It seems that people don’t upgrade phones as often as they used to. More expensive phones, fewer carrier subsidies, and the death of two-year contracts may have led to this.
Carriers in recent years have offered less-generous promotions and separated the cost of a phone from a customer’s monthly service fees, leading to the demise of the two-year ritual of upgrading devices and service contracts simultaneously.
iPhones are now more expensive than ever. At the same time, Apple also has great support for older iPhones, so there’s not much incentive to upgrade every year anymore.
Check It Out: Americans Don’t Upgrade Phones as Often Anymore
In my family we are still using a 5c from 2013, and an SE from 2016. The 5c’s battery is nearly at the point where it will no longer operate at peak performance. The SE works just fine and the battery is at 95% of original capacity. The 5c was my first iPhone.
Nope – people still update phones like the drones they are, unlike the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80’s when NOBODY updated their phones and they were LEASED not owned. 🎸
I have a 2 year old SE that’s running fine. Not planning to upgrade for at least another year, maybe two.
We just replaced the battery on my wife’s ~3 1/2 year old 6. She’ll run that thing until it dies. She doesn’t care if it’s on the latest iOS.
For me it is about every 2 years.