The secret is out: Android and iPhone users have personality differences.
A new study from four different universities in the United Kingdom found that iPhone users differ from those with Android phones.
For example, as the site medicalnewstoday.com points out, iPhone users are nearly twice as likely to be female. iPhone users are also more worried about the social consequences of their phones, seeing it as a status symbol, whereas Android users don't care as much, according to the study.
iPhone users also have less interest in honesty and humility and are more emotional. They also tend to be more extroverted, according to the study.
Android users, meanwhile, are usually older males who don't care about their social status or wealth, according to the study. They tend to be more honest and have higher agreeability. They also don't often break the rules for self gain.
The study, which asked 500 participants about their attitudes and feelings toward their smartphones, used a computer test to find out which smartphone certain participants used. The system proved accurate "at above chance levels," according to the study.
Heather Shaw, co-lead author of the study, said this is the first time that researchers have discovered that one's phone may be a reflection of their own personality.
"It is becoming more and more apparent that smartphones are becoming a mini digital version of the user, and many of us don't like it when other people attempt to use our phones because it can reveal so much about us," said Shaw, as quoted by medicalnewstoday.com.
Hunch, an online recommendations search engine, analyzed data from more than 700,000 phone users to find a slew of differences between the two people, including the fact that iPhone users tend to be more optimistic, according to Slash Gear.
"Like a good novel, the results are both surprising and reassuring of your expectations — all at the same time!" Business Insider wrote about the results.
The phone users also have differences in what TV shows and movies they enjoy. For example, Android users prefer shows like "The Walking Dead" and "How I Met Your Mother," while iPhone owners watch "Planet Earth" and "Portlandia."
Android users also prefer Comedy Central, ESPN and the Discovery channel, compared to iPhone users who watch TV on Bravo, BBC and HBO.
Despite these differences, it seems there are more Android users than iPhone users throughout the world. Android controls 80.7 percent of the market share, with Apple phones earning just 17.7 of the market, according to research analyst Gartner. Together, the two phone brands account for 98.4 percent of the world's smartphone use.
Android's control reaches well beyond the United States. The product leads in the top five European markets — the U.K., Germany, France, Italy and Spain — as well as in major Chinese market areas, according to Venture Beat.
This could be because Android phones tend to have lower prices, Gartner's numbers reported.
"Low-cost smartphones in emerging markets, and strong demand for premium smartphones, continued to be the driving factors," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. "An aggressive pricing from local and Chinese brands in the midrange and entry-level segments of emerging markets led to consumers upgrading more quickly to affordable smartphones."
