Ask HN: Are iPhones designed to last for a couple of years? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are iPhones designed to last for a couple of years?

7 pointsl33tbro15 comments

I bought an Iphone SE in January 2021. The battery performance was already rather poor - lasting less than a day with fairly light use.

I've purposely not upgraded IOS because I do not want to pull even less use time from the battery. But now my hand is being forced due to App Store needing the latest IOS to install new apps or update my current apps.

Given that some of my most used apps (eg Signal) require being up to date to open them, I appear to be left with the choice of either bricking the phone or running it at a highly reduced battery. Yes, I can text and make calls, but I could have bought a Nokia burner for that.

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I have not experienced this at all. Last year around this time I upgraded from an iPhone 7 to a 12 simply to get better camera lenses for a trip rather than buying a new camera and lugging that around. The 7 is still sitting on my desk and works fine, was going to get trade in credit somewhere or donate it.

Also going to throw this out there (and I'm preparing for the commentary "you're saying don't use it herr derr") - are you on it a lot? I've observed my teens usage patterns and sometimes they are habitually just pulling the phone out and looking at the lock screen. This happens multiple times in minutes and the on/off of the screen is going to burn battery faster with no real usage. You may also have apps running in the background that use wifi/cellular, and that will drain the battery faster too. If you changed those settings to only use the network when the app is open then it will use less battery. Yeah you won't get updates when you aren't looking at those apps but, is that such a crucial thing?

You can take the phone somewhere and have them replace the battery for far much less than the cost of a new phone.

Interesting! I am not an Apple fan boy, but I switched from Android a few years ago precisely because Apple products tend to last longer, and they release software updates for +7 years. My last non Apple phone was a Fairphone 2, and as much as I wanted to like it, it was barely usable after 1 year.

My goal is to renew phone every 4 years, and hope to use my current iPhone longer than that

I had to buy a new iPhone because I damaged my 3.5 yrs old XS so bad repairing was not a reasonable option. However I would have just changed the battery and kept it for way longer if it still worked. There are proofs that in the past Apple slowed down devices, but I don’t think it’s a thing anymore (at least if you know about the toggle in the battery settings and are willing to change the battery after 3/4 years). Every modern phone can last 5+ years of you can resist the pressure of marketing (my dad is still using a midrange 2017 Samsung and only started thinking to change it now).

I bought a new iPhone SE a couple months ago after 12 years of using android phones. I was shocked by how quickly the battery drains. Its on par with the original Samsung galaxy S I had in 2010, and completely inferior to every other android phone I've used including a low cost motorola.

Googling around looks like the battery is only about 1800 Mha. Not sure how regular iPhone is, but my guess is iPhone SE users who have been using them for years don't realize how bad the batteries are.

I turned off 5G, keep the phone in "low power" mode all the time, and turned off cellular data. All that helps and it now resembles a bad android phone. I'm not a big phone user so while its annoying for me, it isn't enough of a dealbreaker to go get a new phone.

Unless I do the rare trade-in, all my family's iPhones have lasted about 5 years or so.

We just retired some iPhone 7s that the kids were using. In all truth, they are in great shape, they just need a new battery, which Apple still does for $49. Their website[1] says they'll do batteries for everything down to the iPhone 5.

When I had an Android phone, I had problems getting Google to service my current phones.

1. https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-replacement

Most likely yes, as it is also done by many electronics companies.

It's called "planned obsolescence" [0].

There's a particular video from Veritasium [1] that comes to mind regarding this.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8D-alAKE

You don't have an option.

Apple does provide software updates for longer, but the moment they're cut, most apps will stop getting updates. This is because Apple's lack of backporting APIs forces developers' hands to raise the minimum supported iOS version often.

Android devices do receive less software updates, but your apps will keep supporting pretty old devices for the most part. Of course there's the security part, but that's a different issue.

No. In my experience they last for several years. At this point, we'll upgrade phones maybe every 4-5 years now so its unlikely we'll use an iPhone to it's full limits of software updates but certainly don't have issues of it only lasting for a couple years with prominent issues arising or anything like that.

My wife still uses an iPhone 6. Yes the OS updates have stopped except security updates IIRC but it still works well.

I find Apple the most respectful to the customer in this regard.

I buy iPhones brand new the year they are released and I keep them until they can run the latest major ios version, typically 5-6 years (last cycle was 6s (2015) -> 13 (2021)). Changing the battery once.

It is a very good trade-off between cost and user experience.

I've got to answer no. I use an iPhone XS, which is about 4 years old, and it's working just fine for me. Given the number of people I personally know with iPhones, most of them are older than 2 years.

My mother is still occasionally using my 2008 iPhone 3G.

> either bricking the phone

The only reason IMO not to replace the battery is that buying a refurbished similar iPhone would not cost much more.

> App Store needing the latest IOS to install new apps or update my current apps

Is this a new requirement? I don't recall this on older devices over the past few years.

What are you talking about with “highly reduced battery”? My iPhone is almost five years old, latest version of iOS, it works fine.

My iPhone 7 is 4 and 1/2 years old. Battery needs swapping every 3 (?) years but otherwise perfectly usable.

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