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Ask HN: What do you do with your old iPhone when you buy a new one?

18 points by arvindravi ↗ HN
I read a lot of HN comments/posts where people mention they've upgraded their phones to the new one that had recently come out and such, and I keep wondering what they do with their old ones.

Where do these used iPhones go?

36 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 81.3 ms ] thread
justinnoel
I give it to someone in the family who uses an android phone.
arisarnado
I sell my old iPhone and use the funds for the new iPhone.
dangrossman
I have five old Android phones serving as IP cameras in my house. Some WeMo motion sensors can alert me to a possible break-in, then I can check the cameras from my phone. Also lets us check in on the pets while we're out.
nixy
Pass it on to my wife. And my wife passes her old one on to either her or my parents.
Aldo_MX
I give it to other family members (mom, cousins, aunts/uncles, etc.)
patio11
Softbank (Japan) will buy it back from you. Yesterday they gave me $240 (structured as $10 a month for 24 months as a statement credit) for my iPhone 4S. (http://www.softbank.jp/mobile/campaigns/list/tada-kisyuhen/) Generally they're rather less generous ( http://www.softbank.jp/mobile/campaigns/list/shitadori/ )

I assume that Softbank processes 10,000 of these at a time and then sends them to China for resale.

justinnoel
$240 is a good price for a used 4S! Now I'm thinking how can they afford to do that so?
patio11
I assume that a portion of the calculation is "We got him to switch from a $60 plan to a $90 plan to support the iPhone 6, so rebating him $10 a month is not a hard decision."
mseebach
Depending on which discount rate you use in your NPV calculation, it's a good deal less than $240. Also, if softbank are like mobile providers in Europe, it's a $10 credit on the most expensive plan with everything and the kitchen sink included - not the smaller tier or pay as you go plan that's actually plenty for most people.

Also, $10/month (well, less, depending on what the iPhone is actually worth) doesn't seem to be totally out of whack for a short term promotion to grab some market share.

corobo
Honestly my 4s is still sitting on the desk in the exact spot I put it when I last used it after replacing it, I have no idea what to do with it.

Suggestions welcome, I'm in the UK

emiunet
I don't buy new iPhones if I already have one. I don't see myself in need of doing that. I am trying to keep all expense as minimal as possible, especially in tech hardware because it gets improved so fast.
jkubicek
Sell it on Amazon. I sold my 32GB 5S for $450
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Marcus10110
keep it, with the intention of using it as a development platform for a robot or something, but then never end up doing anything because who wants to learn another toolchain, right? Instead, lets just drop that in the box next to the palm pre and the old windows mobile phone.
cpach
It would be cool to install Linux on a bunch of iPhones and use them as servers at home. They wouldn’t take up much space :) But of course it wouldn’t be practical when considering the lack of drivers and ports (e.g. Ethernet).
[dead] apricot13
I keep them in a drawer with the intention of putting them in a frame in an office when I have one. It will be nice to see the evolution of them over time...and that way I dont have to part with them!

I dont upgrade every single time so i only have a 3G and a 4, will probably get the 6S but am quite enjoying my moto e atm!

I also keep them all charged, so the batteries don't get all bloaty. (and I still use the 4 as a camera!)

apricot13
I keep them in a drawer with the intention of putting them in a frame in an office when I have one. It will be nice to see the evolution of them over time...and that way I dont have to part with them!

I dont upgrade every single time so i only have a 3G and a 4, will probably get the 6S but am quite enjoying my moto e atm!

I also keep them all charged, so the batteries don't get all bloaty. (and I still use the 4 as a camera!)

lazylizard
funnily enough at my old workplace, the wives get the newest phones and pass them off to my colleagues when they're done..
chrisBob
I just got my first iPhone (5s) and I still use my android phone every day: as my alarm clock. There isn't a good way to turn off the vibrate part of the alarm on the iPhone, and my wife can sleep through the alarm sound, but not the vibration noise, so it doesn't work for us.

If it wasn't for that I would recycle it.

dennybritz
Travel back in time to replace IBMs datacenters of 1995.
skilesare
I have a personal assistant in Mexico. I tried to ship him my old iPhone 5 so he could do some iOS app debugging for me. FedEx wouldn't ship it and told me that Mexico customs would confiscate it. Way to go Mexico!
Aldo_MX
Strange, I'm from Mexico and I have ordered some phones without issues. But they got shipped via USPS and UPS.
joezydeco
They turn into wifi-only devices for their kids to use.
mrsteveman1
Gazelle [1], because I upgrade every 2 years, and they pay me enough for a 2 year old iPhone to cover almost 90% of the cost to upgrade.

Sure Gazelle likely turns around and sells it for 1.5-2.0x what they pay me, but they're very fast, reliable, they send real bank checks for the full amount rather than AT&T or Amazon store cards or prepaid debit cards, I don't have to deal with anyone else (individual buyers on Amazon marketplace or eBay, or worse: locally), and most importantly I don't have to spend more than a few minutes on the whole thing, which is more valuable to me than the minor additional money I could get selling it myself.

[1] https://www.gazelle.com

jgeorge
Unlock 'em and put them on Ebay. If you assume some risk of shipping them overseas to countries that don't have easy access to them, you'll get bidders who are willing to pay a premium for previous-generation devices. I sold an unlocked iPhone 4 to someone in a remote South Pacific island for nearly the price I paid for the new iPhone 5 that replaced it.
caw
My 3GS exclusively sits in my car and plays music connected via Bluetooth. I also used it traveling to another country, since AT&T would unlock my old iPhone but not my new one. They said the reason was that I was "currently on contract and it's not their policy to unlock contracted phones".
zengr
Sold it on eBay, made about $370 for 16gb iPhone 5s.
avalaunch
Did you take any precautions to limit the risk of getting scammed? I'm worried that whoever places the winning bid will file a dispute claim stating that they didn't receive it or some other nonsense and ebay seems to always side with buyers.