USA Divided On Smartphone Preferences: Android vs. iPhone

If you think that USA can be only "evaluated" by a division on republicans, democrats and/or independents - you are wrong.

Politics, specifically - the conflicts and disagreements between the members of GOP and democrats - might be one of the most important things on the minds of the Americans right now, but it's the phone service that could, sometimes, ruin an important moment - like an ability to timely respond to a very controversial Facebook remark. Which - in the case of the smartphones - could be avoided.

The disagreement and imbalance of smartphones' ownership does interest tech geeks. In particular - the number of the 'electoral voters' that Androids and iPhones have against each other.

According to the virtual US map created by mobile ad firm JumpTap, the country is divided into states dominated by Google and those by Apple, as well as some states still quite loyal to BlackBerry (I know a few of those in Washington, DC as well.)

The map shows that states with more than a typical number of Android users are shown in yellow, while those with more than typical iPhone usage are shown in blue. Though not on the map, Hawaii is an iPhone state, while Alaska has more of both Android-based phones and iPhones than the typical state. New York was among the states leaning BlackBerry. The last finding was rather surprising for me. Per my humble observation, I see more New Yorkers using an iPhone and/or Android, but less of a BlackBerry.

Android is particularly popular in California, Texas and Florida, which have a lot of electoral votes, so those might be places where Apple needs to do some campaigning.

Sorry, Blackberry, but according to Business Insider, Blackberries would never achieve the same wide popularity as Androids and iPhone have. This is what to expect in the near future:

• Most survey participants are planning to upgrade to a new smartphone in the next year or two.

• Most participants say they will upgrade to the "latest, greatest" smartphone, not an older, cheaper one.

• Most survey participants are NOT planning to switch platforms when they upgrade

• Most participants say "features" and "platform" are the most important factors when choosing a smartphone. App selection is also important, but not as important as most people think.

• Most iPhone owners say they would buy an Android phone if there was an Android phone that was better in most key ways than an iPhone. This suggests the iPhone's feature lead still matters. It also suggests that the Apple platform does not have the "lock-in" that many Apple bulls believe. It also increases the pressure on the iPhone 5 to be a humdinger of an upgrade.

• Most Android users say they won't consider buying an iPhone because they "hate Apple."  (We'll explore why in a future survey).

• Most of the rest of Android users say they would consider buying an iPhone if iPhones worked better with non-Apple products.  This highlights the risk of Apple's closed system.

• Most iPhone owners already have the iPhone 4.

• Most iPhone owners are still planning to upgrade to the iPhone 5.

• Almost no participants are planning to buy a BlackBerry, a Windows Phone 7 phone, or Palm.

It's rather amusing how brutal the war between Android and iPhone smartphones is on the Internet. Pages and pages of the material - plus all sort of funny and 'sexist' images - talk about one's advantages over the other. And they all make a very valid point and sense.

Which one do you use, and why?