Members of the House of Representatives on both sides of the aisle favor Apple over other brands when it comes to smartphones, according to a new survey.
Fifty-eight percent of House legislators use iPhones, while 23 percent have BlackBerry phones — and just 4 percent use Android phones, according to a new survey by “Meet the Press.”
In total, 88 percent of representatives participated in the survey conducted earlier this month via phone calls and emails. Fifty-one members declined to participate or did not respond.
More House Republicans use iPhones than their Democrat counterparts — with 61 percent compared to 56 percent. For both sides, the number using Android phones remains 5 percent and below.
The survey findings may come as little surprise considering the latest developments in the smartphone market. Apple unveiled two new iPhone models last Friday, renewing the nationwide iPhone craze — the same day BlackBerry announced it was cutting 40 percent of its workforce after an almost $1 billion quarterly loss.
In general, the number of cell phone ownership is increasing, with 91 percent of American adults owning a cell phone. According to a Pew Internet research poll, while many cell phone functions such as texting and surfing the Web have remained the same, the use of more advanced features have increased, including video calling.
For the first time, the majority (56 percent) of American adults own smartphones, up 10 points from 2012.
More than half of adults are sending or receiving emails from their phone; 73 percent of those between 18 and 29 years old and 60 percent of adults between 30 and 49 are emailing from their cell phones.
Maeve Duggan, a research assistant at Pew, provided some insight into what trends to expect.
“Video calling will be interesting to watch as people get more acclimated to that type of communication,” she told FedScoop. “The progress of apps as well as more geospatial type activities on phones will be interesting.”
Duggan said the rise of these trends can be tied back to the growing popularity of smartphones.
