I don't get the status symbol thing nowadays. You can get an iPhone from any phone company for free with a new phone line or $15/month at the most.
My Z Fold 5 costs more and does a whole lot more than any iPhone out there so what is the status thing about?
The iPhone isn't a status symbol it's just the best mass market end user device available when it comes to mobile phones. It's completely standardized. It has a simplified consumer friendly OS and outside of the Lightning / Type-C divide all accessories work completely on all devices. The ecosystem is seamless and fully integrated.
People are lazy and stupid. Thy want a device that doesn't ask them to do much of anything and that's the iPhone. Your Samsung device from a UI and accessory level is an imitation of the iPhone. Even the latest earbuds from Samsung function and resemble AirPods. The latest premium watch looks like and rips off the Apple Watch Ultra. Apple pulls the power brick out of the box Samsung does too. Apple had a mobile wallet Samsung introduced one even taking the best features away from it (rewards and MST) so it's not basically the same thing. Samsung often mocked Apple for shyt they'd copy from them later.
I take out my iPhone and just about everything takes Apple Pay even websites in Safari. I pull out my Galaxy S24 Ultra and some stuff takes Samsung Pay, some stuff takes Google Pay some stuff takes neither. Two sets of apps for all the basic features 2 some times 3 different voice assistants. Apple is focused on providing a tight standardized unified eco system and Android phones are focused on giving users way more options than they asked for.
