"Manchester United’s apparently the most favoured footie team among the UK's teenage boys that don't actually live anywhere near Manchester."

there, fixed that for you...

Why do we care? They are online and can't resist peer pressure, whatever is advertised well and gaind momentum among peers wins. Witness iPod.

Paris, because she has no clue, so throwing money at a problem must be an iSolution.

- 10-12 year old kid with his mum

kid to mum: " So did apple decide to make computers because everyone likes iPhones".

I sh*t you not.

They may be the gadget buyers of tomorrow, but by the time they grow up and become adults i'm sure their opinion will change.

They like Sony Erricson because of the Walkman phones etc...I know...my sister is one of these types of teenager.

This doesn't really show anything, and I think certain companies like Sony (in terms of games consoles) target the older generations anyway, this was by default when they priced their PS3 at £450 launch price.

Now you've done it.

Some spotty oik will pick that up, reference it in a Wiki and then it'll become fact.

Hang your head in shame, you history changer!

"They are online and can't resist peer pressure, whatever is advertised well and gaind momentum among peers wins. Witness iPod."

Yeah, couldn't possibly have anything to do with the iPod being the best overall PMP, could it?

"Manchester United’s apparently the most favoured footie team among the people that don't actually live anywhere near the UK, let alone Manchester."

there, fixed that for you...

"Manchester United’s apparently the most favoured souless corporation posing as a football team amongst the people that don't actually have any interest in football as a competitive event but rather as a method of rich men wanging their wads at each other."

there, fixed that for you...AND I feel a bit better for it.

Its funny. I see adverts in places such as the bus that say "Please keep the volume on your MP3 player or IPod down to not disturb other passengers"

Since when was an IPOD not a MP3 player?

Its all about marketing. There are plenty cheap OEM MP3's that can do what these people want. But it has to be the over prices IPOD.

Some teens are very handy to have around when trying to make sense of a menu on the latest gadget you've bought. Once you've adminsitered enough tranquiliser to slow them down a bit they are rather good at pointing out all the stuff that's any use.

I remember seeing a documentary yeeeeeeears ago when mobiles were becoming the must-have item for teens. It was Nokia or nothing for them ! Personally speaking, I found the Nokia UI of that time to be tuned to perfection for accessing all the features you'd want as intuitively as possible.

Nowadays, lower-end Nokia's really are pants and there's little to differentiate them from all the others in the marketplace. SEs are soooo much friendlier and more intuitive to use. We've got about 7 or 8 mobiles of one sort of another in the house and I'd choose the SE over all the others in a flash. It's not exactly top-of-the-range, either; £30 PAYG out of Asda, but it can take photos and video and you can use it as a media player for MP3's and MP4 video. Oh, and it connects directly to your PC USB and acts as a memory stick - no crap Windows-only applications to download/upload piccies, etc.

"Yeah, couldn't possibly have anything to do with the iPod being the best overall PMP, could it?"

Actually, it couldn't. PMPs are commodity components jammed into a plastic case in the far east with some software. Technically products from Sansa, Creative etc are as good, with marginal differences in the user interface. The big difference is that Apple did a first class job of branding the iPod/iTunes link and selling the package. Teenagers are particularly susceptible to that kind of marketing and do tend to follow the crowd, without evaluating boring factors like value for money. That's not a criticism of Apple - with next to no technical differentiation, they found a way to capture the market.

The Nokias also manage nicely as USB sticks... I have no problems dragging and dropping files onto my Nokia. That said, the only thing it needs is the USB drivers for the Nokia in question, but you can download them from the Nokia site. Not the end of the world, really.

Look it up...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.

"Yeah, couldn't possibly have anything to do with the iPod being the best overall PMP, could it?"

iPod is an also-ran technically. Nothing wrong with them, but nothing special other than marketing. You can get same or better for less money by avoiding the marketing-driven group-think.

iPhones, OTOH do appear to be game-leaders, for now at least. Pity about the company in charge though. I rate Apple on par with Sony for anti-social corporate attitudes. (ex indi-Apple dev from the '90's, so bitterness towards the company is to be expected ;-).