All they say is that there's a (niche) trend of a few people using feature phones with expected combined sales of $2.8 million. Versus the $200 billions of iPhones alone.
I think it's a fad. The moment you need a certain app or feature these feature (-less) phones become frustrating quickly.
Take the idea of taking a break from your smartphone on a vacation. You end up without a camera, without a map, without public transport apps, contact-free payment, etc.
I think you'd be surprised how easy it is to live without any of those things, even in the modern world. Also, feature phones have cameras and some basic apps. They're not actually 80s cordless phones.
It's directly in the headline: Gen Z is ditching the iPhone. That's incorrect in two ways: A) it's at best one in fifty people buying aforementioned feature phones and B) they don't even know if all buyers replace their existing phone or buy it as an additional handset.
Yes, I could. But that allows the phone company to be lazy about coverage and building their network. The primary reason I pay a monthly cell phone bill is for a good network.
It also gets into security issues that are different from cellular network use.
And what if my internet is down and I have an emergency?
Just the other day I saw an article with the exact opposite headline about how Gen z is sticking with the iPhone. Now I don't know which one is full of shit; but it's obviously one of them.
I did it for 3 months. I really enjoyed my time doing it and learned a lot about my usage. It was a cheap $50 experiment. After I went back to my smartphone, I uninstalled ALL social media apps. Turned off ALL notifications but left calls and messages as an exception. My smartphone is now essentially a feature phone. It's not 100% the same since the big screen does lure you in to use it but my usage is still way down and because I don't have any social media there's no reason for me to be on my phone around other people. I wholeheartedly recommend trying it for those curious.
That reminded me how a local wanna-be influencer did a smartphone detox for a week, immediately after the completion she posted an FB story: Part 1 - Reflection, how eyeopening the experience was, how much time she suddenly had for the things that truly matter etc. Subscribe to not miss the Part 2!
For the past 10 years I never bought a phone for more than 300 euros.
I usually get a new phone every 3 years to have the latest tech and donate or recycle the old one.
For the last year I had an iPhone 13 pro (usually goes around 1100 euro) as a work phone and my personal Redmi Note 11 Pro I bought for 270 euros and not once I told myself: Man, this iphone is at least 3 times better than my Xiaomi. It's clearly a premium product but a middle category budget phone can match most features and even more. I still have a headphone jack, bigger 120 Hz screen, IR blaster and an amazing fingerprint sensor.