Apple Expects Your iPhone To Be Replaced After Three Years

Megalith

Megalith

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I found this kind of surprising because there seems to be a good amount of people who clamor to upgrade their device every single year.

Apple has said that it expects so-called first owners of £500 iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches to replace them after only three years of use, and Mac computers only four. As part of the company’s new environmental push, which includes its new Apps for Earth campaign with the WWF, Apple has listed how long it expects its products to last for their “first owners” and therefore how much they contribute to the greenhouse gas lifecycle.
 
I was doing the phone upgrade every 20 - 24 months when my contract was up for renewal. I skipped the last one since I had no money.
 
This is a great business model for a hardware company. The phones I can sort-of see - the hardware/ram/gpu/cameras have changed dramatically in the 8 years since the original iPhone. At some point, I assume they will plateau (if they haven't already) and we won't see any amazing gotta-have features. Since you can't replace you iPhones battery (at least easily), toss it in the bin and buy a new one.
Apple is the same way with their laptops. The batteries have not been user-replaceable for several years. I have an 8 year old Macbook that has a replaceable battery. The device still works fine - I put in an ssd and get decent performance. My battery died, so I yanked it out and decided to just use it hooked up to power. I no longer have that choice with the current laptops from Apple. Sad.
 
This is Apple's way of saying, "not our fault" while they do indeed push owners to upgrade more frequently behind the scenes with ads, peer pressure, etc.
 
Good thing I have an old HP laptop as I bought it the day Windows 7 became available. It is still going strong although the AMD Turion 64 X2 2.5 ghz processor is starting to feel a bit slow on these clickbait websites that try to run a whole bunch of crap in the background.
 
For my last three phones I have used them for three years before upgrading, so this holds true for me. Previous to that I dont think phones lasted that long or wireless tech moved too fast.

As long as you are not buying cheap "feature" phones or junk no-name android ones and stick with the major brands this holds true.
 
amdgamer said:
Good thing I have an old HP laptop as I bought it the day Windows 7 became available. It is still going strong although the AMD Turion 64 X2 2.5 ghz processor is starting to feel a bit slow on these clickbait websites that try to run a whole bunch of crap in the background.
Click to expand...
i got old toshiba laptop with core duo with windows xp originally and its still going strong after 10 years.
 
I do my part by basically making it a point to never purchase anything produced by Apple. Period.

And, I upgrade phones when my old one quits working and/or it becomes to expensive to maintain. And then only grudgingly, because it is such a royal pain in the arse to migrate everything to a new phone -- and to tweak said new phone to my liking, which continues to get progressively harder with the new crap that comes out all the time. I'm currently running an LG G2 that I plan to keep as long as possible -- that was rooted with 24 hours of getting it, had all my old data and apps transferred to it (including all past call log and several years of texts), immediately flushed everything Verizon had loaded on it, modified the kernel and several other system files to re-enable missing features (e.g. it shows up as a standard Mass Storage device over USB with the real filesystem visible, rather than in the crappy Media mode), disabled all OTA upgrades (I'm still on KitKat and don't plan to upgrade beyond that -- I don't like Lollipop and loathe Marshmallow), changed a bunch of parameters to extend battery life, set it up so that I could route voice via SIP over my unlimited plan, enabled SSH/SCP/etc, configured OpenVPN, setup IPTables to block everything I don't like, etc.

So to Apple, Verizon, etc -- my phone is MINE, I will configure it how I like, and I will upgrade it when I want to, not according to your plans or designs.
 
steakman1971 said:
My battery died, so I yanked it out and decided to just use it hooked up to power. I no longer have that choice with the current laptops from Apple. Sad.
Click to expand...

You can't do the same thing and just keep it hooked up with a dead battery?
 
steakman1971 said:
This is a great business model for a hardware company. The phones I can sort-of see - the hardware/ram/gpu/cameras have changed dramatically in the 8 years since the original iPhone. At some point, I assume they will plateau (if they haven't already) and we won't see any amazing gotta-have features. Since you can't replace you iPhones battery (at least easily), toss it in the bin and buy a new one.
Apple is the same way with their laptops. The batteries have not been user-replaceable for several years. I have an 8 year old Macbook that has a replaceable battery. The device still works fine - I put in an ssd and get decent performance. My battery died, so I yanked it out and decided to just use it hooked up to power. I no longer have that choice with the current laptops from Apple. Sad.
Click to expand...

"Not user replaceable" is a matter of opinion, ability, and the having the right tools (usually purchased from China!).

I've swapped them out for people on the Air a couple of times -- no soldering and they weren't taped. It was just a matter of a bit of patience, getting a decent quality battery, and having the right pentalobe and torx screwdrivers available (and a decent spudger never hurts).

I'll never purchase an Apple product myself, but if I can help keep people who do use them from giving any more money to Apple to fix them/maintain them, I'm always willing to help out.
 
This is a business expectation, rely on people using their 2 year upgrade but give a buffer for people who hold out an extra year. Especially now with 2 year's going away.
 
People get bored with their gadgets and want something new to tinker with and show off continuously.

Businesses have a pre-determind depreciation time calculated.

Apple's data seems right on target.
 
With Apple continuing to up the privacy and security game on most releases, it can make sense to upgrade to get new security features.
 
And this is why I don't buy Apple products.
I hate forced obsolescence, and try to use products as long as possible, doesn't mater if its a phone, a computer, a car or a household appliance.

My last phone (Samsung S3) was over 3 years old before I replaced it. It was getting a little to slow, but the main reason I replaced it was because it was officially stuck at Android 4.3. I use the phone for work, so couldn't afford the down time (or risk problems) if I rooted it and install something newer.

Once I was moved over to my new phone, I did root the S3 and installed 5.0. Keeping it as a family backup phone in case someone's dies.
It actually runs better/faster than it did on 4.3, so the excuse that they didn't release the upgrade due to performance issues was a lie.

I have laptops at work that are 6 years old and they still work fine. Slap in an SSD and a new battery and it's like a new laptop.

Even an 8+ year old Dell D830 (2Gz Dual core, 4GB ram) works fine with Windows 10.
 
Mobile devices advance faster than even the notoriously quickly obsolete desktops of yore.

3 years is very generous assumption for a phone IMHO.

I'm usually disappointed with my phone after about a year, and then hold on to it for another year, begrudgingly until I can justify an upgrade.

IMHO the life cycle of phone these days is about a year.
 
amdgamer said:
Good thing I have an old HP laptop as I bought it the day Windows 7 became available. It is still going strong although the AMD Turion 64 X2 2.5 ghz processor is starting to feel a bit slow on these clickbait websites that try to run a whole bunch of crap in the background.
Click to expand...

Use a HOSTS file to block ads. Will make your machine feel brand new again.
 
Three years? Apple people are the ones that upgrade or replace their phones the fastest. I don't know many Apple users that keep their phones longer than a year.

I can believe that the phone itself lasts three years, but I'll bet it goes through an owner per year. Usually people staying a generation behind because they can't afford the latest model.

That said, I think phones may move away from the yearly upgrade cycle now that many of them have 2GB of RAM. That's quite a bit of RAM for a phone, and they're reaching a point where they're as powerful as people need them to be. What exactly would anyone do with a 4GB or 8GB phone, when those amounts are enough for most desktops?
 
Megalith said:
I found this kind of surprising because there seems to be a good amount of people who clamor to upgrade their device every single year.

Apple has said that it expects so-called first owners of £500 iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches to replace them after only three years of use, and Mac computers only four. As part of the company’s new environmental push, which includes its new Apps for Earth campaign with the WWF, Apple has listed how long it expects its products to last for their “first owners” and therefore how much they contribute to the greenhouse gas lifecycle.
Click to expand...

Little bit of journalism fail here

  • so-called first owners
They are not so called, they are first owners. If they had a nickname like hooty-kabooters, then you could say "Apple has said it expects first time owners, so called hooty-kabooters, of iPhones....."

  • using the word "only"
This is used as a derogatory phrase to induce a bias. Do we have a standard for how long electronics are supposed to be kept? When you say only in this context, it means it is not meeting a known length of time.

  • The company could be running into issues with its naming, as OS X – pronounced OS 10
I have never heard someone say OS 10, except way back in the beginning. Now I see people argue about is it OSX or OS X. But the X is always pronounced as ekks.
 
Dunno, I do smart phones every three years, and laptops every 5. The apple haters can come out and be the idiots they usually are, but apple's cycle isn't really far off from what the other manufacturer's aim for, and reality dictates.

Software bloat is the main problem with both.

Three years and a phones tend to not have the horsepower for the apps you want to use, and by that point, batteries need replacing and things are getting a bit scratched up even if you take decent care of your device. It's the same be it the iphones I buy myself, or the android phones I get from work. This horizon may expand once we really start hitting diminishing returns on feature and performance increases for the form factor. If you are the type of peson who makes use fo them liek a mildly enhanced phone, we may already be there. If you are the type of person who uses them as a little computer that can make phone calls, you are in the same boat as me.

Laptops, my current macbook is on year 4 and is still awesome. We are definitely at the point of diminishing returns on laptops, and as long as the screens and guts hold out, batteries can, at this point, still be replaced. It's just more work. Given where processors are, I might even move to a 6 year plus cycle, and apple seems to be completely capable of that.
 
raz-0 said:
Dunno, I do smart phones every three years, and laptops every 5. The apple haters can come out and be the idiots they usually are, but apple's cycle isn't really far off from what the other manufacturer's aim for, and reality dictates.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing. My phones have all worn out after 2-3 years, smartphone or not.

My old iPhone 3g is, incidentally, my only retired phone that still works. It's just slow as shit.
 
rat said:
Use a HOSTS file to block ads. Will make your machine feel brand new again.
Click to expand...

I'd rather just avoid the clickbait. Many of the sites I visit rely on these ads to keep their respective sites running. Thankfully places like the Tesla club, Hardforum, and a few others keep the scripts and ads to a minimum.
 
I am on a 2 year upgrade plan from AT&T right now for my phone. My tablet I tend to go every 3 years (due to the higher cost). Video cards for my home PC tend to be around a 3 year cycle. My home PC is more of a 6-8 year cycle. My phone and tablet are Apple but my desktop is custom PC.
 
I upgrade my phone when it dies now lol. Before when smartphones were new the gains were amazing but my htc one m8 can play all my emulators and surf the web 100% so I no longer see the need for an upgrade.
 
I upgrade my phone every 2 years, cause well it's free with my contract. I was thinking it was due to a price increase in the bill. Ppl who brought their phones over and got the same service as I do, pay the same. I don't plan on leaving my contract, so might as well get a free phone.
 
krotch said:
I upgrade my phone every 2 years, cause well it's free with my contract. I was thinking it was due to a price increase in the bill. Ppl who brought their phones over and got the same service as I do, pay the same. I don't plan on leaving my contract, so might as well get a free phone.
Click to expand...
Sprint had an unlimited everything plan for $50 no contract if you buy a phone, which i did. What I didn't expect is within 2 years, they raised the price of the plan and I have no recourse but to change providers. Damn cell phone companies.
 
I also have sprint unlimited that i was grandfathered into. Still unlimited and as far as I know I'm not throttled. No price hike either. If they do I'll complain my ass off. As for phone replacement, I keep mine until it is no longer usable. I went from iPhone 4 to 6S.

Apple played it so smart, they know most phone contracts are two years. So you either expire year 1 or year 2, hence iPhone 6 year 1, iPhone 6s year 2.
 
DocSavage said:
Sprint had an unlimited everything plan for $50 no contract if you buy a phone, which i did. What I didn't expect is within 2 years, they raised the price of the plan and I have no recourse but to change providers. Damn cell phone companies.
Click to expand...

The US has some pretty decent plans. I'm in Germany now though and I tried the no contract thing. Was paying 150 Euro a month cause I burned through the limits and would have to top up minutes. I'm on an 80 Euro a month unlimited plan, which also works throughout the rest of Europe. Think for another 15 Euro a month, I also get a stateside number with my phone for some stateside unlimited calling. I'm on T-Mobile Deutschland. Maybe they got the hookup with T-Mobile US.
 
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