Mirror selfies are a Tinder staple. Throwing a bathroom pic in between a tasteful portrait mode shot and a group candid gives lonely hopefuls the chance to curate their best angles and show off just how chill they are in one fell swoop. Thus, whether we realize it or not, our phones are often the stars of our dating app profiles. As potential matches make judgements based on our clothes, bodies, and bios, this reality begs the question: can the type of phone we own make people more or less likely to swipe right?

I am deeply sorry to report this, but yes. Android owners may still be able to download Fortnite, but they’re getting fewer dates than iPhone users according to new study by UK consumer review site CompareMyMobile. The experiment, spawned by a prior study that decided young people cared more about someone’s phone brand than their car, tallied 50,000 swipes in 15 different cities on sets of fake dating profiles that were identical except for the brand of tech on display, with phone-less profile as a control. 

đź’Ž Data Digs

Only Apple and Samsung products had a positive result on swipe rates. People consistently swiped higher on Apple products. Users with iPhone visible in their profiles were 76% more likely to get a swipe, with Apple Watch and EarPods users close behind, bragging 61% and 41% swipe bumps. Samsung Galaxies helped users out with a modest 19% swipe rate boost. 

Meanwhile, snobby swipers showed significant prejudice against those with Google brand phones on display, which reliably dropped users’ swipe rates by 10%. Huawei and OnePlus owners displaying their gear were 23% and 30% less swipeable, respectively. Swipers would barely consider those showing off a Blackberry in their pictures: profiles featuring Blackberrys saw 76% fewer swipes than the control profiles.

Tech brand

% change in swipes 

iPhone

+76%

Apple Watch

+61%

AirPods

+41%

Samsung

+19%

Google (Android, Pixel)

-10%

Sony

-14%

Huawei

-23%

OnePlus

-30%

Blackberry

-74%

Source: CompareMyMobile

Women were shown to be significantly more judgmental about tech (Call us superficial, but I blame the propensity of guys who hold up fish in their Tinder profiles to own Androids). Girls swiped differently between 50-70% of the time based on the brand. Women in their early thirties were the pickiest, while those just a few years younger, between 26-30, took less notice. Men were influenced between 1-18% of the time. Dudes over 45 barely noticed, while 18-year-olds cared the most.

Naturally, New York City and London were the most pretentious cities, where tech had the most significant impact on swiping. You might think a guy showing off his AirPods on Hinge is a red flag, but in the city that never sleeps, they had the largest positive influence on people’s swipes, while in London, single Brits were hot for the iPhone 11. The techies and hippies of San Francisco, the third pickiest city, preferred the Apple Watch. It makes sense that three of the world’s most expensive cities to live in, are home to people who want their dates to own the latest high-end products.

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Whether you’re in the market for a hook-up or a few stock shares, Apple’s dominance isn’t going away anytime soon, especially after Trump’s ramped up sanctions on Huawei, “choking” the company’s supply chain. Smartphone brands will need to command cultural clout and produce stellar products, if they’re hoping to compete with Apple in America.