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Comment by asdojasdosadsa | Hacker News Reader

This is pretty much my exact situation. The new iPhones have been so underwhelming and so highly priced that I haven't felt the need or want to upgrade.

Now previously this year, I dropped my phone and the glass broke - but it still works. So I am on the verge of upgrading, but iPhone 12 still doesn't really... make me want to upgrade - if I can put it like that.

So I am rolling with a cracked screen iPhone 6S+ until I can find the motivation to upgrade. Maybe my battery life is becoming one and the problem with charging.

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It does often seem that the new feature causing people to upgrade more than any other is that the new model hasn't yet been dropped--parking lot, toilet, etc. #2 is battery. "We think you'll find the new iPhone has been dropped less than any iPhone we've ever made and has a newer battery...."

For all the talk about saving carbon by skipping on headphones/charger, it is quite telling that if Apple (and other manufacturers too) wanted, they could have just made these two parts easily replaceable (batteries used to be conveniently replaceable anyway) and saved a lot more wastage. Talk is cheap etc.

I can almost imagine Apple unveiling a replaceable battery in the future and claiming it as ‘innovation’. It’l never happen but I’m sure they’d market it that way.

I would think they can at least do it for MacBooks. I mean I distinctly remember my MacBook from 2006 had a removable battery and just removing the battery exposed the storage and the memory. The price we paid was a slightly thicker MacBook so no MacBook air but I doubt anyone was complaining.

I think it is the other way round; thinness makes gadgets look good and feel light but more importantly, it provides an excuse to make everything non-replaceable on that altar in the underlying aim of planned obsolescence. Plus once you make it thin, you can always say that we can't go back because that is the new normal and making it thicker will be a regression.

Same here. I like the improved camera, and the poor man's LIDAR would put me over the line to buy as I could totally use that for 3D mapping, but otherwise, a new phone just doesn't give me much.

Recently, since us in Massively Lucky Tech World mostly work from home now, I've taken to leaving my phone in the bedroom and just wearing my smartwatch for 2FA stuff... and it's made my life better.

The compulsion to look at my Sadness Rectangle has been fading quite rapidly, I'm more focused on whatever my task-at-hand happens to be, and I'm spending more of my break time doing stuff that I want to do for me: reading one of my books, writing stuff, etc.

I'll be borrowing "Sadness Rectangle" readily in the near future.

By all means. That framing has really helped me come to grips with just how psychologically damaging smartphones can be, without proper information hygiene.

I like the "Black Mirror" moniker....

>So I am rolling with a cracked screen iPhone 6S+ until I can find the motivation to upgrade.

I recently fixed a iPhone 6S+ for a friend, primarily with an aim to retrieve the photos and contacts. It wouldn't switch on, and had a broken screen. I ended up replacing the screen, battery and the charger port+headphone jack flex. It cost less than £40 in parts and some elbow grease; a superb compromise for a phone, which supports iOS 14 albeit it might not receive any future OS updates.

Hopefully, the arrival of the mini doesn't spell the end-of-life of the 7 and 8. Also, has anyone noted the cost for display/battery replacement on any recent phone (including Samsung) has skyrocketed, making it uneconomical?

I picked up a refurbished 8 a while ago, great size + touchID

Same here. Broke my 6s and got ... another refurbished 6s for under 300 Euro. Working like a charm for 1 year now

why not just have the glass replaced?

I was about to, but I have some issues with battery life and charger plug, so it would be cheaper to buy a lower end iPhone (like the 12 mini) - so I am in a slight dilemma now.

Most likely if this phones battery gets any worse, I will upgrade to the new iPhone 12 max (or current flag ship) and hope it will last years to come. My iPhone is I think now 5 years old, where the average phone life seems to be 2-3 years, so I am quite happy with the quality and don't mind the upgrade, when it is necessary

edit: For reference, replacing the glass is 200€

I had issues with intermittent charging of 6S so I upgraded to 2nd gen SE. I didn’t want larger screen so 11 wasn’t the option.

I personally don’t like SE. The Touch ID is crap, it is not an actual button that presses so touching or pressing button doesn’t wake phone up. I have to pick up the phone to wake it.

I have the new SE and it works as advertised (like a faster 8). Pressing the ‘button’ definitely wakes mine.

In terms of unreliable charging, maybe you have already done it but: clean the lightning port. They did it at the apple store for an unrelated repair and all my issues went away. A year later i even went back and had them do only that because I couldn‘t find a good tool to do it myself.

Have you checked whether replacing the screen yourself is cheaper?

As an example, I had an iPhone SE with a broken home button. Repairing it would cost 60 euros, which wouldn't be worth it. On the other hand, a single replacement home button was only 8 euros, and it included the tools. It worked.

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