7 ms·

Map the iPhone Users In Any City, And You Know Where the Rich Live

73 points by kumarski 13y ago

atto 13y ago
Cool pictures, but knowing about some of these cities, isn't this basically a population map? Obligatory xkcd: http://xkcd.com/1138/ http://xkcd.com/1138/ It seems to miss very wealthy areas that have a lower population.
- rayiner 13y ago
  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.
jackhammer2022 13y ago
Obligatory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy
smileysteve 13y ago
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)
- paul_f 13y ago
  Agreed. The Atlanta map destroys the hypothesis. The money is in the "green" norther suburbs.
- jcizzle 13y ago
  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.
- daigoba66 13y ago
  Yeah, the idea that this somehow maps to wealth is rather silly considering the data comes from geotagged tweets.
sswezey 13y ago
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.
- stephengillie 13y ago
  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).
  - bentcorner 13y ago
    I don't see Blackberrys at all - those are very likely Windows Phones (considering the proximity to Redmond).
  - clauretano 13y ago
    I'm not seeing it. It's a sea of red in downtown Seattle (and up into Lower Queen Anne i.e. where the Space Needle is). Yeah there's some purple in there but as it has been pointed out, surely those are Windows Phone devices. The neighborhoods south of downtown do appear to be majority Android, which does agree with the assertions of The Atlantic.
    - stephengillie 13y ago
      Where was it pointed out that these purple dots are likely Windows Phones? Maybe the shades of purple are too close for me to tell. Or maybe nobody uses Blackberrys anymore?
jack-r-abbit 13y ago
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. I'm not convinced there is anything useful here.
- sinnerswing 13y ago
  "Pew: Everyone Buys Android, Rich, Educated People Buy iPhones" http://www.wired.com/business/elsewhere/pew-everyone-buys-android-rich-educated-people-buy-iphones-20130606/ 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.html 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-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-cheap-not-because-its-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-better-educated-than-android-users-105032/ 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_iphone_users_to_be_in_a_class_by_themselves http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/06/12/new_study_shows_ip...
  - 13y ago
ianstallings 13y ago
I knew it! Bushwick and Broadway near the 24-7 Popeyes/Dunkin Donuts as I suspected.
superuser2 13y ago
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.
- ajross 13y ago
  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.
  - superuser2 13y ago
    >with limited plans I'm just pointing out that $2600 for an iPhone over 2 years (Verizon Share Everything, 2GB data) is only 8% more expensive than a "free" low-quality Android handset on the same plan ($2400). Limited and prepaid plans would explain the class difference. If it weren't for the shitty suburban/rural coverage, I'd strongly consider Nexus 4 on T-Mobile.
    - ajross 13y ago
      But again: the ability to amortize a big upfront payment over a two year contract is also a characteristic of "rich" consumers. Not everyone has $200 in the bank when they need a new phone. These people end up with Gingerbread handsets.
- Steko 13y ago
  "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.
hanspeide 13y ago
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?
- enf 13y ago
  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.
  - sswezey 13y ago
    And this right here invalidates the article's conclusion, the simple number of iPhone tweets overwhelms the Android tweets. The map just shows who is more chatty, versus actual income disparity. As a side note, I do find the map very interesting - it's just the article's conclusion that I'm not convinced of.
    - enf 13y ago
      But they don't overwhelm the Android tweets everywhere, only in some places. I agree that it is too big a leap to say that phone choice always indicates wealth, but I do think there is a connection.
    - pessimizer 13y ago
      No, it supports the article's conclusion. iPhones have far more tweets, yet are concentrated in high-income areas. Androids, with far less tweets, are nevertheless more widely and evenly spread in all areas - and dominant outside of wealthy areas. The point of the map isn't to show income disparity, it's to show the smartphone brand of tweeters. The fact that it incidentally does show income disparity is what's interesting.
  - samvj 13y ago
    You should double-check the compositing. It looks like the iPhone layer is being drawn directly on top of the Android layer. So there is a good chance that if you reverse the composting order, the map will light up green. The correct approach would be to decide a winner, or do some blending for every pixel on the map.
rorrr2 13y ago
This assumes that people mostly phone-tweet from their home, and not, let's say, from work or restaurants or clubs.
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago
  This assumes many things. Too many.
- paulhodge 13y ago
  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.
austinl 13y ago
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)
peapicker 13y ago
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.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago
  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.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - clauretano 13y ago
    The same applies at Microsoft (and the map shows it). Discounted and sometimes free Windows Phone hardware, and at one point the on-campus cell phone stores (all the major carriers) didn't sell iPhones. Sure many have an allegiance toward their employer, but people freely use iPhones and even MacBook Pros on campus.
nilsbunger 13y ago
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!
- pessimizer 13y ago
  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.
BigBalli 13y ago
this is stupid. 1) accuracy of data 2) having an iPhone ≠ being rich.
bnastic 13y ago
Ah, London... The City is all covered in Blackberries, as expected.
nostromo 13y ago
Super interesting. 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 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 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/11/327/791.png http://d.tiles.mapbox.com/v3/enf.android,enf.iphone/11/327/7...
- omni 13y ago
  Sure, but why let proper data visualization get in the way of link bait? 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/-74.2676 http://www.mapbox.com/labs/twitter-gnip/brands/#9/40.1358/-7...
everyone 13y ago
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.
quackerhacker 13y ago
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.
hawkharris 13y ago
The author presupposes that rich people buy more expensive things. Some rich people are rich because they are frugal consumers.
- mikeash 13y ago
  And yet, the iPhones show up in the wealthier areas just the same.
  - hawkharris 13y ago
    That's a correlation.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      Yes, and you seem to object to this correlation for some reason even though it's fairly clearly there.
  - hawkharris 13y ago
    See the comment thread above. The author didn't just present the data; she suggested that mobile phones are linked to socio-economic status.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      Yes, and "linked to" is just another way of saying "correlated". I don't understand why you seem to be OK with one term but not the other.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  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.
  - hawkharris 13y ago

73 points by kumarski 13y ago

atto 13y ago

Cool pictures, but knowing about some of these cities, isn't this basically a population map? Obligatory xkcd: http://xkcd.com/1138/ http://xkcd.com/1138/ It seems to miss very wealthy areas that have a lower population.

rayiner 13y ago
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.

jackhammer2022 13y ago

Obligatory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy

smileysteve 13y ago

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)

paul_f 13y ago
Agreed. The Atlanta map destroys the hypothesis. The money is in the "green" norther suburbs.
jcizzle 13y ago
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.
daigoba66 13y ago
Yeah, the idea that this somehow maps to wealth is rather silly considering the data comes from geotagged tweets.

sswezey 13y ago

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.

stephengillie 13y ago
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).
- bentcorner 13y ago
  I don't see Blackberrys at all - those are very likely Windows Phones (considering the proximity to Redmond).
- clauretano 13y ago
  I'm not seeing it. It's a sea of red in downtown Seattle (and up into Lower Queen Anne i.e. where the Space Needle is). Yeah there's some purple in there but as it has been pointed out, surely those are Windows Phone devices. The neighborhoods south of downtown do appear to be majority Android, which does agree with the assertions of The Atlantic.
  - stephengillie 13y ago
    Where was it pointed out that these purple dots are likely Windows Phones? Maybe the shades of purple are too close for me to tell. Or maybe nobody uses Blackberrys anymore?

jack-r-abbit 13y ago

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. I'm not convinced there is anything useful here.

sinnerswing 13y ago
"Pew: Everyone Buys Android, Rich, Educated People Buy iPhones" http://www.wired.com/business/elsewhere/pew-everyone-buys-android-rich-educated-people-buy-iphones-20130606/ 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.html 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-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-cheap-not-because-its-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-better-educated-than-android-users-105032/ 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_iphone_users_to_be_in_a_class_by_themselves http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/06/12/new_study_shows_ip...
- 13y ago

ianstallings 13y ago

I knew it! Bushwick and Broadway near the 24-7 Popeyes/Dunkin Donuts as I suspected.

superuser2 13y ago

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.

ajross 13y ago
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.
- superuser2 13y ago
  >with limited plans I'm just pointing out that $2600 for an iPhone over 2 years (Verizon Share Everything, 2GB data) is only 8% more expensive than a "free" low-quality Android handset on the same plan ($2400). Limited and prepaid plans would explain the class difference. If it weren't for the shitty suburban/rural coverage, I'd strongly consider Nexus 4 on T-Mobile.
  - ajross 13y ago
    But again: the ability to amortize a big upfront payment over a two year contract is also a characteristic of "rich" consumers. Not everyone has $200 in the bank when they need a new phone. These people end up with Gingerbread handsets.
Steko 13y ago
"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.

hanspeide 13y ago

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?

enf 13y ago
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.
- sswezey 13y ago
  And this right here invalidates the article's conclusion, the simple number of iPhone tweets overwhelms the Android tweets. The map just shows who is more chatty, versus actual income disparity. As a side note, I do find the map very interesting - it's just the article's conclusion that I'm not convinced of.
  - enf 13y ago
    But they don't overwhelm the Android tweets everywhere, only in some places. I agree that it is too big a leap to say that phone choice always indicates wealth, but I do think there is a connection.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    No, it supports the article's conclusion. iPhones have far more tweets, yet are concentrated in high-income areas. Androids, with far less tweets, are nevertheless more widely and evenly spread in all areas - and dominant outside of wealthy areas. The point of the map isn't to show income disparity, it's to show the smartphone brand of tweeters. The fact that it incidentally does show income disparity is what's interesting.
- samvj 13y ago
  You should double-check the compositing. It looks like the iPhone layer is being drawn directly on top of the Android layer. So there is a good chance that if you reverse the composting order, the map will light up green. The correct approach would be to decide a winner, or do some blending for every pixel on the map.

rorrr2 13y ago

This assumes that people mostly phone-tweet from their home, and not, let's say, from work or restaurants or clubs.

jack-r-abbit 13y ago
This assumes many things. Too many.
paulhodge 13y ago
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.

austinl 13y ago

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)

peapicker 13y ago

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.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jack-r-abbit 13y ago
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.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- clauretano 13y ago
  The same applies at Microsoft (and the map shows it). Discounted and sometimes free Windows Phone hardware, and at one point the on-campus cell phone stores (all the major carriers) didn't sell iPhones. Sure many have an allegiance toward their employer, but people freely use iPhones and even MacBook Pros on campus.

nilsbunger 13y ago

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!

pessimizer 13y ago
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.

BigBalli 13y ago

this is stupid. 1) accuracy of data 2) having an iPhone ≠ being rich.

bnastic 13y ago

Ah, London... The City is all covered in Blackberries, as expected.

nostromo 13y ago

Super interesting. 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 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 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/11/327/791.png http://d.tiles.mapbox.com/v3/enf.android,enf.iphone/11/327/7...

omni 13y ago
Sure, but why let proper data visualization get in the way of link bait? 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/-74.2676 http://www.mapbox.com/labs/twitter-gnip/brands/#9/40.1358/-7...

everyone 13y ago

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.

quackerhacker 13y ago

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.

hawkharris 13y ago

The author presupposes that rich people buy more expensive things. Some rich people are rich because they are frugal consumers.

mikeash 13y ago
And yet, the iPhones show up in the wealthier areas just the same.
- hawkharris 13y ago
  That's a correlation.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Yes, and you seem to object to this correlation for some reason even though it's fairly clearly there.
- hawkharris 13y ago
  See the comment thread above. The author didn't just present the data; she suggested that mobile phones are linked to socio-economic status.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Yes, and "linked to" is just another way of saying "correlated". I don't understand why you seem to be OK with one term but not the other.
pessimizer 13y ago
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.
- hawkharris 13y ago