I'm in no place to judge how other people live their lives, but sometimes I'm still in awe that smartphone companies can create the customer behavior of changing their phone every year just for slightly better cameras.
https://nsysgroup.com/blog/average-device-lifespan-how-long-...
> Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) shares more data on smartphone lifespan by brand. According to their research, people who use iPhones keep their devices longer: 61% of Apple smartphone users and 43% of Android users have owned their previous devices for two years or more.
>Notably, 29% of iPhone users held onto their phones for more than three years, compared to 21% of Android users. Additionally, CIRP found that over a third of iPhone buyers (both those who previously used iPhones and Androids) have owned their devices for over three years, while fewer than a third have owned them for less than two years.
> A shocking number of people (12%) upgrade their phones every year
That's about 40 million people in the US, btw.
Most people are using their devices as long as they can.
This is the first upgrade cycle that I upgraded in anger over an unusably slow and energy inefficient OS on an “older” model
I was traveling in south / south east Asia and my iPhone 15 Pro was dying twice a day despite minimal use besides maps and taking some photos. My battery health was 86% so not perfect but surely it shouldn’t die twice a day.
That coupled with the keyboard constantly lagging with every letter I typed made me realize Apple no longer cares about older models.
They threw that out with Liquid Glass.
I wish Android wasn’t also closing off their ecosystem.
My 14 Pro Max has been a champ (though I never upgraded to Liquid Ass, iOS 18 for life on this thing). I have almost zero real reason to upgrade, esp since it'll only cost me $100 or so to have the battery replaced in a few months (I'm at 84% and treating it poorly to get it to a point I can justify the expense).