iPhones: A Result of Cascades
There are so many ways that our network and the information we get through that network influences us. We make decisions based on what other people think and do. (Every morning I look out my window to asses if I should wear a jacket or not based on what other people are wearing!) Most, if not all, of our decisions our based on the actions or information given by other people.
Adapting the mobile phone: The iPhone and its consumption, a paper written by Goggin Gerard, discusses the widespread adaptation of the iPhone. In any classroom at Cornell if you ask everyone the brand of their phone, it is most likely that there will be a majority of students owning some version of an iPhone. This simple behavior, of owning an iPhone, can be described by several concept learnt in class including crowd behavior and network effects. If you ask most iPhone users why they would not change their phone to a Samsung or an Android (which have technology comparable to the iPhone) is because most of the people they interact with have an iPhone. iPhone to iPhone communication has many features, including free messaging (iMessage), and easy video call (FaceTime), compared to iPhone to any other smartphone one would have to pay or install third party applications to avail similar features. This behavior, of continuing to own an iPhone, is not solely based on ones preference, but is also influenced by the people one interacts with.
The next question to think about is that are the network effects strong enough to make everyone adopt iPhones? What limitations (such as price, and need for cellphone) exist?
http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~tkennedy/COMM/Goggin2009.pdf