I don't see how this matches. Is owning an iPhone a symbol of being rich more than other smart phones? I know people that can easily afford an iPhone but don't have one. I know people that have an iPhone but probably should have paid their rent instead. My wife has an iPhone. We can also afford for me to have one. I choose Android instead.
It is also only geotagged tweets. I don't geotag my tweets. My wife doesn't use Twitter. So we're both completely out of this "study". It would be interesting to see stats on how many Android users geotag their tweets vs iPhone users. I believe there is a certain mental difference between iPhone users and Android users (not better or worse... just a different type of person) which could have a bias toward geotagging vs not.
Do the results take into account multiple tweets from the same person? One "rich" person with an iPhone that tweets 50 times a day is going to make a bigger mark on an area than 5 "poor" people with a Blackberry that might only tweet 1-2 times a day.
One of the nice things about statistics is that cases such as those you mention tend to cancel each other out. I always laugh inside when I hear people say they give the wrong answers on surveys just to mess them up; it doesn't seem to occur to them that people with opposite points of view do the same sort of thing, and they both end up in the noise floor.
How are the color pixels indicating device stacked in the map? If I only check Android I will see large green areas, but when I then check iPhone the same green areas will be red. Does that simply mean that there have been more iPhone than Android tweets in that particular spot?
I made the map tiles, but Tom did the UI and compositing, so I'm not sure how the layers are combined. There are more iPhone tweets than any other source, so they will tend to be the most visible if they are given equal priority.
Being from Atlanta, this maps is drastically incorrect as to our wealth distribution. The locations on I20 East and just above 285/75on the south side have distinctly the lowest incomes and most crime. (Though, there is an amphitheater at the south hotspot)
I'm not seeing the same thing. The big chunk of red on the south side of the city is the ATL airport. ("Checking in! #delta #hartsfield) Georgia Tech, Downtown, Midtown, VaHi, Morningside, Druid Hills, Buckhead, Brookhaven, Marietta, Lake Claire, west side of Decatur and the south end of Sandy Springs are the areas I see in red here. These are all wealthy areas. All along the northern perimeter - which is mostly just white-collar businesses, is mostly red tinted and all along the rest of the perimeter is green. Other than Hartsfield Jackson, there is a pretty solid cone of red emanating from downtown into the north. I would say this is 100% spot on with mapping wealth to iPhones, although, I am not sold on the numbers that generated the map.
Or you can tell where university students are. Checking Atlanta, GA, you can see where Spellman college and Georgia Tech are. Check Seattle, WA, and you can see very clearly where UW is.
Also, in Savannah, GA, you can look and you'll see a lot of iPhones in the "projects".
This is a neat project, but it's not as clearcut as the author is trying to make it out to be.
In Seattle, it's interesting to see Downtown a sea of Blackberrys surrounded by iPhones. More Blackberrys and iPhones in Bellevue. Like you said, UW is another cluster of iPhones and so is Seatac airport. But the rest of the area is Android.
Tacoma looks just like the surrounding region, despite being WA state's 2nd largest city (tied with Spokane).
It's not just a population map, because you're effectively looking at the relative usage of each platform in different geographical areas. If it were a map of just iPhone users and you went: "look, all the iPhone users are in rich Manhattan" then the XKCD comic would be relevant.
It looks to me like they are drawing the iPhone pixels on top of the Android pixels... so any location that would have both ends up showing iPhone only!
Yes, but their argument is that iPhones are concentrated in the enclaves of the rich i.e. less widely distributed than Android. The way that they presented the data is actually biased against their thesis.
Doesn't work in Denver. The richest area, Cherry Hills Village, has such massive houses on relatively massive lots that there are hardly any data points, and those that are there look like an even mix of iPhone and Android.
Looks more like people tweet while out and about during the day from the patterns I see in Denver.
Looking at Albuquerque, the biggest iPhone cluster is around the UNM campus, mostly students.
I love stats. I must say, that this is a very clever metadata scraping and analysis! I do have to point out that the purpose of a mobile device though is to be able to conduct work (or the basis of this article...a tweet) from anywhere, with that said, I don't think the geo location reflects where someone lives.
Side Note: I may own an iPhone, but my wallet doesn't agree with this title.
Chicago resident here - I think the map of Chicago is fairly accurate. It's also interesting to see a number of red dots along the blue line (part of Chicago's public transit system that runs from O'Hare to downtown)
Google doesn't force you to use an Android phone. They give you one if you want it. But they don't care if you have an iPhone. It doesn't work like that.
EDIT: the parent comment has been deleted but it indicated some surprise that the Google campus has such a high concentration of iPhones.
Interesting, what about the poeple who dont tweet or have a smartphone?
Also I reckon it is certainly not just income we are seeing in the ios vs android broad pattern. I would guess age and tech-savviness are a large factor in this divide aswell.
The author didn't presuppose anything; you're projecting. The author showed you maps of the tweets of iphone users and they were concentrated in relatively wealthy areas.
This is making an implicit assumption that iPhones are symbols of wealth where other smartphones are not.
The real cost of smartphone ownership is in the contract. The ~$100 savings you could get in buying an Android phone (not always there - when S3 was introduced, it cost the same as the iPhone - $200) doesn't mean much when you consider $100+/month over two years. There shouldn't be a real difference in the wealth of Android owners and iPhone owners.
Not everyone has a Galaxy S{2,3,4}. "Android" phones are pretty routinely available free-with-contract and with limited plans these days. This isn't mapping high end smartphone users with iPhone-equivalent handsets. It's showing you that Apple has nothing to sell into poorer demographics, but that those demographics still want smartphones.
"This is making an implicit assumption that iPhones are symbols of wealth "
It's hardly being assumed, he's comparing a map of usage with known wealthy areas and drawing that as a conclusion.
Further wealthy people can have and use things that are not symbols of wealth. They might prefer pepsi to coke moreso than the rest of the populace but that neither assumes or implies that pepsi is a symbol of wealth.
There's still a decent correlation between a restaurant's location and the wealth of its customers. People who live in Manhattan aren't typically going to go to a club in Newark or vice versa.
Anyway you can see on the map that tweets come from a huge number of locations; there's not that many restaurants and clubs.
[+] [-] nostromo|12 years ago|reply
However, iPhone appears to have been rendered last, obfuscating Android users.
Example:
iPhone only: http://d.tiles.mapbox.com/v3/enf.iphone/11/327/791.png
Android only: http://d.tiles.mapbox.com/v3/enf.android/11/327/791.png
iPhone and Android: http://d.tiles.mapbox.com/v3/enf.android,enf.iphone/11/327/7...
[+] [-] omni|12 years ago|reply
The original source, which I'm assuming you got your images from directly, is much more interesting: http://www.mapbox.com/labs/twitter-gnip/brands/#9/40.1358/-7...
[+] [-] jack-r-abbit|12 years ago|reply
It is also only geotagged tweets. I don't geotag my tweets. My wife doesn't use Twitter. So we're both completely out of this "study". It would be interesting to see stats on how many Android users geotag their tweets vs iPhone users. I believe there is a certain mental difference between iPhone users and Android users (not better or worse... just a different type of person) which could have a bias toward geotagging vs not.
Do the results take into account multiple tweets from the same person? One "rich" person with an iPhone that tweets 50 times a day is going to make a bigger mark on an area than 5 "poor" people with a Blackberry that might only tweet 1-2 times a day.
I'm not convinced there is anything useful here.
[+] [-] matt-attack|12 years ago|reply
Well there is indeed something here. The charts are clearly correlated with rich and poor areas (at least for cities I'm familiar with).
Now whether or not it's tied solely to iphone vs android remains to be seen. The results deserve some sort of explanation.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] everyone|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ekianjo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sinnerswing|12 years ago|reply
http://www.wired.com/business/elsewhere/pew-everyone-buys-an...
"Nielsen: Android users slightly less wealthy and less educated than iPhone users."
http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2010/iphone-vs-android...
"Report: Rich People Prefer iThings"
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/26/report-rich-people-prefer-i...
"Android Is Popular Because It's Cheap, Not Because It's Good"
http://gizmodo.com/5977625/android-is-popular-because-its-ch...
"RJI Mobile Media News Consumption Survey: iPhone users richer & better-educated than Android users"
http://www.androidauthority.com/are-iphone-users-richer-bett...
"Forrester: iPhone users are more educated and affluent"
http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/06/12/new_study_shows_ip...
[+] [-] hanspeide|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jackhammer2022|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smileysteve|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcizzle|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paul_f|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daigoba66|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sswezey|12 years ago|reply
Also, in Savannah, GA, you can look and you'll see a lot of iPhones in the "projects".
This is a neat project, but it's not as clearcut as the author is trying to make it out to be.
[+] [-] stephengillie|12 years ago|reply
Tacoma looks just like the surrounding region, despite being WA state's 2nd largest city (tied with Spokane).
[+] [-] atto|12 years ago|reply
It seems to miss very wealthy areas that have a lower population.
[+] [-] rayiner|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nilsbunger|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pessimizer|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peapicker|12 years ago|reply
Looks more like people tweet while out and about during the day from the patterns I see in Denver.
Looking at Albuquerque, the biggest iPhone cluster is around the UNM campus, mostly students.
[+] [-] quackerhacker|12 years ago|reply
Side Note: I may own an iPhone, but my wallet doesn't agree with this title.
[+] [-] austinl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jack-r-abbit|12 years ago|reply
EDIT: the parent comment has been deleted but it indicated some surprise that the Google campus has such a high concentration of iPhones.
[+] [-] ianstallings|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] everyone|12 years ago|reply
Also I reckon it is certainly not just income we are seeing in the ios vs android broad pattern. I would guess age and tech-savviness are a large factor in this divide aswell.
[+] [-] hawkharris|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pessimizer|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeash|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superuser2|12 years ago|reply
The real cost of smartphone ownership is in the contract. The ~$100 savings you could get in buying an Android phone (not always there - when S3 was introduced, it cost the same as the iPhone - $200) doesn't mean much when you consider $100+/month over two years. There shouldn't be a real difference in the wealth of Android owners and iPhone owners.
[+] [-] ajross|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Steko|12 years ago|reply
It's hardly being assumed, he's comparing a map of usage with known wealthy areas and drawing that as a conclusion.
Further wealthy people can have and use things that are not symbols of wealth. They might prefer pepsi to coke moreso than the rest of the populace but that neither assumes or implies that pepsi is a symbol of wealth.
[+] [-] bnastic|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BigBalli|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rorrr2|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulhodge|12 years ago|reply
Anyway you can see on the map that tweets come from a huge number of locations; there's not that many restaurants and clubs.
[+] [-] jack-r-abbit|12 years ago|reply