My hypothesis is that phones are inherently personal and personalisable: it’s our photo on the lock screen and our text messages in the app.

Whereas most people don’t even consider attempting to personalise their couch or their car, so the desire for personalisation is satisfied by having a wide variety of options and colours prior to purchase. And also by having styles rapidly evolve so that many “trendy” and “anti-trendy” options are available at the time of purchase.

Interesting. Judging by the number of "skinnable" computer and phone apps, a lot of people seem to really care about this kind of personalisation. I have never so much as changed the default background on a phone that I've owned. I think I changed the background on my first Windows computer, decades ago, but not since.

I wonder how many are like me.

I'm like you.

it's a utility. i don't customize anything that doesn't relate to ergonomics and efficiency.

and some people just want to tune and tweak: look at car modding, bumper stickers, etc

What do you think Phone Cases are for? People love phone cases because it gives their devices a bit uniqueness. AirPods also have cases. Other than that for Obvious Reasons Phones all look similar. The shape of your phone is not self expression. However i would hazard a guess if you look into the phone on the home screen you will not find two alike.

YMMV obviously but when I see someone using a phone case it's usually one of those thick rubbery protective ones, or one of those with a flap over the screen that also holds credit cards and IDs. There is a clear utilitarian case for phone cases. Pun unintended.

Laptop stickers, too; I only entered circles where Macs were popular in about 2012 and it became apparent you should personalize it a bit else it gets lost in the other three dozen macbooks in the vicinity, especially at hackathons / conferences / etc.

This is in a thread about them having to be beautiful and modern. "Modernity" seems to boil down to actually being a bit afraid that your AirPods could have a near-monogamous relationship with you, and that this would mean that you're falling behind.

Monotony and monoculture is not beautiful in some people's opinions. It seems that part of the definition of beauty is exception.

You don't stare at your AirPods, they don't create the room vibe, whereas, arguably, the furniture does, along with the lighting.

iPhones and speakers (headsets, earsets) are accessories, furniture is more permanent (unless it’s near-disposable). You don’t typically update furniture every two to three years (with exception for people who like to show off their wealth and remodel every four years).

Back in the 1990s, it seemed literally like every other person had that Ikea bentwood rocking chair. So I relate to your point. Ikeas poor-sellers remain obscure though.

People often place their home in a different category than computer accessories.

And even in your example people spend a lot of time picking out cases or decorations for those items.

Because iPhone/AirPods are a wealth and fashion signifier. IKEA is a flat-pack THX-1138.

Fight Club summarised it beautifully two decades ago:

“- Like so many others, I had become a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct.

Narrator: Uh, yes. I’d like to order the Erica Pekkary dust ruffles.

Operator: Please hold.

- If I saw something clever like a little coffee table in the shape of a yin-yang, I had to have it. The Klipske personal office unit, the Hovetrekke home exer-bike, or the Johannshamn sofa with the Strinne green stripe pattern. Even the Rizlampa wire lamps of environmentally friendly unbleached paper. I’d flip through catalogs and wonder: What kind of dining set defines me as a person? I had it all. Even the glass dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections. Proof that they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of…

Operator: Please hold.

Narrator: Wherever. I was holding.

- We used to read pornography. Now it was the Horchow collection.”

A couch is something I've shared with my loved ones, old and new, watching TV, chatting together, crying together, having real memories over time. A dinner table, same factor: life is punctuated by the scratches and tears that accrue.

Besides that, it's not about having a monogamous relationship with a material object.

It's about mono-culture, as a whole, being somewhat detestable. If you travel through your life, change cities, change countries, change cultures, learn new languages, you might have an easier time understanding this.

Variety is the spice of life. Seeing the same bland furniture across the globe, not so much.

rooms are way different that phones tho

it's called personal style

I probably don't understand what "fashionable" means, but I've always suspected that in order to be fashionable you have to give up your dignity and, ironically, your individuality.

It's like that (probably apocryphal) hipster story that was doing the rounds on the interwebs a few years ago. Angry with someone for having used an image of him to describe the stereotypical hipster. Only to then find out it wasn't a picture of him, he did look like the stereotype of a hipster and that there was nothing unique or individual about being like all the other affected "unique and individual".

What a horrific idea: to expend effort to stand out just for the sake of standing out. How does one end up there without first having lost a big chunk of individuality?

isn't that silly? unless you're building your furniture from scratch yourself, you're never ahead

Exactly the point: fashion is /meant/ to be unobtainable.