iPhones have the longest life of any smartphone and you can verify that yourself by looking at the used market for it (and any Apple product). User replaceable batteries may ironically decrease that and increase waste.
I'm still enjoying my 3-year-old non-iPhone, and intend to keep using it until it stops working entirely, whereas my spouse with an iPhone was already voicing suspicion before this announcement that Apple was intentionally slowing their old iPhone through updates, just to provoke an upgrade. With the announcement, I can't fault the reasoning.
How much of the used market for iPhones are devices that had been traded in (because slowed by Apple due to old battery), refurbished by the mobile phone company (probably just to replace the battery and reset it to factory settings), and then resold to people whose older model refurbished iPhone now needs yet another new battery? That generates an additional sale of an entire old iPhone, whereas other phones would only generate a sale of a replacement battery at that time.
I think you would probably have to look at what mobile phone customers are actually using, right now.
The used market for iPhones on Craigslist is actual users. The market is very strong, and so is the resale value of iPhones. There is one (1) explanation for this: iPhones hold their value better because they are more useful for a longer time.
As an aside, iPhones also remain able to run the latest version of iOS for roughly TWICE as long as Android phones.
There is no competition, here.
That iPhones retain their value over time is a testament to the fact that Apple has not been slowing down old iPhones to make you upgrade (this conspiracy theory predates iOS 10.2.1 by many years).
Have you examined the reasons why iPhone owners sell their older iPhones, and why people buy refurbished used iPhones?
Not at all. It's a testament that there is a market for old iPhones, that is all. People are possibly buying used iPhones despite them being slowed down.
> Apple actually has an incentive to create the longest lasting iPhone because the economics of the iPhone Upgrade Plan and every carrier upgrade plan depends on it.
Then why don't they? <5 years for an electronic device that hasn't seen any significant upgrades in later models is absurdly short.
Just as we can use the price of iOS zero-day exploits in the black market as a proxy for how secure iOS has become over the years, we can also look at the resale market for iPhones.
That is not true, nor has it ever been for phones or cars. People buy each for all kinds of reasons: status symbols, ideals, etc. iPhones demonstrably do not retain their value as demonstrated by this battery fiasco.
After-Market value != quality
The spinsters are deliberately confusing "lifespan" with "resale value".
I realize I'm responding to someone arguing in bad faith. But lifespan directly influences the resale value.
The iPhone is a well-made phone which would have greater lifespan if the batteries were replaceable.
As it is, users who bought an older iPhone now have to pay middle-men to replace the battery or face degraded performance.
iPhone users buy iPhones because they wanted the best in class functionality, if they wanted to save money they'd buy a phone with a replaceable battery.
Also we've had this debate for years already when Apple went to unibody Macbooks. The reliability and battery life only increased because of the better structural integrity and increased room for battery cells.
The issue is not creating waste, but wasting one's money on middle-men for replacing one's phone batteries.
>I know every TV remote I've owned with a battery door eventually ends up with a rubber band around it, and I think that's pretty much a universal experience.
You're relating a supposedly personal story to make your spin claims more relatable. Maybe you're like the people in late-night TV commercials who seemingly can't open a can of tomatoes without massive bleeding? ;)
Well I could say I'm spending that money on having a nicer phone that's sealed and seamless, rather than wasting it.
It's quite obvious that it's a waste of money to pay middle-men to perform basic service on it for stuff a user can do at home with any other phone.
i would wager that their post was trying to highlight that.
That would be odd! Which is why that's not what I said.
I said that the received benefit in return for having to pay for the batter to be replaced was 'a nicer phone'. I like the single form of the iPhone.
Your original reply was you got a "nicer phone that's sealed and seamless". Apple innovated the smartphone_without_user_replaceable_battery. So I am asking you, would you not prefer to have the choice of having a similar smartphone (with pretty much all the benefits of the iPhone) but then _with_ a user replaceable battery?
You know what the beauty of such a device is? We wouldn't need this silly discussion. You'd just buy a new battery from Apple and be done with it. But for some magic reason, Apple is doing it different again.