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Comment by krn | Hacker News Reader

> I'll believe point #2 when Apple stops making every succeeding generation of their products harder for end-users to repair.

Shiftphones[1] can be completely dissembled and repaired by the end-users, and they don't look any different from other smartphone. So, it's certainly possible to do. However, I don't think that's what an average Apple customer prioritizes. "The thinnest and lightest iPhone ever" sells much better in the ad.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scWxjE7IyMo&t=42s

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As people start keeping their phones longer, they will start preferring phones that are more durable and repairable. Making cars that break after a few thousand miles worked out for GM and Chrysler right up until the Japanese and German competition arrived.

The thing smartphones is, that many people actually do want to replace them every few years for a better camera, a better screen, or for some trending feature-of-the-year, like a fingerprint reader or wireless charging. Aren't most Americans replacing their perfectly working flagship smartphones every 2 years?

That used to be the case, actually life cycles in earlier years were sometimes even shorter than that (apparently it was only a year and a half back in 2007 -- http://reconanalytics.com/2015/02/2014-us-mobile-phone-sales...).

But several articles seem to point out that the upgrade cycle is slowing down -- up to 2 and 3/4 years according to this source (https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/press-releases/20...) for instance.

I think the second link is correct that 5G might offer some incentive to upgrade, but else wise there's just less reason to constantly upgrade your phones these days. The delta between an iPhone 7 and an iPhone 8 is not that huge versus the delta between an iPhone 3GS and an iPhone 4.

Yes, maturing technologies seem to have longer life cycles. It's the same thing that happened with PCs. Compare the life cycle of a PC made in 1990 compared to one made in 2015.

I'm assuming that at some point, there will be very few new features to get people to upgrade. I think we're already seeing a slowdown.

Americans are a small percentage of the world market, and Americans buying flagship smartphones an even smaller percentage of that market. Of course people with a lot of money can afford to upgrade more often. On HN we tend to forget that not everyone is so lucky, both in terms of job market and in terms of disposable income.

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