>Giving up 1% of your income each year isnt taken lightly.
Unless you're like me in which case you give up about 10% of your income each year on absolutely frivolous shit you just had to have but then used for about a week only to never touch again. Oh the joys of totally shot impulse control. That definitely includes a few smartphones.
I think next time though I'll just get a dingy piece of crap. All a smartphone really is to me is a browser in my pocket. Don't need a 4k screen for that. Won't fall for the stupid gimmicks next time.
Well.. I say that but, if I had much control over it it wouldn't be called impulse buying :(
I find many of the "cheap" phones better for my needs. I want a small phone, one that can live in a pocket without worry in the field (military). I need a phone with a removable battery (security thing where I work). I need a phone with a headphone jack (ie headphones without Bluetooth). So very few of the flagship phones are even an option.
The real trick is to find impulse buys that aren't truly expensive for you.
This can in turn be directed into its own kind of hobby. It's common for people who can't afford the actual thing they wanted to collect the marketing materials around it instead - like, instead of buying a luxury sports car, you get a poster for that car and hang it on the wall. It can be done creatively and redirect you towards your actual interests, instead of getting the high ticket product itself and learning once again that it did not magically improve life and mostly sits unused.
Completely and totally agree. The price of a new construction house in Redmond WA is around $1,400,000 USD and involves lots of paperwork and rules to be able to qualify to buy.
The price of a similarly specified house in Iowa or West Virginia in a very affluent zip code is less than $600,000, some closer to $400,000. It is conceivable that a married couple with 10 years of savings could buy this house cash and continue working remote as they please!
> Imagine borrowing money to buy anything, including a house. Yikes!
Is this a joke? The 30 year mortgage is possibly the single most powerful financial tool available to an average person. It allows you to leverage hundreds of thousands of dollars for just a few percent down. Imagine going to your stock brokerage and asking for 1000% margin on a $10,000 account. You would be laughed at. Yet that's precisely what a mortgage allows you to do. In the US at least, home ownership is also incredibly tax advantaged as well, to the point that it is almost impossible to build wealth otherwise for a normal working class person.
It's less tax-advantaged in the US under current tax law than it used to be depending upon housing prices where you live and whether you itemize deductions. But, in general, I certainly agree. The idea that there's something inherently wrong with getting a mortgage is silly. (Obviously, some people do buy more house than they can afford.)
How do you feel about those who are excluded from home ownership due to not qualifying for a mortgage because of arbitrary rules and supply constrictive zoning laws?
Please explain to me why it's beneficial to society to people to work 30 years, paying all sort of interest and fees to middle men and excluding the median citizen from home ownership?
Dare I remind you that a single income family could afford a new construction home with just 4 years of salary in the 1950s and 1960s.
Build more houses, make everyone that can go remote, remove the needless fake money bidding wars that come from easy leverage for those who qualify.
It is scientifically proven that when a human owns something instead of rents it, they take much better care of their property and their community (source: google). Mortgages and renting just bring despair and trigger apocalyptic emotions in humans, which is why the Bronx looks like the Bronx, and Bellevue looks like Bellevue.
> Mortgages and renting just bring despair and trigger apocalyptic emotions in humans, which is why the Bronx looks like the Bronx, and Bellevue looks like Bellevue.
I’m assuming you’re referring specifically to the South Bronx with your comment. An area that is in the state it’s in primarily because of decades of racist redlining that prevented any sort of leveraged investment in properties and services.
The only way I see purchasing every year making sense is if you always, without exceptions, trade-in and upgrade to the latest model phone. The current priciest iPhone (for 64gb) is $1100 for the 11 Pro Pax. If you were to trade in an last-gen XS Max, you'd get $450 in trade-in value and thus only pay $650 for the new phone. The value of that would then continuously roll over into new upgrades (provided you never crack the screen or damage the phone ever, since that immediately causes it to lose $200-400 in trade-in value), meaning you are always paying for a phone but you will always have the latest and greatest model and the value that goes into that.
Private sales of electronics can be a hassle and carry some risk. There's something to be said for a low effort trade-in (or sale to Amazon) even if it doesn't maximize the return.
Buyer claims they never received the item/item wasn't as described/etc. There's a chargeback. Plenty of horror stories on eBay. Not to say don't do it but there's a lot to be said for taking the easy path from my perspective. (And electronics probably have more of this type of thing than many other categories.)
oh right, though that can happen with anything on ebay. i thought you were thinking of something specific to phones, like reading /cloning the memory/disk of the phone or something along those lines.
To add, unless there's proof (and sometimes even when there is proof) a buyer can just tell eBay/craigslist/etc that the phone didn't have Find My iPhone turned off (which would mean they can't use the phone) and get a refund that way without even needing to chargeback ebay.
"Purchasing every year" is a different question of course. When I upgrade, I do buy the latest but I still have an iPhone X. (I'd probably have upgraded this year but with no travel, I'll probably just wait another year.)
When our employer plan had a higher cap on monthly compensation for phones for those of us required to be on call and check mail I would just bury the upgrade cost into the monthly billing. They have since reduced the amount by a third so it covers the average phone bill and it really does make me think more than once about whether an upgrade nets me anything
fwiw, I am quite happy with the 8+ and I am not even sure what it would take me to upgrade. phones would have to become super light, fold-able, or even perhaps translucent or such to pique my interest at this point.
Anyone not living under the poverty line can in theory save for a luxury good, but that doesn't mean they otherwise live a luxurious lifestyle. In my country you see some really poor people living in pretty terrible conditions but who own luxury cars.
It might be worth it. A family in my street migrated from Kosovo to Belgium, and returns every year for the holiday. They aren't rich but have a second hand BMW. It's the only car that survives the trip from/to their holiday, so it's cheaper than buying a new car.
That 45% includes folks paying them off every month, folks buying new cheaper models, folks being given other people's old phones, and folks buying used/refurbished phones. It doesn't mean they aren't a luxury good: The newest, latest iPhones are still some of the more expensive on the market, and a lot of onlookers can't tell one from the other.
No. Fully 10% think that AND admit it. Another 20% think it but like to pretend otherwise. Another 10% think it's a waste of money, but since it's their company paying for it are happy to accept. And another 20% think it would be crazy to pay 1000 pounds for a phone, but then follow up and explain they got a great deal and only pay 100 a month extra for the next 24 months plus 250 up front.
To add to this, all the major phone carriers in the states engineer their plans to force you to buy new phones either through discounts or "free" bonus phones from them in order to get good value for what you are paying. It is almost always cheaper to go with a cheap MVNO plan and pay for your phone outright, you will come out ahead instead of paying $80-$100 a month with a major carrier while getting a "free" phone with the caveat you have to stick with them for 2 years. Its all engineered to get you to spend more money, if you look at the prices on MVNOs you will realize you are getting scammed - I pay $10/month for my minimal cellular plan through redpocket and getting more data only costs tens of dollars more, it doesn't come close to tmobile's prices.
Yeah, it's interesting because they did that here until about 2016 (I think).
Then it reversed and it was (say) 600 for a handset or free handset and 40 more a month for 24m (960 extra total) with the handset free. Same contract either way.
But I think a lot of people just kept getting the 24m contract. I went though it with my lodger and lent him the 600 because I think it takes the piss to do this.
Here in the UK at least there are a bunch of resellers who will give you a sim only contract and use one of the big three networks. So it's easy/affordable at least to just do that. I hope the US has this too...
All of the major phone carriers have decent plans on their prepaid side now. You don't get a discount on a phone, but you usually get to pay the sticker price, tax included.
MVNO deals can be better, but there's uncertainty from having a 3rd party, and often the MVNOs don't or can't offer x GB of high speed data with low speed data for the rest of the month. But going from like $80 to $30 is good enough for me, I don't need to go all the way down to $10
To be fair I'm sure Apple did lots of research and already knew these numbers. I'm curious to if they "abuse" this to get better sales of the "last gen" iphones.
isnt this switch in guidance mainly because the revenue from games/mtx is only going to grow and apple has almost exhausted the market of people that can afford iphones
Everyone knew this was coming. It happened to TVs, it happened to desktops, it happened to laptops, and it's happening to phones.
Apple's biggest competitors are either playing a different game (the Chinese companies get to serve a completely different domestic market, and their international plays are at the very least part of a national soft power strategy), or already diversified (Samsung).
I’m not sure what policies are in other countries, but Canada’s providers offer financing for all phones on 2 year contracts. You are forced into a high cost plan (it’s not uncommon for a flagship phone to require a $90+ plan), and on top of that pay PHONE_COST/24 as a monthly payment (an extra $30-50).
I wonder how many adults think “easy comfortable payments over 24 months” isn’t the same as spending >$1000 for the latest phone up front.
JFYI, The news here (Italy) is my bank writing me how they are offering 0% interest loans to buy (among other stuff) smartphones in their (actually their commercial partners') online catalogue.
Example:
Smartphone Samsung Galaxy 20 4G, 43.95 Euro x 20 months
Total 879.00 Euro, 0% fees, 0% interests
Too bad that that same phone can be bought at major electronics stores for 580-610 Euro.
The iPhone SE 64 GB for 24.95x20, total 499.00 Euro when the street price is more like 390-420 Euro.
Depends where you are in Canada. In Québec, plans seems cheaper in general. Koodo has good promos regularly. There was one a couple of weeks ago where you could've got an iPhone 11 for $648 total by staying with them for 2 years.
Promo was you pay $288 up front and the rest is paid with the $15 monthly tab on top of a plan, which starts at $40.
So for $288 and then $60/month you could get an iPhone 11 with unlimited calling/SMS and 5Gigs of data.
Obviously I know plans are much cheaper still in some other countries, but in Canada that was a good deal.
>And eight in 10 don’t like feeling pushed by manufacturers to keep up with the times – opting to get their tech as and when they need it instead.
This is why I opt to buy iPhones, even at a premium up front. I bought my iPhone 7 at launch four years ago and it's still going strong. Apple still supports it with iOS 14, so it's good for at least another year. Newer models look nice but my 7 still just works.
Why buy at launch? I'm usually ~2-3 years behind the latest, and especially recently that has worked absolutely fine. I buy my phones second hand in good condition for ~80% less than what they cost at launch. Looking at my current phone, a 7, I realise I'm actually 4 years behind and didn't even notice.
I find buying a phone and getting settled into it a big hassle. It's more important to me to do that as infrequently as possible. The cost savings are trivial to me when amortized over the life of the phone. If I buy an iPhone at launch, then I'm set for 4-6 years before iOS updates for it cease.
The trick to doing that is to buy something new, premium and high quality at first, or eventually, and first hand.
It is cheaper over time.
Not only will it last you 5 years or more, you can also resale it to subsidize the next new device.
When you buy a cheap phone or any consumer electronic 3 years old and second hand, you are already deep into its lifecycle and utility. It will just become a paperweight when you get the next device out of necessity.
If they last 5 years, buying a used phone after three years for 20% of the original price sounds like a great deal. Two years later, you'd buy the next one.
After doing that for ten years, you'd have spent the price of one new phone, while buying new and using them for 5 years will cost you the price of two new phones over ten years.
The only reason I finally moved from my 6 was storage. It worked well enough, but having bought the smallest storage option at the time, I constantly was deleting pictures, music, etc. to keep it functional. Storage will always get sucked dry by system updates, etc.
My latest iPhone died after cycling in the rain with it for a little too long after it was previously dropped and cracked, and I'm back to my iPhone X (3 years old) and it's perfectly fine, more or less indistinguishable in performance from my latest one.
I wasn't planning on upgrading this year (a first), but this model has a dodgy mute switch that I never got fixed, so it looks like I will be after all.
Even after iOS updates stop, it's fine. iPhone 6 here. No iOS updates, but all major apps work fine. Aside from those that lack hardware support for AR.
No? I still have a backup iPhone 6 I use to play music/podcasts on my stereo and which I travel with to Europe with a local SIM for GPS etc. At some point, I'll retire it but it still works fine for what I need it for (which isn't everything but I haven't noticed real issues with it being out of support).
One thing that is missing from an iPhone 6 or older is the Exposure Notifications API. I just upgraded my 5s, but apart not being able to use the NHS contact tracing app, it worked fine, albeit a little slowly in places.
I bought a iPhone 11 Pro, I hardly use its camera, never play games, only whatsapp and navigation. I am not interested in downloading apps... And I am over 40 now, maybe that's why.
I guess I don't regret it that much. Maybe I could get a iPhone 11 instead of Pro and feel the same. Now I am thinking to get rid of my phone and use a watch instead.
My old phone battery wasn't perform very well, I have heard good words about iPhone 11's battery, I think that's the reason I bought it.
The experience of even basic daily activities can suck on a 100$ Android phone. I have a Xiaomi Mi A3, the proximity sensor algorithm is so bad that I constantly press buttons with my cheek when I am talking to someone on the phone. And Xiaomi does not provide any updates to fix this because probably it wouldn't make sense to support this cheap phone further.
Having said that, op would probably do fine with a non-pro iPhone.
That’s exactly how everyone spends their money. Most things are a waste of money but they still pay for it. Oh check out that pair, that’s hot, I got to have it
Smartphones have matured; there are few new essential functionalities. Data point: the phone I use was launched 2016 and I rarely (or never? can't remember if ever) run into any problems doing whatever I need to.
My guess is the same statistic would have skewed differently say 10-15 years ago.
Seconded. My daily driver is a Galaxy S6 (launched in March 2015) and I don't feel any need to upgrade for the hardware. (Although the model I own, G920A, is particularly locked down, and which I am not happy about.) I'm hoping it lasts long enough that I can replace it with a Librem 5 as my daily driver. (Might get a pinephone earlier than that so I can help make that a reality).
Yes, but it's still hard for phones to communicate with peripherals in meaningful ways, especially via USB. IOS is a bit better on that matter, Android OTG is a catastrophe. I understand why a lot of people prefer iPhone, especially artists and musicians.
The thing I valued from my latest upgrade was a better camera. But the phone cost the same as two decent DSLRs. It just doesn't make sense to upgrade again.
Same with me... I have a S8... I wouldn't mind having the triple camera lens for focus and better lighting and recording in 4K... And then eventually 5G.
Everything else doesn't matter. I will wait another round before updating, though.
A canon rebel and the cheapest prime lens they offer can be had for well under 1k and will take better photos than a phone. Can’t argue with the laws of physics, its much easier to get fidelity with larger lenses and sensors.
Now we just need https://postmarketos.org/ to mature so we can actually have maintained, secure software running on our perfectly-serviceable hardware.
I think they’re probably wrong but it depends how you look at it.
I buy the latest one when AppleCare runs out. That gives me the latest handset, 2 years protection against my own stupidity, the best eBay return after that period expires, the best battery life always and the happy period before iOS gets slow.
If I don’t do that I have to pay up full price for repairs, involve third party repairer risk or write the whole handset off if I do something stupid (which does happen). Also I would have to put up with declining battery health, slower operating systems and worn connectors etc.
That applies to the SE as well which has a really low total cost of ownership over two years with all risks mitigated taking resale value into account.
Trick is to plan and save up for things you’re going to buy while you’re using the last one.
Smartphones drop in value so fast, it makes sense to buy a one-two year old flagship for a third of the price. And it won't be that far behind current flagships.
I still have my OnePlus 5, 3 years now. The battery is not the best anymore, and I can see myself replacing it (the battery) in 2021. I thought about getting a new one, but I don’t need a high-end camera and the market for reasonably sized smartphones is vanishing small. Whenever I see something slightly interesting, it’s even bigger than the OP5 which is already at my upper limit (and I’m a 190 cm tall person with big hands)
The 2016 SE has a retina display and runs the latest version of iOS just fine. It's only a little taller but quite a bit thinner than the original iPhone. You can still buy used ones in excellent shape for well under $200. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when iOS stops supporting them -- maybe next year?
I'm still using a OnePlus 5T - and I'm increasingly thinking that if it ever breaks I'll just find another one on eBay. Literally don't see any point in spending £700-800 on a new model, and this one still has a headphone jack - why would I upgrade? It's still fast enough for everything, even for games - been playing Genshin Impact in max details and it's smooth as butter.
I used mine for 5 years until it I dropped it and the screen broke (shattered, wouldn't respond to touch anymore). It was a great smartphone. I had the 64gb model.
I was using 10 year old HTC ONE up until a few months back. The reason is simple - for my use cases getting a new phone didn't add anything - no new functionality, no new design.
In the past new phones used to mean some kind of additional function: either colors, or mp3 support, or bluetooth. Now it's faster CPU and more pixels in your camera. After you sync stuff from your old phone you don't even notice any difference.
IPhone 7 Plus user here. Have swapped the battery twice (the last time I did it myself). Still don’t feel the urge to buy the latest. I’m probably going to keep going with it until Apple stops supporting updates for it.
When considering the survey findings, it is worth bearing in mind that the survey was commissioned by a company that deals in refurbished/second-hand goods, including smartphones...
Everyone is shifting torward foldable displays and or wearables due to the fact that since we can only get marginal improvements in smartphones at this time.
Sure microled displays or Telephoto lenses are neat but at this time I won't upgrade my iPhone 11 Pro for a few years because I just got a new Apple Watch series 6. I generally hold onto devices until the battery stops charging to ~80 percent or less.
The biggest reason I want a new phone is a better camera. I have a DSLR, but I just don’t bring that with me all the time, and the camera on the new iPhones is really good.
There is no need to buy the flagship phone every year or every two years. I can understand it if they cannot afford it, but anyone who’s into technology and can afford should make sure they have the latest software updates. They should also educate others about the importance of timely updates.
If you buy an iPhone on launch, you get five or six years of software updates.
I can only pity the people using their Android phones way past any hopes for software updates and being vulnerable to issues (security, software and hardware). I’m referring to most of the Android phones that don’t see updates after a year and all Android phones that don’t see updates after three years from launch. Pressuring Google or OEMs to provide software updates for longer hadn’t worked well, and Google is still slow on improving it.
All the issues unpatched since Android 7 (which Wikipedia says is the latest version for Note 5). Your phone is about four major software releases behind from the current one.
If your question is what harm you have suffered or would suffer, that’s like asking what’s happen if you didn’t wear seat belts for just one week or a month and still drive at high speeds. One can also make up other analogies related to safety.
If we're going with the seatbelt analogy, the most recent update now requires me to use my car key to lock and unlock the seatbelt, and prevents me from using the radio when the seatbelt is engaged.
And given that the dangers aren't comparable, I would love to just opt out and continue using my old, possibly less safe, seatbelts.
There are systemic negative incentives. Bug fixes don't generate revenue, except in very indirect ways; making old hand sets annoying coerces hardware purchases. If you're a low-margin handset maker, that's a combination that suggests an obvious course of action.
Android has had many kinds of security issues over the years leading to RCEs. The scariest issues are ones like the "Stagefright" vulnerability that let an attacker take over your device just by sending a malicious MMS, with no user interaction. That specific vulnerability is old and patched nearly everywhere, but there's zero reason to believe vulnerabilities just as disastrous and easy to exploit won't happen again, or that they won't affect a broad range of phone vintages, such as a range from before the Note 5 all the way to the Pixel 5, simultaneously. E.g., as best I can tell the Galaxy Note 5 stopped receiving updates around 2017, at Android v7. But in late 2019 a vulnerability was discovered allowing remote code execution of Android v7-v9 devices if an attacker can just get them to play a malicious video file. And since the Note 5 isn't receiving security patches, that'll be a threat every day forever until you upgrade. Think how many video files you see on social media, or video ads inside cheap apps you downloaded, or autoplaying videos online. Threat vectors are everywhere, and there's not a lot that classic "sensible online behavior" can do to protect you from this vulnerability.
Living with a phone that no longer receives security patches is taking the non-negligible risk that someday your phone will start transmitting your sensitive keystrokes and screen content and you won't even know it until the bad guy uses them.
It's tragic that Android phones are considered "good" when they provide three whole years of updates. Having spoken to an Android engineer about this I somewhat understand the legitimate technical/business drivers for that reality. But still, it's tragic that perfectly-good phones become a danger to users and incentivize otherwise-unnecessary upgrades because of their short update policies.
Sure, but the video vulnerability is just the quickest RCE vuln I could find for the Galaxy Note 5. I'll bet if I go back to the Android CVE database I could find more vulnerabilities of various kinds that the Note 5 is susceptible to, and that we'll uncover more in the future. And looking at Stagefright, the way you use your phone is no guarantee that you can dodge vulnerabilities.
It's up to you whether you are comfortable with the risk of running as unpatched phone. But a risk is very much present, and only using a couple of apps doesn't protect you from getting hacked and keylogged at the very least.
The security issue is a growing systemic problem. The hardware is fine, but the vendors no longer support it.
We are going to need a new revenue model or open-source paradigm to come to the forefront. The community approach is improving, but doesn't yet come close to the level of support one finds for Debian on the desktop.
> There is no need to buy the flagship phone every year or every two years. I can understand it if they cannot afford it, but anyone who’s into technology and can afford should make sure they have the latest software updates. They should also educate others about the importance of timely updates.
This is certainly not going to happen. When you get a new phone, there are only three ways it can hurt you: (1) costing money; (2) being the wrong shape; (3) having the latest software updates.
But getting the latest software updates is guaranteed to hurt you in way #3. If you update your software, a lot of it will stop working. Unsurprisingly, people have noticed this.
As do iphone users, though it's less frequent for iphones because there's less variety in the hardware/system (so can be more thoroughly tested before release).
I have no idea what OP is on about. If we're talking firmware updates, I've yet to have software stop working after a system update or upgrade. There have been random crashes that 9/10 times clear up on their own after a couple of reboots, or needed to clear cached data and resumed working afterwards, but no show stoppers and certainly no software incompatibilities after the update was applied.
My most recent OS upgrade was on an LG phone with stock firmware (upgraded from Android 8 to 9). Flawless process, and this is on a phone that's gone several other updates and upgrades (biggest one was 8 to 8.1 as I recall) and has been in constant use for 2 years.
Been an Android user since the Google Nexus One, which I got on release day as I recall. Weirdly enough, it's the LED trackball I miss the most.
Anecdotal of course, but so far I've gone through I'd say 6-7 major Android version upgrades with no issues.
Switched from Nexus 5X to Android One phones (AKA stock Android experience, like Pixel but without its camera software), so I've gone through more major upgrades than most Android users.
Next one is going to be a difficult decision, since it seems like one or two Android One phones were released in the last year or so. That doesn't make me optimistic about the Android One line, but I have close to two years before I have to worry about that.
The latest Android update is causing my Pixel2 some pretty significant QoL issues. I can no longer set certain apps or contacts to break through Do Not Disturb mode, and I can no longer reliably get to the top or bottom bars in full-screen apps.
I would rather take the risk of security, software and hardware issues than deal with this every day; I need to figure out how to downgrade.
Yes, it's important for users to update software. But it's also rather important for software to not break end user's products! I can completely understand why people avoid updates.
OEM software is proprietary and almost always crappy anyway.
Luckily there are independent builds of Android (with varying degrees of customization) for lots of phones. For a good overview over which models are supported check out which phones LineageOS supports officially: https://download.lineageos.org/ (for more intensive research on a specific phone check out its XDA forum).
These devices are typically updated as long as someone cares about doing it. The Nexus 5 (released in 2013) is still receiving the most current versions of Android.
I am yet to see Android vulnerability in the wild. This in India where everyone is on android and many using years old mobile. Compared to frequently viruses on windows machines. So are these devices hacked and the users do not know them? What area indications to know your device is hacked?
Perhaps it's like Linux on the playstation 2: During the time when sony enabled users to install Linux no one cracked the security. As soon as sony blocked linux, people cracked the security to restore it (and also copy the games...).
So long as the malware is coming from inside the playstore there isn't as much reason to exploit the vulnerable software...
I typically got a new iPhone every two years up to the X. The increase in battery, cpu performance and camera quality was worth it.
The X is fast enough with great camera and still good battery life although I can tell the battery is starting to loose noticeable capacity, still fine for daily use.
Will probably upgrade to a 12 which will be a three year change. Apple has kept me happy with ongoing software updates, I can hand the X down and it will continue to be supported for a couple more years and be useful.
I can see the trend continuing though where I might go 4 or 5 years or more between phones as the tech gains become smaller and battery life extends. They become more like cars (which I typically keep 10 years).
Agreed. I upgraded to the X from a 6S and that was a huge bump in performance and capabilities.
Now that X is starting to show its age I am considering switching to the 12. All the upgrades since the X so far have not been appealing and did not warrant spending that much to me.
You can replace the battery for a fraction of a new one, I basically have that already.
My second battery of my 6s now makes trouble again, no other issues. I struggle to come up with a good reason why I shouldn't get a new battery for another 2 years.
That's hilarious. They make the battery impossible to replace for consumers and then you need a new phone every two years and you see that as a feature.
Thats my point you don't need a new phone every two years, at three years I notice a slight decrease in battery life, I would imagine it will keep being useful for another two easily and I could take somewhere to get a new battery if I really wanted.
On the other hand I have old windows phone devices that had replaceable batteries I never utilized as they stopped updating the software after a year. Sounds like the Android side is similar. My Apple device have been some of the longest lived useful computing devices I have used even with the difficult to replace battery.
Every employer lends me a phone (an old iPhone), so I haven't had to buy one in almost 10 years, nor having to deal with a provider, and it makes me very happy.
Since they were released, I have owned exactly 3 iPhones. I'm a developer, not working in mobile, so my phone is for calls and that is about it. I've got computers all around me, there is no need to ever use my phone beyond calls and navigation apps. I see others put their identity into their phones, and I just shake my head. Just tools, people.
249 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 248 ms ] thread[1] income threshold per taxpayer: £35,345, but unlike US almost nobody bothers with private medical insurance
Unless you're like me in which case you give up about 10% of your income each year on absolutely frivolous shit you just had to have but then used for about a week only to never touch again. Oh the joys of totally shot impulse control. That definitely includes a few smartphones.
I think next time though I'll just get a dingy piece of crap. All a smartphone really is to me is a browser in my pocket. Don't need a 4k screen for that. Won't fall for the stupid gimmicks next time.
Well.. I say that but, if I had much control over it it wouldn't be called impulse buying :(
This can in turn be directed into its own kind of hobby. It's common for people who can't afford the actual thing they wanted to collect the marketing materials around it instead - like, instead of buying a luxury sports car, you get a poster for that car and hang it on the wall. It can be done creatively and redirect you towards your actual interests, instead of getting the high ticket product itself and learning once again that it did not magically improve life and mostly sits unused.
The "I must have latest Samsung Galaxy" crowd is depressively young and inaffluent. At least two such guys borrowed money to buy the latest models.
I could buy an older house in Czech countryside with my savings. A garage in Prague would cost approximately the same.
In America, the price differential between rural and metropolitan areas is even worse.
Movement back to the countryside could deflate the bubble and make property accessible without mortgages again.
The price of a similarly specified house in Iowa or West Virginia in a very affluent zip code is less than $600,000, some closer to $400,000. It is conceivable that a married couple with 10 years of savings could buy this house cash and continue working remote as they please!
Is this a joke? The 30 year mortgage is possibly the single most powerful financial tool available to an average person. It allows you to leverage hundreds of thousands of dollars for just a few percent down. Imagine going to your stock brokerage and asking for 1000% margin on a $10,000 account. You would be laughed at. Yet that's precisely what a mortgage allows you to do. In the US at least, home ownership is also incredibly tax advantaged as well, to the point that it is almost impossible to build wealth otherwise for a normal working class person.
Dare I remind you that a single income family could afford a new construction home with just 4 years of salary in the 1950s and 1960s.
Build more houses, make everyone that can go remote, remove the needless fake money bidding wars that come from easy leverage for those who qualify.
It is scientifically proven that when a human owns something instead of rents it, they take much better care of their property and their community (source: google). Mortgages and renting just bring despair and trigger apocalyptic emotions in humans, which is why the Bronx looks like the Bronx, and Bellevue looks like Bellevue.
I’m assuming you’re referring specifically to the South Bronx with your comment. An area that is in the state it’s in primarily because of decades of racist redlining that prevented any sort of leveraged investment in properties and services.
They might not go out to buy it but I bet a lot of white collar workers get it as part of their salary.
Or just give it to a trade in site and be done with it.
fwiw, I am quite happy with the 8+ and I am not even sure what it would take me to upgrade. phones would have to become super light, fold-able, or even perhaps translucent or such to pique my interest at this point.
That's why apple is a trillion dollar company.
Then it reversed and it was (say) 600 for a handset or free handset and 40 more a month for 24m (960 extra total) with the handset free. Same contract either way.
But I think a lot of people just kept getting the 24m contract. I went though it with my lodger and lent him the 600 because I think it takes the piss to do this.
Here in the UK at least there are a bunch of resellers who will give you a sim only contract and use one of the big three networks. So it's easy/affordable at least to just do that. I hope the US has this too...
MVNO deals can be better, but there's uncertainty from having a 3rd party, and often the MVNOs don't or can't offer x GB of high speed data with low speed data for the rest of the month. But going from like $80 to $30 is good enough for me, I don't need to go all the way down to $10
https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/30/services-really-are-becomi...
Everyone knew this was coming. It happened to TVs, it happened to desktops, it happened to laptops, and it's happening to phones.
Apple's biggest competitors are either playing a different game (the Chinese companies get to serve a completely different domestic market, and their international plays are at the very least part of a national soft power strategy), or already diversified (Samsung).
I wonder how many adults think “easy comfortable payments over 24 months” isn’t the same as spending >$1000 for the latest phone up front.
Example: Smartphone Samsung Galaxy 20 4G, 43.95 Euro x 20 months
Total 879.00 Euro, 0% fees, 0% interests
Too bad that that same phone can be bought at major electronics stores for 580-610 Euro.
The iPhone SE 64 GB for 24.95x20, total 499.00 Euro when the street price is more like 390-420 Euro.
Promo was you pay $288 up front and the rest is paid with the $15 monthly tab on top of a plan, which starts at $40.
So for $288 and then $60/month you could get an iPhone 11 with unlimited calling/SMS and 5Gigs of data.
Obviously I know plans are much cheaper still in some other countries, but in Canada that was a good deal.
This is why I opt to buy iPhones, even at a premium up front. I bought my iPhone 7 at launch four years ago and it's still going strong. Apple still supports it with iOS 14, so it's good for at least another year. Newer models look nice but my 7 still just works.
That’s what I do as well, but I find they’re more like 50-60% off new, not 80% (which means they’re 2-3x as expensive as if they were 80% off).
The trick to doing that is to buy something new, premium and high quality at first, or eventually, and first hand.
It is cheaper over time.
Not only will it last you 5 years or more, you can also resale it to subsidize the next new device.
When you buy a cheap phone or any consumer electronic 3 years old and second hand, you are already deep into its lifecycle and utility. It will just become a paperweight when you get the next device out of necessity.
After doing that for ten years, you'd have spent the price of one new phone, while buying new and using them for 5 years will cost you the price of two new phones over ten years.
as in you can flip the premium device after 2-3 years and have the next premium device new
I wasn't planning on upgrading this year (a first), but this model has a dodgy mute switch that I never got fixed, so it looks like I will be after all.
Looking at App Store update logs, following updates were installed recently: Gmaps, Vinted, Spotify, Things, Barbora, Mattermost, Trello, Revolut, Strava, Slack, Dropbox, Duo, Geocaching...
Having said that, op would probably do fine with a non-pro iPhone.
My guess is the same statistic would have skewed differently say 10-15 years ago.
Everything else doesn't matter. I will wait another round before updating, though.
Everything comes with a trade-off.
Try taking an airshow or wildlife photo with a phone. Not worth the effort.
I buy the latest one when AppleCare runs out. That gives me the latest handset, 2 years protection against my own stupidity, the best eBay return after that period expires, the best battery life always and the happy period before iOS gets slow.
If I don’t do that I have to pay up full price for repairs, involve third party repairer risk or write the whole handset off if I do something stupid (which does happen). Also I would have to put up with declining battery health, slower operating systems and worn connectors etc.
That applies to the SE as well which has a really low total cost of ownership over two years with all risks mitigated taking resale value into account.
Trick is to plan and save up for things you’re going to buy while you’re using the last one.
It would be nice to have a phone the size of the original iPhone with a retina display :/
My OnePlus 3T, still going strong.
I'm using a OnePlus One.
In the past new phones used to mean some kind of additional function: either colors, or mp3 support, or bluetooth. Now it's faster CPU and more pixels in your camera. After you sync stuff from your old phone you don't even notice any difference.
Sure microled displays or Telephoto lenses are neat but at this time I won't upgrade my iPhone 11 Pro for a few years because I just got a new Apple Watch series 6. I generally hold onto devices until the battery stops charging to ~80 percent or less.
If you buy an iPhone on launch, you get five or six years of software updates.
I can only pity the people using their Android phones way past any hopes for software updates and being vulnerable to issues (security, software and hardware). I’m referring to most of the Android phones that don’t see updates after a year and all Android phones that don’t see updates after three years from launch. Pressuring Google or OEMs to provide software updates for longer hadn’t worked well, and Google is still slow on improving it.
If your question is what harm you have suffered or would suffer, that’s like asking what’s happen if you didn’t wear seat belts for just one week or a month and still drive at high speeds. One can also make up other analogies related to safety.
And given that the dangers aren't comparable, I would love to just opt out and continue using my old, possibly less safe, seatbelts.
There are systemic negative incentives. Bug fixes don't generate revenue, except in very indirect ways; making old hand sets annoying coerces hardware purchases. If you're a low-margin handset maker, that's a combination that suggests an obvious course of action.
Living with a phone that no longer receives security patches is taking the non-negligible risk that someday your phone will start transmitting your sensitive keystrokes and screen content and you won't even know it until the bad guy uses them.
It's tragic that Android phones are considered "good" when they provide three whole years of updates. Having spoken to an Android engineer about this I somewhat understand the legitimate technical/business drivers for that reality. But still, it's tragic that perfectly-good phones become a danger to users and incentivize otherwise-unnecessary upgrades because of their short update policies.
There's not much I do outside the Chrome browser—no social media apps. I can count my downloaded apps on two hands.
It's up to you whether you are comfortable with the risk of running as unpatched phone. But a risk is very much present, and only using a couple of apps doesn't protect you from getting hacked and keylogged at the very least.
We are going to need a new revenue model or open-source paradigm to come to the forefront. The community approach is improving, but doesn't yet come close to the level of support one finds for Debian on the desktop.
Very tempting indeed.
This is certainly not going to happen. When you get a new phone, there are only three ways it can hurt you: (1) costing money; (2) being the wrong shape; (3) having the latest software updates.
But getting the latest software updates is guaranteed to hurt you in way #3. If you update your software, a lot of it will stop working. Unsurprisingly, people have noticed this.
My most recent OS upgrade was on an LG phone with stock firmware (upgraded from Android 8 to 9). Flawless process, and this is on a phone that's gone several other updates and upgrades (biggest one was 8 to 8.1 as I recall) and has been in constant use for 2 years.
Been an Android user since the Google Nexus One, which I got on release day as I recall. Weirdly enough, it's the LED trackball I miss the most.
Switched from Nexus 5X to Android One phones (AKA stock Android experience, like Pixel but without its camera software), so I've gone through more major upgrades than most Android users.
Next one is going to be a difficult decision, since it seems like one or two Android One phones were released in the last year or so. That doesn't make me optimistic about the Android One line, but I have close to two years before I have to worry about that.
I would rather take the risk of security, software and hardware issues than deal with this every day; I need to figure out how to downgrade.
Yes, it's important for users to update software. But it's also rather important for software to not break end user's products! I can completely understand why people avoid updates.
Luckily there are independent builds of Android (with varying degrees of customization) for lots of phones. For a good overview over which models are supported check out which phones LineageOS supports officially: https://download.lineageos.org/ (for more intensive research on a specific phone check out its XDA forum).
These devices are typically updated as long as someone cares about doing it. The Nexus 5 (released in 2013) is still receiving the most current versions of Android.
So long as the malware is coming from inside the playstore there isn't as much reason to exploit the vulnerable software...
The X is fast enough with great camera and still good battery life although I can tell the battery is starting to loose noticeable capacity, still fine for daily use.
Will probably upgrade to a 12 which will be a three year change. Apple has kept me happy with ongoing software updates, I can hand the X down and it will continue to be supported for a couple more years and be useful.
I can see the trend continuing though where I might go 4 or 5 years or more between phones as the tech gains become smaller and battery life extends. They become more like cars (which I typically keep 10 years).
Now that X is starting to show its age I am considering switching to the 12. All the upgrades since the X so far have not been appealing and did not warrant spending that much to me.
My second battery of my 6s now makes trouble again, no other issues. I struggle to come up with a good reason why I shouldn't get a new battery for another 2 years.
AAPL is a strong buy.
On the other hand I have old windows phone devices that had replaceable batteries I never utilized as they stopped updating the software after a year. Sounds like the Android side is similar. My Apple device have been some of the longest lived useful computing devices I have used even with the difficult to replace battery.