The iPhone's popularity among teens continues to grow, according to new data gathered by investment firm Piper Jaffray for the fall edition of its semiannual U.S. teen survey.
78 percent of teens surveyed own an iPhone, up two percent from the spring 2017 survey conducted earlier this year. 82 percent of teens said their next smartphone will be an iPhone, the highest amount of interest ever noted in one of these surveys.
This jump in interest can perhaps be attributed to the 2017 iPhone lineup, which includes the iPhone X with an edge-to-edge display and a TrueDepth camera for facial recognition purposes.
Teen interest in the Apple Watch is also up, and 17 percent of teens surveyed said they plan to buy an Apple Watch in the next six months, up from 13 percent in spring 2017.
Piper Jaffray says the survey is a "positive point" on iPhone 8 demand and iPhone X demand, and increasing interested in the Apple Watch.
Apple Music also made an appearance in the survey, gaining share alongside Spotify and YouTube as teens move away from streaming services like Pandora.
On-demand music services like Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music (30%, 20%, and 17%) continue to gain market share among teens, as more traditional platforms and Pandora continue to lose share.
Piper Jaffray's fall 2017 teen survey covered 6,100 teens across 44 states in the United States with an average age of 15.9 years.
Apple's restrained artificial intelligence strategy may pay off in 2026 amid the arrival of a revamped Siri and concerns around the AI market "bubble" bursting, The Information argues.
The speculative report notes that Apple has taken a restrained approach with AI innovations compared with peers such as OpenAI, Google, and Meta, which are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in data...
Tuesday December 30, 2025 2:11 pm PST by Juli Clover
The Apple Fitness+ Instagram account today teased that the service has "big plans" for 2026. In a video, several Apple Fitness+ trainers are shown holding up newspapers with headlines related to Apple Fitness+.
What's Apple Fitness+ Planning for the New Year?
Something Big is Coming to Apple Fitness+
The Countdown Begins. Apple Fitness+ 2026 is Almost Here
2026 Plans Still Under ...
Monday December 29, 2025 10:55 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple is rumored to be introducing a foldable iPhone in September 2026, and since it will bring the biggest form factor change since the iPhone was introduced in 2007, curiosity about the design is high. A 3D designer created an iPhone Fold design based on rumors, and we printed it out to see how it compares to Apple's current iPhones.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Monday December 22, 2025 11:30 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple hasn't updated the Apple TV 4K since 2022, and 2025 was supposed to be the year that we got a refresh. There were rumors suggesting Apple would release the new Apple TV before the end of 2025, but it looks like that's not going to happen now.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said several times across 2024 and 2025 that Apple would...
Tuesday December 30, 2025 10:39 am PST by Juli Clover
iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max owners are having trouble with the speakers of their devices, and have complained about a static or hissing noise that occurs when the iPhone is charging.
There are multiple discussions about the issue on Reddit, the MacRumors forums, and Apple's Support Community, where affected users say there is a noticeable static noise "like an old radio." Some people report...
Tuesday December 23, 2025 8:36 am PST by Joe Rossignol
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another nine months, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we have recapped 12 features rumored for the iPhone 18 Pro models.
The same overall design is expected, with 6.3-inch and 6.9-inch display sizes, and a "plateau" housing three rear cameras
Under-screen Face ID
Front camera in...
Monday December 22, 2025 8:47 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Earlier this month, Apple released iOS 26.2, following more than a month of beta testing. It is a big update, with many new features and changes for iPhones.
iOS 26.2 adds a Liquid Glass slider for the Lock Screen's clock, offline lyrics in Apple Music, and more. Below, we have highlighted a total of eight new features.
Liquid Glass Slider on Lock Screen
A new slider in the Lock...
Samsung kicked off a new end-of-the-year sale this week, introducing great deals on monitors, TVs, Galaxy smartphones, and home appliances. Many of these deals are the exact same all-time low prices we tracked during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Samsung. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep ...
Are that many kids parents actually buying them new phones? I get handing your old iPhone down, but I have a hard time imagining that that many parents are willing to spend $1000 on a phone for their kid to check Facebook.
It's almost exclusively due to herd mentality -- people at that age especially want to fit in and not be missing out (making sure they have the same platform for iMessage, apps, etc).
I wish I had a phone at all when I was a teen. My parents never bought me a phone growing up and now that I'm an adult, I bought my mom an iPhone. Imagine that.
It's hard to believe these surveys that tell us X% of the population is switching to iPhone. If that were true, why does Android continue to take the biggest share of the mobile market?
Survey is to U.S. Teens only. There's an awful lot of NON U.S. Teens in the world, and an awful lot of people in the world living OUTSIDE the U.S.
Stats like "own an iPhone" is likely counting plenty of old, ancient, hand-me-down iPhones (as many posts in this thread support too). Owning an iPhone 4, 5, 6, 7 doesn't show up as new sales in market share measurements in the present. In other words, the market share reports are generally measuring & comparing present sales (over the last quarter or maybe over the last year), not counting old unit sales too (even those in use). I bet if they asked the same group of teens if they own an iPod, the percentage that own one would also be very large... and Apple quit selling them how long ago?
Not long ago, Apple themselves announced that they had sold their 1 billionth iPhone. Does that mean that 1 billion people in the world own an iPhone? No. How many iPhones have you owned? Each of those count. How many people around here have bought an iPhone every other year in the last 10? Every year? How many old iPhones in that tally are retired to a drawer? Or dumped into a landfill? Or long-since recycled? Spin can sound good. Dig deeper.
This survey is conducted by a firm that is a consistent Apple Fan. Can we really trust that it is an unbiased & objective survey? Survey- say- only Republicans about what they think of the Democratic platform and the numbers being against will be dramatic. Extrapolate that out to be able to imply that almost all Americans are against Democratic party ideals. Do the same with passionate Democrats and see the opposite outcome. Extrapolate that out to almost all Americans and apparently all Americans are against Republican ideals. Survey Pepsi people about Coke. Or Coke people about Pepsi. Survey Apple People about Windows and then Windows people about Apple. Magically, targeted (biased) surveys can yield impressive results to support a desired outcome or message. Note: I'm no insider at Piper, so this could be a completely unbiased survey, but Piper really pushes Apple (AAPL)- when have you ever seen a bearish call on AAPL by Piper? Can they do a survey that is unbiased when they are such fans (and consistency pushing the stock)?
This survey asked kids averaging 16 years old what do they have and what do they want. Odds are high that if any of them are getting new iPhones, it's parents buying them for them. When one is not actually having to earn the money to buy that something they say they want, it's pretty easy to wish for all kinds of stuff that you may never actually buy. For example, survey a bunch of young guys about what car they want and some will probably want a Lambo. Extrapolate that out and you can report that some surprisingly high percentage of all American young men want a Lambo. Then check back in 5 or 10 years later with them and see how many actually bought one.
Price can override wishing & hoping (with no money). If the 'rents give Junior/Juniette an Android instead, does the kid reject a new cell phone or maybe whine a little and then roll with it? Think back to when you were 16 and asked your parents for bigger (cost) things- maybe new car. Did they buy you the car you wanted? Latest & greatest new? Or did you maybe get some other, lessor & used car? Did you reject a car because you only wanted the specific one you coveted? Or did you take the one they purchased for you (because you probably were not out making the money to buy the one you longed for).
Lastly, Android is the OS driving all kinds of phones. iOS is exclusive to just a few models. That market share "war"(?) is long since lost, just as the computing OS share was dramatically lost when Microsoft licensed Windows to everyone while Apple opted to keep it's OS exclusively to it's own computer line. There's tons of phones (and computers) priced far below Apple products running Android (and Windows). Price rules for many, many consumers, here in the U.S. and with the approx. >95% of the people NOT living in the U.S. (and thus not counted in this survey).
Are that many kids parents actually buying them new phones? I get handing your old iPhone down, but I have a hard time imagining that that many parents are willing to spend $1000 on a phone for their kid to check Facebook.
Mine got a hand me down for her first one, and iPhone 4. She then got a 5S (she paid for the phone, I covered the plan) and later and SE. No way I'm handing a teenager a $1k phone. She broke the screen on the 5S and had to live with it until it was paid off. She learned her lesson on the 5S and now has insurance on the SE.
