Did We Get You? A Statistical Analysis of the Marketing Scheme of the “Apple Ecosystem”

December 5, 2025

By Kaiden Vo and Sabrina Roach

In the wild of the technological landscape, the Apple ecosystem reigns supreme. 

Colloquially, the term “Apple ecosystem” spawns the image of a student hard at work, surrounded by Apple products too numerous to name. Apple iPhones lead to Apple iPads lead to AirPods. It is a marketing scheme that has drifted into pop culture. Through a well-crafted campaign, Apple has made sure the consumer never stops at just one.

Yet, according to a survey of NYU students across the NYU New York campus, there is little correlation between Apple products; owning one Apple product is generally not related to owning another Apple product. 

So, is the “Apple ecosystem” an intentional marketing maneuver, or an accidental habitat? How does this growing technological forest impact the modern college student?

An Accidental Ecosystem

Heat map of the correlation between Apple products from the conducted survey

Our survey included a sample of 49 students, sampled around the Washington Square Park campus and within Marketing Society.  

In the conducted study, Apple products were overwhelmingly popular. 95% of the sample had iPhones; 83% had iPads; 80% of the sample had MacBooks. No individual surveyed owned zero Apple products.

The conducted survey yielded little correlation between products, using both a Fischer and Chi-squared test. The only significant correlation was between Apple TVs and Desktop Macs, and Apple iPads and Apple Pencils. 

Notably, there was no correlation between an iPhone and a MacBook. This speaks to the idea of an “accidental ecosystem:” both the iPhone and MacBook are independently popular, not jointly popular. Our findings suggest that the combined popularity of both devices are not an intentional marketing choice, but rather a consequence of multiple successful individual marketing schemes.

Courtesy of Statista  

Our data suggests that Apple may not necessarily have “brand loyalty,” but rather simple popularity. Apple continues to duel with Android, holding 48.7% of smartphone users in the U.S., according to Statista. The cellphone market is an increasingly lucrative subsection of the economy, as almost all Americans own a cellphone of some kind.

This sample of college students may have a greater-than-average consumption of Apple products due to their occupation. Additionally, the majors available at NYU and the relatively high percentage of NYU students from high-income families may lead to relatively greater Apple consumption than average. 

Yet, our study suggests that Apple is so successful that iPhones are not a product a buyer needs to be manipulated into buying; an Apple product is expected infrastructure. 

The Gen Z Movement

The results found in our study regarding the percentage of NYU students who own Apple products parallel a national survey in October 2025 by Piper Sandler. The survey found that 87% of Gen Z teenagers said they own an iPhone, falling close behind the 95% of NYU students surveyed who own an iPhone.

Apple’s domination of the Gen Z demographic is a huge competitive advantage and spawns the potential for targeted student marketing ads. Our survey shows evidence of this occurrence.

Courtesy of Miguel Hernández via Unsplash.com

Out of 12 students who opted to provide additional responses regarding discounts and deals on Apple products, five students spoke of utilizing student-specific deals. Student discounts and school-wide deals are hugely profitable for Apple due to its domination of the Gen Z demographic.

The NYU Bookstore sells Apple, Dell, and HP products, though it only provides student deals for Apple products. As an authorized Apple campus store, NYU offered two student deals during the fall 2025 semester: free AirPods 4 with the purchase of an iMac, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air; and a free Apple Pencil Pro with the purchase of an iPad Air or iPad Pro. 

Apple often also partners with elementary, middle, and high schools across the country. This dates back to as early as 2013, when Apple was awarded a $30 million contract with the second-largest school system in the U.S. to provide iPads to every student in the district. Throughout my own schooling, my school district in Illinois partnered with Apple, providing each student PK-12 with an iPad, and occasionally supplementing with a MacBook for necessary classes (i.e., coding, video editing, etc.)

Students arrive at college already embedded in Apple’s education pipeline, not because they are necessarily committing to an ecosystem, but because Apple has been structurally integrated into their learning environments for years. 

The overwhelming popularity of Apple in the educational sphere speaks not only to the domination of Apple in the general market and with younger demographics, but also the shifting educational landscape, where school districts largely rely on technology to teach students. 

A Shifting College Landscape

Apple marketing and college students agree: technology (and quite usually, Apple technology) is necessary to succeed in college.

According to a 2019 independent survey by Jamf, 40% of students who use Mac or PCs for educational purposes currently use a Mac. 71% of the same computer-using students use, or would prefer to use, Macs if upfront cost were not a factor.

Our 2025 NYU survey holds even more intense findings, with 80% of students using Macs (the percentage of students who use PCs was not surveyed). iPad usage was slightly greater than MacBook usage at 83%. 

Apple is certainly aware of the draw of iPads and MacBooks in higher education. An article by Apple in 2024 interviewed college students, who stressed the products’ abilities in the classrooms, notably interconnectedness between products, handwritten notes with iPads and Apple Pencils, and computing power and speed. The educational sphere is veering away from the simple pencil and paper, and Apple is at the forefront of this movement. 

Yet, many classes at NYU (depending on the professor's discretion) do not allow technological devices in the classroom. This is especially true in discussion-based classrooms, but this may also extend to lecture-based and workshop-based classes. Professors may even require the use of physical notebooks for note-taking.

Courtesy of Ofspace LLC via Unsplash.com

Colleges and college students are increasingly at odds with the role of technology (usually Apple devices) in the college sphere. A 2024 study by Brookings shows that during and after the COVID epidemic, classrooms at all levels were forced to quickly integrate technology. The slow integration of the digital age into the educational sphere turned into an all-out dash. With the emergence of AI, it is turning into a breakneck chase.

According to Campbell Academic Technology Services, citing a report by Campus Technology, “several surveys conducted in 2024 and 2025 revealed that a significant majority of students are using AI in their studies. A global survey by the Digital Education Council found that 86% of students use AI in their studies, with 54% using it weekly and nearly one in four using it daily.”

The NYU response, though multifaceted, seems hesitant about the new technological development. In an interview in September 2025, Clay Shirky, Vice Provost for AI and Technology in Education at NYU, spoke of the return of “blue books.” These are old-school, lined-paper exam booklets that require students to write their answers entirely by hand. 

Shirky stresses NYU should “go medieval.” Apple wants the future to be digital, with an Apple symbol on the back. College students like Apple products (individually), and the use of AI on Apple products within classrooms.

It’s a shifting ecosystem out there, but not necessarily the one you would expect. The “Apple ecosystem” may be less of an intentional marketing device and more of a cultural normalization, especially in the educational sphere.

There might be no need to “get you;” they may already have.