[froo]

>> Devices shouldn’t become outdated every year. They should evolve with you.

I really don't understand this sentiment.

I've still got my iPhone 6 Plus. I haven't seen the need to upgrade yet. It does absolutely everything I want.

At this rate, the only reason I'm going to upgrade is if I destroy my phone somehow (I've yet to even put a major scratch on any of my smartphones over the years) or if a vendor comes out with some feature where I'm like "yeah, I could really see myself getting use out of that"

>> Technology should assist you so that you can get on with enjoying life.

It's a smartphone for crying out loud. It's a platform designed for communication. Bonus points for having a camera in my pocket and some apps which help me for various tasks.

> The first actually open platform phone is the one that will have longevity.

Exactly, I feel that we're kind of getting there with all of the recent phones that have come out in the last couple of years. There's no real killer feature anyone's come out with, just nice things to have.

[patrickthebold]

>>I've still got my iPhone 6 Plus.

Not the parent, but that's pretty new. I used a 4s earlier this year and there were several apps that couldn't be upgraded and/or stopped working.

[BoorishBears]

I got my pair of Nexus 6 dev phones a month after my iPhone 6 Plus.

The Nexus 6 reached it final OS update with N but the 6+ is about to get iOS 11.

The iPhone 5s is about to get iOS 11. If it weren't for the 64-bit transition I wouldn't be surprised if it had gotten on the iPhone 5 as well.

Apple gives about 5 years of iOS updates, which makes keeping the same phone a lot more feasible. Meanwhile my Google sourced Nexus barely makes it two without landing on security patches-only.

[wingerlang]

That's still an 6 year old phone, do you consider this long or short? Generally Apple are extremely good at keeping their devices usable.

I used an iPhone 4 up until late last year, my dad is still using it. Now I upgraded to an iPhone 5s.

The annoying part is generally apps that require a higher OS, which is the app developers fault. But even then you don't always necessarily /need/ the absolute newest version of an app.

[simonh]

Up until November last year my youngest daughter was using my old 3GS. She loved that phone and could even still download apps from the App Store. I know this because I installed Lemonade Stand for her last summer. You can't get that now because it only worked on the older OS versions, but there it was in the App Store for her 6 years after I bought it. I'd try and boot it now to check it, but I'm not sure where it is.

Planned obsolescence by big fat arse.

[illumin8]

The 6 Plus will be 3 years old in a month. The fact that its still a powerful phone, and will receive OS updates for another couple years speaks volumes about iPhone longevity vs. Android.

[froo]

That doesn't seem to be a manufacturer issue though is it?

In case of tablets, my partner is still using her iPad 2 and Netflix has a version of their app that still runs on that.

The core software on her tablet, like the core software on my older phones that were given to family members still work fine.

Its the 3rd party apps that seem to be abandoned by software developers. That's going to happen regardless of what phone manufacturer's want.

[ekianjo]

> I've still got my iPhone 6 Plus. I haven't seen the need to upgrade yet. It does absolutely everything I want.

That's hardly an old phone. Do you see yourself still using it in 3 years time?

[zanny]

I've got a Galaxy S3, an S4 couple first generation Moto Gs, a 2012 and a 2013 Nexus 7, a Note 2, I think? 2 Note 3s, and a One Plus One in various states of: loaned to cousins, used as house phones, backups in a drawer, backups in cars, or lying on my desk.

They were all either broken, at yard sales, given to me my clients / contacts that don't want them, or were <$20 on ebay.

In general four things kill these devices:

* Touchscreen breakage. It is almost never worth trying to replace if the screen cracks.

* Flash burnout. Shitty flash chips don't last forever. I've binned almost every older phone than this crop because the flash memory dies.

* Charger port wear. Microusb sucks, replacement parts vary wildly depending on model - I can get an S series charger for <$5 most of the time, but trying to replace a Droid phone charger once was impossible because the charger harness was soldered to the pcb.

* Software. I generally outright ignore devices without a ROM scene and an unlocked bootloader, but even then it is entirely volunteer how long Cyanogen/Lineage/Paranoid/etc are willing to keep supporting these fossil kernels. The S3, Note 2-3, and original Nexus 7 are all on their deathbeds because of lagging community support for these devices. It is worth mentioning, however, for the Samsung devices they have gone community supported far longer at this point than their official support periods lasted. Great job Samsung.

Batteries are usually a non-issue. You can buy shitty Chinese knockoff batteries (or if you are lucky Anker) that don't hold a charge and don't last long, but you can keep these devices running on bootleg parts for a while.

The software is the ultimate killer. What should be the easiest to maintain is the hardest, because corporate greed and hunger for control trumps customer respect. All my mobile devices are cheap, used, or broken when I get them because none of these exploitative abusers are worth giving a direct cent to.

[froo]

Yes.

My vision isn't great, so I upgraded from my iPhone 4 to the 5 because of the larger screen, and the 5 to the 6+ due to a larger screen.

Really, the screen size has been the main driving factor in my phone purchase decisions.

My 4 & 5 have been passed down to my mother, so they're still in use. Hell, I was still using my 1st gen iPad until just over a year ago when the screen just failed.

[Aaargh20318]

> That's hardly an old phone.

In the smartphone business, it's practically an antique.

[piyush_soni]

Besides, they don't give any more software update guarantee then Google's flagships are giving (previously Nexus phones, and now Pixel) - i.e. 2 years.