iSheep is a derogatory term used to refer to people who like all products and services distributed by Apple Inc. The term is usually applied online by Android fans in online tech forums and social media. The use of the term often comes out of a stereotype that Apple users and fans are less intelligent than Android users and/or tend to have less knowledge about technology in general.
iSheep was originally a SanDisk marketing description of users of iPod music player instead of SanDisk's own Sansa player.
The marketing term is borrowed by some in technology sites and Internet forums as an insult to a person or a group of people who are fans of all Apple products, especially those who tend to purchase products from the brand not regarding its actual value or functionality, but the brand name, logo and the status symbol associated with it.[1]
History
Origins
The term was introduced in May 2006 when SanDisk launched the "iDon’t" campaign to advertise the SanDisk Sansa.[2] iDon't calls on "free thinkers" to "break-free from restrictive formats and a single source for music," with slogans such as "You do not need to follow." The Campaign's site offered T-shirts, posters, and stickers featuring a monkey and asking, "Are you an iChimp?" Another image showed a sheep and says, "iSheep say Baah." while another showed a donkey trying to bite a carrot dangling in front of its face with the slogan "iFollow."[3][4][5]
The iSheep campaign was abandoned in July 2006, to give way to the "Lil'Monsta" mascot campaign.[6]
Meaning and use
A common defining characteristic of "iSheep" is the "entitlement to Apple products and self-declared superiority of Apple products in general, without objective evidence supporting the claim."
A common behavior of “iSheep” is labeling new features and capabilities of products of competitors (e.g. Galaxy S4 in 2013) as superfluous or feature creep and flooding online forums with their criticism, while labelling similar features on Apple devices as innovative,[7] which is a form of double standard. One example is the Galaxy S4's “dual camera” mode, which allowed capturing photos and videos from both cameras simultaneously, which was labelled “feature creep” by forum users.
In addition, Air View on the Galaxy S4 (released early 2013) was often mentioned in essay articles that labelled it as feature creep.[8][9]
Unlike “Air View”, the similar 3D touch feature on iPhones since 6s (late 2015) is not known to be repeatedly labelled as “feature creep” by critics. Despite the 6s having 3d touch, which android never directly had.
The term carries a lot of stereotypes, like "the same Apple iPhone users who earlier stated the slim build of Apple iPhones as a reason for purchase (e.g., iPhone 6, iPhone 6s), purchase the iPhone 11 despite of its 8.3mm thickness," which means that the thickness suddenly does not matter for iSheep when Apple made a mobile phone thicker than usual.
Other stereotypes include iSheep being full of beliefs with "cognitive dissonance, classism and toxic fandom."
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article ISheep, and is written by contributors.
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