I've said this before. If Steve Jobs comes back to life, he'd be hunting all the people responsible for designing the current crop of Apple products.

Until they showed him the money they are making

You are not supposed to buy phones yearly, think of new models as refreshes for people in the market at that time. Phones are insanely good now and can easily last 5+ years. You don't need to upgrade!

Apparently, this meme is quite literal:

They have the usual shades of grey as well, but I guess, these were the signature colors for those iterations...

Rocking the 13 pro still

Agreed. iPhones in particular continue to perform well for years. The upgrades from one year to the next are so minor that they probably wouldn’t be noticed by the average user. That said…both these colors are gorgeous.

he would be doing that even if the new products were 10000x better than the ones in his time… he was just a well rounded asshole

that makes little sense, why bother with a new release at all if it's just the same phone from last year? why not just keep the 17 around for another year?

To clarify, I agree with your advice to not upgrade yearly, I just don't think that's what Apple is shooting for, it's what Apple may be achieving by their lack of innovation and constant release of identical phones

Same, it’s still going strong and I can usually get about two days of battery life out of it still. No reason to buy a new one.

I have a 12, and before that a 6. I was a actually contemplating if I should get the 18 because it follows the pattern, but my 12 is still going strong with 86% battery life left.

I mean, if my phone was 5 years old and I was to upgrade phone now and pick iPhone - it’d be 16 (mostly due to price). If it was to happen next year - it’d probably be 17 instead, and then then next upgrade would be 16 (or 17) + 5 (or how long you’re okay with old phone). So, there’s a bit more of convenience here than if releases were once in 5 years, even if you’re not being that one Apple fan everybody knows, who upgrades everything yearly.

I’m not actually sure about 17/18’s tho as their pricing was certainly affected by RAMpocalypse.

I don’t know anyone these days who buys a new iPhone each year.

Used to be worth it, now they’re refreshes.

My 15promax is still spec and feature wise ahead of the current iphoneSE.

No idea if I’ll get the new one, maybe wait another year. Though the better camera is what I really want.

For clarity I think I’m dead smack in their demographic, I have expendable income and COULD buy a new phone each year, I’m in an Apple ecosystem and develop on Apple.

I don’t speak for everyone obviously, but I think it’s more of a meme and anti-apple/tech-tribalism that pushes the idea of “must consume new phone”

Android really pushes you to keep upgrading because the phones stop being supported, it’s wild. iPhones receive updates for quite some time. The iPhone 11 from pre-Covid is still marked as capable of ios27 so still receives updates.

The iphoneSE at sub 400 bucks is a iphone15 pro and if you don’t NEED an upgrade but want a boost … that’s the way to go imo.

Also he would be a zombie. so yeah.

Have they updated the app interface?

Every iPhone user I have seen has this ugly looking interface for photos, and other apps have this janky 90s look to it, with crappy looking icons.

Needs to be a chain of people looking back

iPhones since the 5, and it was actually quite good for a while! Then a couple years ago they did an overhaul and now it’s significantly less user-friendly, which is super cool and good.

Phone should last 5+ years, but you'll be lucky if you get 3 or even 4 years out of it until it starts to crap out.

That's the reason I recently bought a fair phone. They promise updates until at least 2033. That's twice as long as any other manufacturer.

Nah man, iPhones will last even longer than that. Swap the battery when it hits the 78% health mark and keep on trucking.

Mine is over 5 years old now and after considering upgrading, I just decided to buy a new battery and replace it. Much easier than most people realize but I have been fixing them for like 18 years now so maybe I’m biased.

I keep friends and family iPhones going until they just simply want to upgrade, not because of planned obsolescence or incompatibility. The former typically happens first…

My wife has used iPhones for years and would disagree. She also now has a fair phone.

I also hate the garbage UI/UX design and lack of things called "options".

So you’re saying swapping batteries out on a relatively undamaged phone when the time it’s needed doesn’t work? Or you just don’t think it works lol.

iPhones have the highest reliability of any other option.
Which is why they retain their value so much better.

Iphone 18plus ships with 2mb more RAM! That's like 1 more tab man!

What county do you live in? The ones made for the US can't replace batteries.

And no iPhone don't hold value because they are the most reliable. They hold value because dick riders are too busy deep throating apple to look around.

At one point it was so bad Apple users were discriminating because of text bubble colors. Nevermind the fact that Apple refused to update beyond basic SMS and that all other phones had the freedom to just change the damn color and not care

The US.

The ones made for the US can't replace batteries.

You can’t be serious lol. This is very naive and simply false. I’ve replaced over 100 batteries on iPhones and iPads without issue.

Edit:

And no iPhone don't hold value because they are the most reliable. They hold value because dick riders are too busy deep throating apple to look around.

Guess there’s no sense in continuing the conversation since facts aren’t going to matter much to you.

I’m still on an iPhone 12 with no issues

Not the point I'm making. I'm strictly talking about the design of the phone.

I've never bought or owned an iPhone but I think 4s may be the best looking one. New models just look ugly.

They don't have high reliability, no more so than any other mainstream brand. They retain their value because it's Apple, who rarely put sales on, oh and they are fashion pieces.

Iphones usually tend to last 5+ years easily, the battery is the only part that might crap out early.

But of course an easily repairable phone like the fair phone is even better. Unfortunate that it costs a premium compared to phones with similar specs. Repairable should be the default, not a niche offered by few manufacturers.

Because other manufacturers will make a new phone and you still need to compete with them for customers who want phones that year. People don't get their phones in uniform cycles and phones can die unexpectedly

Nobody should and most don't buy a phone every year. But there are still a lot of people buying new phones every year if that makes sense.

Android flagships are now catching up with iPhone on support cycles but in hindsight it's wild to me how as a former Apple hater I along with a lot of other people also hated Apple for making their phones obsolete every few years by dropping support. Could've just googled to see how wrong I was lmao

I don’t really care how “easy” it is if it takes me 20 minutes and I don’t have to think about it for another 4 years. Usually I only swap them a single time because the next time around I’m probably going to be wanting upgraded hardware. Fairphone is cool and all but I prefer a higher ip rating inherent to iPhones in comparison.

Accidentally drop your fairphone into a pool and the modular construction aspect seems less relevant.

Isn't seven years about the same as most long-term updates for phones? I know that was the promise I got when I got mine.

This is just not true, I am still using an iPhone 11 with 0 issues. No slowdowns or visual lag whatsoever.

I also still get access to the latest iOS updates while also getting the vast majority of features, excluding anything that the phones hardware physically cannot support. (generally only features that require an OLED screen or a powerful enough NPU)

I dont care either. You are just fooling yourself if you think iPhones are any more reliable than the other mainstream options.

What about the super innovative, first ever, this changes everything AGAIN foldable iPhone?

I think the "you must have all the latest updates or you're a security risk" thing is a bit overblown, possibly by the companies themselves who want to make sure you install all their latest spyware.

All you people talking android vs iphone and I'm just sitting here wondering when everyone's gonna switch to LoRa/meshtastic so we can stop paying for service.

The Fair phone is way cheaper than other phones with similar specs.

That may be true but unfortunately everyone on lemmy are as anti iPhone as they are anti fascists.

I also have an iPhone 11 with no issues but apparently that being a fact is not welcomed on the platform which is very silly.

Phones are insanely good now

Correct

and can easily last 5+ years

Incorrect. Ever heard of planned obsolescence?

They've got that dystopian bullshit down to an exact science now and phones are one of the most affected product groups.

Which is one of the reasons why I'm contemplating getting a Fairphone when this Samsung monstrosity is finally paid off in a couple months.

Dude's cute tho

I can get a Xiaomi with the same SoC, higher display ppi (unfortunately also bigger display, they're WAY too big IMO) and otherwise similar specs as the 6+ for 435€, but it's 300€ if I'm willing to drop to 8 GB RAM (still 7s gen 4 so in comparison to the base 6 it has a newer SoC).

Fairphone wants 600 for the 6, 650 for the 6+.

I'm going to want your source for the Fairphone because if it's significantly cheaper than the 435€ Xiaomi with 12 gigs of RAM for a 6+, I'd buy it despite not even needing a new phone yet.

"Version numbering is getting old. Let's call this one Time To Buy Your Phone Again!"

Wasn't Xiaomi one of the companies that got caught sending all your data to China along with Hauwei and OnePlus?

I'm paying a little more, but way less than the mainstream brands (Samsung,Apple,Google,Motorola) without the Chinese data leak of the cheaper brands.

I used to buy the cheaper Motorola phones, but the quality is 50/50 if you get something good or not.

Yeah they should kiss

iPhone is locked down anti consumer bullshit is what they're saying I think.

It's correct. Planned obsolescence was a big problem, but it isnt anymore. Phones have software support for 7 years. I have had my current phone for nearly 4 years and it runs as fast as the day I bought it. I will take it through next year and probably the one after.

We kind of peaked with smartphones already. In the last 5 years, there hasnt been many big upgrades that people need. Phones are high quality, high performant, and unless you are playing games on them, they last all day.

The Fairphone is great. I'd recommend buying phones outright, if you can afford it, and getting a SIM only contract.

My iphone 12 Pro from 2020 is working just fine as is, with no battery maintenance or repairs? Weird. I'll ride this one until I finally break it.