Gen Z Android owners are frequently mocked for not having an iPhone

It's an age-old debate that's existed ever since Android released its first phone in 2008, a year following the release of the first iPhone: Which is better, Android or iPhone?

But why can't the two phone types live in harmony? Why must there be such conflict?

If you're an Android owner, you'll have no doubt faced a few rounds of teasing from iPhone users who all use blue chats to freely communicate in large groups over WiFi.

However, if you're an iPhone user, you've also probably faced the snarky chuckles of an Android owner when you've been left with no battery and can't just grab any random cable from any other device to give your phone a quick boost.

Nothing says Gen Z like a bit of to-ing and fro-ing between Android and iPhone users, but Android owners have had enough of being mocked and are speaking out.

According to new data collected by adtech data platform Attain, people born after 1996 are really feeling the pressure to use an iPhone.

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Attain discovered 34 percent of all iPhone users in the US are Gen Zs compared to only 10 percent of Gen Z's being Samsung users - the Gen Z age bracket making up around a quarter of people in the world as per True List.

Without the ability to iMessage, Android users can end up completely ostracised from chats altogether according to Gen Z historian Kahlil Greene, as per The Financial Times.

Surprise, surprise, there's even a trend on TikTok poking fun at the green messages, users joking they would rate a date lower if they found out they were an Android-user opposed to iPhone.

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Chief executive of men's grooming business Frontman, Annelise Hillman - who is herself, a Gen Z-er - explains: "A green message - anyone with an Android - throws off the entire chat, because now the whole thing has to be SMS.

"So the social pressure to get an iPhone is pretty insane."

One Android user told Business Insider: "There's a separation factor because my friends often say they have to make a separate group chat with me included since I'm the only one who uses Android. I end up learning about a lot of plans in face-to-face conversations rather than text."

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"Having any Apple product seems to be considered a luxury, and I don't really understand that. People would come to me asking why I don't have an iPhone and making rude comments about my Samsung, but it does everything their phone does," another said.

A third doesn't take the Apple - Android rivalry too seriously and doesn't feel any pressure 'at all'.

However, a final resolved: "Even if Androids are the better phone, that stigma would never make me get one."

The situation is similar in Europe too, with 83 percent of Apple users under the age of 25 planning on keeping using iPhones according to market intelligence group Canalys.

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And it looks like you're just going to have to get used to the pressure, or bow down and become Apple obsessed, because with an increase in iPhone users comes a pretty much guaranteed increase in other Apple products too, according to Credit Suisse analyst Shannon Cross.

Cross predicts: "The strength of the Apple ecosystem creates a moat that is fairly impenetrable by the competition. It really makes it hard to change the trajectory.

"Apple is just going to continue to gain share over time."