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Comment by darth_avocado | Hacker News Reader

It’s because everything else is more expensive and people have lower discretionary spending. If my home insurance, auto insurance, health insurance, car payments, rent, grocery bills, childcare and pretty much everything else went up and stayed there, just maybe I can hold on to my older phone for one more year. Paul Krugman would disagree, but that’s about it.

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I think it has more to do with the marginal improvements.

The difference between an iPhone 6 and 7 is massive compared to an iPhone 14 versus 15.

Lightning vs USB is almost a reason to upgrade by itself

I was very excited by switching to USB C for my iphone, but by the time the phone was released it just didn't seem like an upgrade to my iphone 12, and I wasn't going to pay $1K just to get rid of a cable.

I am with you. I’m still on an iPhone 12 Pro Max. Not even Apple Intelligence is reason for me to upgrade and I use and pay for ChatGPT

No, that’s a reason to not upgrade, so that I don’t have to replace all my cords.

I still have sn iPhone 12 Pro Max. But most of my cords are like this.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08PVLGWQY

If you look at the share of people holding on to their phones, more people are holding on for 3+ years. It’s not a comparison between 14 and 15, but rather 11/12 and 15. Those differences are not marginal.

I was looking for a new phone to finally replace my 7, and considered 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Honestly, I couldn't tell you why I would go for one of them over any others. All I know is that the older ones are cheaper and they'll probably drop software support for the older ones sooner than the newer ones, but they're pretty much identical when it comes to what I use my phone for (making calls, occasionally browsing the web).

It all depends on what you use the phone for, but I have an iPhone 11 that I have no intention of replacing any time soon. I have an iPhone 15 for work and I was like "meh".

But I get it - some people use it for things that are much more intensive and the difference is noticeable.

But for me, it's mostly messaging, a few travel/shopping apps, and occasional Safari use.

Until the Apple Intelligence features were announced the only improvements I really cared about between models is the camera. Yes it’s better in a host of other ways, but not really things that would drive me to buy a new phone. I basically only upgraded because the battery capacity had degraded to the point where it couldn’t hold a charge for a full day anymore. I expect that’s the line that most people are holding out for now.

It’s also because the phones aren’t getting better as fast as they used to. When the megapixels were doubling from 1 to 2 it was noticeable. Now the photos are as good as I’ll ever need.

These days the real limiting factor is software over hardware when it comes to phone cameras. There's an enormous amount of processing dedicated to making them look just the way people want.

iPhones and MacBooks have always been expensive luxury products for anybody outside of the tech bubble.

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