White iPhone 4 Vs Black iPhone 4: Is It a Gender Thing?

When any technology gadget has two colors one of the first questions that is always asked: "Is one color for men and the other for women?" The simple answer when it comes to the white iPhone 4 vs. the Black iPhone 4 is NO. In fact, many discussion boards and websites have looked in to this very thing. Although there is no hard evidence coming from Apple it seems that iPhone color is chosen more based on individual taste than gender specific guidelines.

There was a questionnaire on Macforum.com that asked iPhone users to state what color iPhone they have and what their gender was. The questionnaire had some surprising results.

• Male with Black iPhone: 106 people or 53.54%
• Male with White iPhone: 72 people or 36.36%
• Female with Black iPhone: 10 people or 5.05%
• Female with White iPhone: 10 people or 5.05%

Although this survey is not scientific by any means, it does give us some insight. Men were more likely to have a black iPhone than a white iPhone but women were just as likely to have either (although this is from a significantly smaller sample size). Surveys on other websites returned much the same results but in most cases even women chose the black iPhone over the white iPhone. When asked which color iPhone 4 do you want the results were still consistent.

The bottom line is that both men and women actually prefer the black iPhone the white. With the iPhone 3G and 3Gs both white and black models were offered and the black constantly out sold the white. The same is true for Google searches when a new iPhone is going to be released. Early on, when both the black and white iPhone 4s were going to be released, average monthly Google searches for black iPhone 4 far outpaced that for white iPhone 4. Black iPhone 4 had 2,900 searches while the white iPhone 4 had 10% of that at 260. Across the board, both male and female, black iPhones are more popular than their white brethren. The fact that seems to get lost most is that these are white and black iPhones not pink and black iPhones. If that were the case there would probably be a much more pronounced gender preference.
When multiple people were asked which color iPhone they wanted the answers were never uniform based on gender:

"I'm going to get the white iPhone 4 because it has a clean look to it and I hear finger smudges won't show up as much." -Trent Pirillo

"I like the black iPhone 4 for its slick design. The chrome looks much better on black than it does on white." -Julie Hodge

"I have the black one because it is already out and I don't have to wait for it. I don't care about the color because I put a cover on my iPhone anyways." -Paul Bowman

It is hard to tell whether the iPhone color is a gender thing. From interviews and online surveys it does not seem that gender has anything to do with the color iPhone that a person picks. What is very apparent is that the majority of people like the black iPhone over the white iPhone. When "The White" does finally come out it would be interesting for Apple to release gender specific statistics. Give a choice which would you choose?