“I was extremely worried about downgrading to a phone from four years ago, but it turns out I’m totally fine (…)”
Whenever I read stuff like this I really wonder who these people are. Are you using your phone to host your billion dollar AI startup? To fold enzymes in real time so you can finally put an end to some disease? What do you worry about (extremely!) when you consider an older phone?
I think the iPhone's video stabilisation/quality had a solid jump in the last few iterations and I wouldn't want to revert from that. I mostly upgrade for the camera functionality.
I don't get it either. The "upgrade every two years" cadence is just pure marketing nonsense at this point when it comes to iOS devices. Given long software support lifespans and battery replacements every few years, you can comfortably hold onto an iOS device for 4 to 7 years after initial release.
This year I upgraded my Pixel 2 to a Pixel 5a. Had the Pixel 2 for five years. The upgrade to platform that was four years ahead was great, and only cost $150.
Given this internet connected device stopped receiving security updates in 2020, this seems like a poor decision. Security updates for the 5A are expected to stop next year.
Please buy a device that receives security updates.
Battery life, RAM size, and size and weight.
I used to use an XR, it is okay in terms of battery life, but it is very unpleasant to hold in hand.
Then I switched to the 12 mini, it is nice to hold, but the battery life it much worse than several later generations, it is okay for COVID life, but not much for a regular life.
The battery life won't be an issue if you are using a Pro Max phone, and Pro series will feel better than using a non-Pro one (iPhone Xs vs Xr), but I believe if you are using a later generation, you won't want to go back to those two.
I love the camera on newer ones. Otherwise, not much of an advantage for me - battery life is still one day, storage space can be extended on older with cards... ah and newer ones are always bulkier so that's actually a step backwards. But still I'll take them for the camera (maybe I need a better solution here).
Also, that very phone was once a daily driver that people excited to upgrade to! Phones have gotten incrementally better since then but haven't seen a revolutionary jump in a while. The only sacrifice you might have to live with is slightly worse pictures.
My iPhone 6s is still working fine after 7th year birthday. It had under warranty battery + screen replacement at the end of 2nd Year, followed by a battery swap at 4th year. Around 2% pixels are dead, but the phone still works as expected. It has 4G, so data speed is also not an issue. No lag whatsoever. All my apps continue to work. I have come across only ONE generative-image app, which failed to install claiming need iOS 16+.
Now I am actively waiting for this hardware to FAIL so I can justify myself buying a latest model. :)
IIRC only version 15 has USB-C support, so you're missing being able to charge (... without having to carry around a separate charger that is incompatible with everything else out there. And you'll need to take a charger with you everywhere as the battery on a 3 or 4 year old phone is probably at or close to 1000 cycles)
You’d think people carried around half a dozen devices and charging cables were like hose pipes the way people complain about carrying them. An extra cable in a bag is not a real problem anyone really has. I’m guessing 99% of people charge their phone at night and that charger rarely moves from its position.
It’s been an irritating problem for me when I travel. I always either have too many cables, or somehow missed the one I need. On the device set I bring, I have 5 different types of cables.
Anker makes some nice cables with adapters built in, which helps. They don’t handle high power draw though (laptop, power bank).
When I'm traveling I don't want to carry around multiple cables when I don't have to. I've been using Android for years because I can travel with a single charging brick, a single usb-c male to male cable, and I can charge everything: my phone, my laptop, my battery bank, and I can use the same cable to charge between those devices too. It's bliss.
> An extra cable in a bag is not a real problem anyone really has.
It is. It's another thing I need to keep in mind when packing up when I frequently travel, it's a liability when it gets lost or damaged because then I'll have to go looking around for a store which stocks Lightning cables, and it's an issue when I'm visiting someone and need to juice up, and he/she doesn't have the cable with them. If I do get a replacement, I have to make sure I'm not being ripped off because the high price of a Lightning charger makes it very appealing to fraudsters selling duplicate shit online or in stores.
The old connector and USB-C are both ubiquitous enough that even if I end up somehow in a remote village, I'll find someone a walk or drive away with a reasonably working charger for sale.
> You’d think people carried around half a dozen devices and charging cables were like hose pipes the way people complain about carrying them. An extra cable in a bag is not a real problem anyone really has
It's probably a real problem if you're bothered by the frequency of complaints about it.
I have a Sony made cable which supports both Lightning and MicroUSB, and it's MFI certified. I carry an Spigen combo 48W USB-C/USB-A charger, said cable and a 2M USB-C cable, and I can charge every electronic thing I have on me on any trip.
Yes, Having all USB-C is nice, but a USB-C iPhone won't change anything for me, since I need to have a MicroUSB cable with me, anyway.
You don’t even need a separate cable! Every iPhone released in the past six years, including the iPhone 11 Pro Max, has supported wireless charging using the same standard Qi protocol that other phones use to charge.
People complaining about carrying around an extra (small, lightweight) cable are definitely not traveling with the hockey puck you need for Qi charging. Size and weight matters when traveling, and Qi chargers simply never get near the travel bags. Multiple 12 inch cables are far superior (space/weight wise)
It was just a cable long before the EU regulations.
Apple mobile devices have been chargeable from a USB port starting with the 3rd generation iPod introduced in 2003, which was around 7 years before the EU regulation requiring USB micro-B chargers.
The decision is almost never iPhone vs. nothing, or iPhone vs. Android. It’s iPhone 15 vs. iPhone <15. Most recent (if not all) of the sales driven by this feature alone are probably canibalized from other Apple models so it doesn’t look like a “play”.
I am still using the iPhone 11 Pro Max and haven't felt motivated to upgrade yet. Other than the battery life, which drops to around 20% after a day of normal usage, everything else still works flawlessly. I feel like I've saved a lot of money and have been able to spend it elsewhere :-D
I'm on an iPhone X, which is on its second Apple battery. Apple replaced its speaker during the battery change free of charge, because it was broken or something, and I feel no urge to upgrade.
I'll be getting the latest and greatest in a couple of years, but no rush. That thing works the way it should, incl. battery life.
You get a couple of years of security updates, and new software starts to use the newest features to the fullest in the meantime, so when you take the plunge, it's always a bigger, more worthy jump.
You can safely leave the device behind then, to use as an emergency phone, if the need arises.
So, 1-2 years is not that crucial, but after that you really start to feel the gap. Same for Macs.
I’m surprised that nobody mentioned satellite SOS on iPhone 14 and presumably newer. One would be my next upgrade when the iPhone 8 quits. It won’t take ios17 for better or worse, and still takes very fine 28mm equivalent photos, some of my nicest, despite all my camera gear. Right place, right time. I DO carry an 8X zoom lumix almost all the time. It’s smaller than a phone except for thickness, a BIG DEAL with phones. I have “deep pockets” in the non-money sense.
And, I often carry the old coolpix, with 24-1000mm equivalent focal length. Just not in the car during the summer, for the same reason you don’t leave CD’s sitting on the dashboard when parked.
A family was hiking nearby in hot weather. Despite being experienced hikers (or perhaps overconfident because of their experience) they needed rescue. Cellular signal was absent, and a satellite SOS probably would have saved them. Lesson learned.
Nobody uses CB or FRS, though less the satellite capability, leaving one the ranger and taking the other is better than nothing, perhaps.
I remember playing phone tag many times, with public phones. Cellular has saved vast amounts of anxiety and frustration. IMO, satellite SOS, when you’re out of range of cell coverage (which is much of where I live) is the next game changer, not AI processing of photos, nor other doodads.
Zoom is relative to the “normal” wide 24mm equivalent, so for lots of extra money, (pro) you can get “3X” or 77mm or for tons of extra money, (max) you get 5X or 120 mm. equivalent.
Finally, cameras are generally made to last, and not be flipped every few years.
I can pinpoint so many things I could change in my life that would be above "getting rid of thunderbolt cable" in their priority that switching to that cable is irrelevant.
> It’s wild to think this would have shipped with lightning without government pressure.
Is this true? I heard that Apple was planning the switch regardless (or at least an adapter change). The only reason it took so long was that they had committed to keeping the adapter stable for a few generations to avoid the appearance of churn. I can’t remember where I heard this, though, so I may be completely wrong.
Ya there’s obviously a balance between backwards compatibility and jumping to the new best thing. When they launched the lightning port in 2012 they said it’d be the connector for the next decade, and changing too quickly would have upset people who have a bunch of lightning stuff but no, or not as many, USB-C cables. There’s a balance.
They’ve been rumored to be heading to USB-C for a few years (before EU action) and the EU doesn’t require the switch until next year, so this was technically not required by the new rules.
My best guess is that they were moving to USB-C anyway and at most the EU rule moved it up a year or two but who knows
Think it's obvious that isn't the case otherwise why would they have launched the AirPod Pro 2 without it. Don't non-pro iPads still ship without it?, Recent iMac refresh that required all custom cabling for the peripherals still shipped lightning.
Still prefer the size and shape of the 11 Pro to my 13 Pro. The only reason I upgraded was because Verizon gave it to me during a 5G upgrade promotion. 5G is really nice for use as a hotspot, but otherwise, I would probably still have the 11 Pro (which is the first iPhone that had an acceptable camera in my opinion).
The form factor of these pro phones is too big for me. I switched back to the 2022 SE this year and it’s been great. I think the SE is the perfect size that doesn’t require me to stretch when using it with one hand without sacrificing on screen size. I also prefer Touch ID and having a physical SIM tray. Only thing that has been a downer for me is trying to use Touch ID when my fingers are a bit wet like in the sauna
Oh, how I hate Face ID. I "upgraded" to iPhone 13 when that was current from the SE v2 because of a great discount, but lack of Touch ID makes the overall experience a downgrade. Apple, if you don't want a discrete physical finger sensor on the front of the phone, how about putting it on the back?
Wasn’t there a Google phone that naturally placed it on the center back? I don’t do it as much these days, but grabbing the phone with my thumb and unlocking it as I pull it out of my pocket is still a semi natural occurrence. It should be pretty possible to achieve the same with the index finger and I believe whichever Google phone did this managed to pull it off pretty well
I just upgraded from an iPhone 11 (non Pro) to 15 Pro. Doesn’t feel much different at all but I appreciate the better camera and usb-c charging. The screen and refresh rate are nice but it’s something I only really feel when I go back to the old phone. Overall it’s a smaller difference than any previous upgrade I’ve made; it’s not like the early days when every iphone was much better than the last. Previously I’ve owned the original, 3G, 3GS, 4, 4S, 6S+ and 11. Aside from wanting usb-c, I could have waited until current version ios support ended and even then, upgraded to a 2 year old model.
A similar thing happened to me a year ago when buying an iPhone for a relative who valued battery life. The obvious choice was the new iPhone SE, but because of the better chips and display, the battery life was 3h59m, compared to 6h41m for a boring old iPhone 12 from 2 years' prior!
Intentionally seeking an old iPhone felt unintuitive at the time, but the hour or two's research paid massive dividends - the older model iPhone is perfect for the user; the extra 2h40m battery makes a massive difference day to day.
I've stuck with my iphone 11 forever now because I was hoping newer iphones would have slimmer camera lenses. Doesn't look like they'll ever go back unfortunately.
Still using an 1st-gen SE and dreading the upgrade as it means my phone will get ~30% bigger and heavier.
In the past year (singular) it has become infuriatingly slow to a point where even music will stutter when multitasking (!!!) and i really hate the ios product managers for this intentional breakage. But it has a headphone jack that nobody else has :)
I guess the camera quality will noticeably improve.
I just upgraded to a 15 Pro but have my past 3 iPhones in reaching distance: 12 Mini, XS, SE. The 12 Mini is/was great for portability. But the small screen bugged me enough over time (cramped typing/reading) to move forward with an upgrade. Also, my increasingly bad eyes prefer some extra real estate!
A lot of the apps I use will not work on older iPhones. I have no doubt in my mind that every app on my iPhone 12 could work on an iPhone 6, but Apple has pushed and forced those developers to make the support of older phones obsolete.
I don't imagine someone buying a cheap Android phone and thinking about resales or something - just a tool to get the job done of doing/receiving calls, IM and that kind of stuff. And for the long term support, that's just a LineageOS flash away.
yeah my pixel was like $150 or something on sale ... then I traded it in for a Pixel 6 and that was like $100 with a trade in. I use mint mobile which is like $15/month. got that thrifty life.
My OnePlus Android phone continues to satisfy all of my needs. There have been no interesting additions to these new phones in the last six years, other than the removal of capabilities that I enjoy.
I make multiple PPTs per day from my iPhone while on teams calls most of the day, remote into other simulation computers, and edit video compilations, etc..
Every upgrade makes this ‘work from phone’ life easier to digest.
It's why I find it insulting Apple still sells brand new 1000 Euro phones with 60Hz displays when even 200 Euro Androids have 120Hz OLEDs at this point. That's gotta be the biggest scam of the year. Same with USB 2.0 on a thousand Euro phone. That's just taking the mickey.
A heuristic I often apply (to lots of things) is 'would my Mum... <understand...?> <be able to do...?> <notice...?> <care?>' - as my Mum is reasonably smart and capable, but not at all embedded in any of the technical worlds that I am.
e.g.
- if my Mum could understand my presentation, then I've found a good level for non-specialists to also understand it quickly
To apply it in this case, would my Mum notice or care about the difference between a 60Hz and 120Hz phone screen? I'm pretty sure not, and therefore I'd extrapolate that a vast majority of Apple's userbase wouldn't either.
But I'm buying the device, not my mum, and I definetly see the differences, and I also understands that paying one grand for 60Hz displays in 2023 is a scam and I make sure to educate less tech savvy user like my mom to not get scammed like that by some big-corp trying to sell outdated tech specs at huge markups to people who don't know better because for them "whatever it has an Apple logo".
>It is USB 2.0 because the iPhone uses the previous generation A16 SOC which was designed around the Lightning port.
I know, but as a paying customer I don't care what their bs technical limitation was when my old Samsung Note 3 had USB 3.0 10 years ago so it's not like USB 3.0 is some brand new sci-fi tech that's difficult to figure out like EUV litography.
How's this for a fix: They could have put the newer SoC with USB 3.0 in those phones as well and not artificially gimp them like that.
How can I not feel scammed when a company treats it's customers like that?
It’s not a scam, the spec sheets for each model of their phones are available online. It’s certainly an expensive phone, but the value holds decently for a few years anyways.
Apple doesn’t hide that they want to push the “Pro” line and are comfortable not giving too much “new” to the non-Pro models. The iPhone keynote is even split where one is for the lower models and another is for the Pro.
It's a scam when they're chargin 1 grand for a phone lacking a basic feature that's bee on Androids for 10 years already and that's only in their even more expensive phones.
I suspect most people just don't care about 120Hz. I have a personal MacBook Air (60Hz) and a work MacBook Pro (120Hz) and I simply don't notice any difference. Perhaps I would notice if I specifically looked out for it, but what's the point in that?
For probably most people, other than those who just like to have the latest, these are the reasons that probably drive most upgrades from a still working phone:
1. They want more storage.
2. They want a wireless technology that their old phone lacks, such as 5G or newer WiFi or Bluetooth features.
3. They want a better camera.
4. They want a higher resolution screen.
5. They want longer battery life.
6. They want a different size.
7. They want different SIM options.
8. They want different biometrics.
9. They want more speed.
10. They want to get an OS upgrade and the OS upgrade requires a newer phone.
11. They want to get a new app and the new app requires a newer phone, or requires an OS that requires a newer phone.
For many of these we are fast reaching or have reached the point where for most of us the phones already do everything we want in those areas.
For instance for me personally:
1. Storage stopped being an issue long ago. My biggest use of storage was for my music library so I could listen at work. Even if I still worked in an office I would no longer need that much storage because most of what is in my library is also on Spotify. I only need my library for that handful of albums that are not on Spotify.
2. I can't recall running into a situation where I noticed cellular or WiFi on my phone was limiting me, on either my current iPhone X or my prior 6 plus.
4. Screen resolution in modern phones has long been above the limits of what my aging eyes can distinguish.
5. Battery life has been fine for me for a long time.
That leaves these things that might get me to upgrade. First, there are these where I don't need to upgrade, but I would appreciate these things:
3. Better camera. Most of the time my iPhone X camera is fine, but I sometimes would like better autofocus, and the dark modes which were introduced not long after the iPhone X came out would be nice.
6. My iPhone X size is fine now, but as I get older and have more trouble with small print I might want a larger phone.
7. There have been times I would have appreciated dual SIMs.
8. I definitely prefer Face ID to Touch ID. Apparently I suck at hand drying, so for a minute or so after washing my hands I cannot unlock my iPad with Touch ID. If I was not already on a phone with Face ID this then might be a reason to upgrade.
Second, there are these things that may make an upgrade necessary:
9. Speed. For the last 10+ years every computing device that I have upgraded because I need more speed has been due to the web getting too slow on the old device. I don't think websites have yet run out of ways to make their sites consume more processing power, so am expecting this to continue driving upgrades.
10. I'm fine with the features that have been in the OS for a while, but eventually an old OS stops getting security updates.
11. Similar to #10.
Put it all together then these are by far the most likely reasons I'll upgrade:
• I have to because of software (web gets too slow or security updates stop).
• I want a better camera.
There's a good chance that after I do upgrade from the iPhone X, the new camera will be good enough that only software will drive future upgrades.
Whenever I read stuff like this I really wonder who these people are. Are you using your phone to host your billion dollar AI startup? To fold enzymes in real time so you can finally put an end to some disease? What do you worry about (extremely!) when you consider an older phone?