US—nearly 90% of US teens own an iPhone, compared to around half of all US smartphone owners—having the “right” phone has become a big deal in some social circles, the green bubble perceived to be an indicator of lower-tier wealth and prestige, and also serving as a bit of a drag on the conversation as all those additional iMessage-granted powers typically enjoyed by iPhone users can’t be utilized in a green-bubble-laden chat.
This is an especially pernicious issue in group chats where all users lose those extra features—including contact sharing options, animations, and stickers—if just one person on the chat doesn't have an Apple device.
Thus, the fear of social exclusion, of being left out of a chat because the other participants don't want to be dragged into an inferior chat experience, has become a real thing within some (especially American teenage) circles, and is serving as an additional pressure to get the “right” device if you don’t want to be excluded by your friend group.
Some reports suggest Apple knows what they’re doing in amplifying these social pressures amongst the youths, and is intentionally increasing the distinction between their walled-garden experience and that of not-yet-iPhone-owners stuck on the outside, looking in.
None of which is a novel thing, as brands in all product categories have long gone out of their way to positively distinguish the experience and vibe of their brand from those of their competitors.
But this effort by Apple is especially poignant because of the role texting (an otherwise brand-neutral technology and activity) plays in society, and because of the cultural resonance texting norms have within contemporary youth culture, in particular.