Other iPhone 14: Just say no

[roland.g]

It's that time of year again, when Apple and its legions of followers will make you think you need to separate yourself from $1,500 of hard-earned money to get a new phone.

Here's a checklist I use when thinking about acquiring a new phone.

1. Will the phone do anything I need? No.
2. With the new phone, will I end up doing exactly the same things I'm doing with my present phone? Yes.
3. Will the phone make me happier? No.
4. Will the phone make me poorer? Yes, in several ways.

Food for thought...

So today I got a new battery for my 8 Plus. Totally happy, and probably good for another 2 years.

1. Does anyone curate these threads that get page 1 space to draw us in. Because this feels like a "fire" theater moment when the OP doesn't bother to engage the thread after their OP.

2. I'd be curious in a philosophical sense as to how the happier evaluation might relate to recreational stimulants that are legal in some states.

3. To actually refute / address the OPs 'list'.

The OP List:
1. "Will the phone do anything I need." - If a new phone won't then your current phone doesn't either. This point was not well thought out at all.

2. All phones do what the prior generations do, some have newer features, but don't pretend that you are waiting on something magical.

3. This is a valid question, but rife with interpretation as it is 100% subjective and no one should push their views of happier upon another.

4. Any purchase in life, whether it is food, rent, etc. can affect your relative financial situation. A shrimp cocktail appetizer can also make one 'poorer'.


If you wanted to do an actual list:
1. Does my present phone have issues, such as battery, signal, performance running tasks that a new phone would fix and replacement parts would not?

2. Are there any features on the new phone and incremental on phones released since my current phone (i.e. jump from XR to 14) that could compel me to upgrade?

3. What sort of trade-in (or hand me down to family members) value does my current phone have in considering the purchase?

4. What is my typical upgrade cycle, and where do I currently fall in that cycle?

5. Are there other Apple / tech devices that I upgrade, i.e. Watch, iPad, Laptop/Desktop, TV, etc. that I would be completing this year that would make me skip this iPhone (as many people don't get a new watch and phone at the same time for cost savings)?


I would think these are some of the real questions someone might ask and go through in the process of determining their upgrade decision.

 

[Kathsr]

It's that time of year again, when Apple and its legions of followers will make you think you need to separate yourself from $1,500 of hard-earned money to get a new phone.

Here's a checklist I use when thinking about acquiring a new phone.

1. Will the phone do anything I need? No.
2. With the new phone, will I end up doing exactly the same things I'm doing with my present phone? Yes.
3. Will the phone make me happier? No.
4. Will the phone make me poorer? Yes, in several ways.

Food for thought...

So today I got a new battery for my 8 Plus. Totally happy, and probably good for another 2 years.

I also have an 8+ and weighing the pros and cons of upgrading. There are some issues with it that definitely annoy me. For one thing, I don’t get audible notifications for messages, email, etc. after I’ve received one. I will not receive any more audible sounds until I restart the phone. Also, just lightly bumping the phone (front or back doesn’t matter) I lose all sound while I”m listening to music or a podcast. I can turn it back up ok but it’s still annoying. The screen doesn’t ever turn off on it’s own so if I want to retain battery I have to manually turn it off. The button for doing this is exactly opposite the volume buttons and you have to be very careful not to touch them to turn the screen off.

I bought the phone refurbished from Apple in June of 2019 and it has served me well but I don’t thing I would buy another refurbished one again. Changing the settings and doing hard resets, factory resets, etc. don’t fix the issues.

That said, dang the newer models are so expensive! I’ve already purchased an Apple Watch S7, an iPad Pro 12.9” (replaced my Macbook Pro that I had for 11 years) and a magic keyboard. I could not love them all more but my Apple Card is still smoking! I’ll need to evaluate the button positions on newer models.

 

[compwiz1202]

Interesting take on this. I don't think some needs to upgrade every year. We just want to.

The phone is the only thing I upgrade every year. The rest I just keep for about 3 years.

I honestly find it weird that I have the itch to upgrade my phone every year but not my tablet or watch etc.

Exactly technically you only need food clothing shelter. Anything else is a want and shouldn't be bought according to OP. Even with the three bases, anything fancy of those is a want. So just get bread and water, handmade clothes and a shack.

 

[compwiz1202]

This phone will not cost me $1500 actually. This phone will cost me 12 months of IUP. Going from 13PM to 14PM.

I don't understand why people make these type of threads. If you cant afford it or not upgrading that's all you. No need to bash our fun times. My neighbor just got a 911. Should I bash him about it because I cant afford one yet?

Yes if they do the same level of carrier tradeins, I will get $800 instant + some installment credits, and finance the rest. It might be less than $10 a month after the installment credit. I need to go check.

EDIT: Actually it's $10.46 before installment credit. $3.30/mo after. Less than half a cup of coffee per month.

 

[Poppaduck]

Exactly! Life is too short to be wasted on smartphones or other useless gadgets that won't change your life in any way. There is really no difference between iPhone models. As long as it works, it’s fine. Same apps, same content, doing the same things. You're just trying to justify yourself there's a difference because you think that purchase will somehow make you happy. Well it will, but only for like five minutes. After that you have basically the same device, and much less cash. Don’t do it. Life is wonderful. Live your life. Gain experiences. You don’t need phone for that. Upgrade when it breaks or becomes truly unusable. It’s just a tool.

Thank you OP for starting this discussion. Trying to wake people up is not being negative.

Technically your wasting your life arguing with people you don’t know about a phone that haven’t even been announced and yet you are critical of other people and how they are “wasting their lives”

 

[glam269]

I'd like to keep my X but seems like it is always lagging now. Maybe I should just completely erase it and start fresh just to see if there is any improvement before dropping $1k plus if the main reason is lag.

Anyway, regarding "incremental" improvements. They might be incremental if upgrading every year but if you haven't upgraded in a few years then those incremental improvements do add up to something a little more sizeable.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Since there will be no 14 Mini, I'm out anyways..

All the new phones are too big and heavy for me

 

[C-Dubs]

Just to spite the OP, I will automatically upgrade to the iPhone 14 from the 13, regardless of what it looks like. Glad I can blame it on them now. 😜

Also, upgrading devices usually allows people who want cheaper old ones to get them.

 

[DotCom2]

Just to spite the OP, I will automatically upgrade to the iPhone 14 from the 13, regardless of what it looks like. Glad I can blame it on them now. 😜

Also, upgrading devices usually allows people who want cheaper old ones to get them.

lol. Don't forget about hand-me-downs. Passing your "so last year" iPhone to a family member and EVERYONE is happy!

 

[TechRunner]

I've said this before, but if you're only allowed to buy the things you need, life would be pretty uninspiring.

 

[diamornte]

It's that time of year again, when Apple and its legions of followers will make you think you need to separate yourself from $1,500 of hard-earned money to get a new phone.

Here's a checklist I use when thinking about acquiring a new phone.

1. Will the phone do anything I need? No.
2. With the new phone, will I end up doing exactly the same things I'm doing with my present phone? Yes.
3. Will the phone make me happier? No.
4. Will the phone make me poorer? Yes, in several ways.

Food for thought...

So today I got a new battery for my 8 Plus. Totally happy, and probably good for another 2 years.

One more to add to the list:
5) Will upgrading every year add to the growing tons of ewaste i.e. phone cases, chargers, accessories that become obsolete w every technological advance Apple makes? Yes.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

iPhone sux

Reject iPhone

Return to Mac

 

[ericg301]

How do you figure? $300 for the pro max is a no brainer. How would I do that by trading in an xr?

Your xr is too old. You gotta trade in every 1-2 years to get the most bang for your phone.

 

[I7guy]

Your xr is too old. You gotta trade in every 1-2 years to get the most bang for your phone.

Our house has one person that has an upgrade every two years. But we keep our phones for four years.

 

[I7guy]

One more to add to the list:
5) Will upgrading every year add to the growing tons of ewaste i.e. phone cases, chargers, accessories that become obsolete w every technological advance Apple makes? Yes.

Same with every consumer oriented product.

 

[KOTN91]

It's that time of year again, when Apple and its legions of followers will make you think you need to separate yourself from $1,500 of hard-earned money to get a new phone.

Here's a checklist I use when thinking about acquiring a new phone.

1. Will the phone do anything I need? No.
2. With the new phone, will I end up doing exactly the same things I'm doing with my present phone? Yes.
3. Will the phone make me happier? No.
4. Will the phone make me poorer? Yes, in several ways.

Food for thought...

So today I got a new battery for my 8 Plus. Totally happy, and probably good for another 2 years.

8 plus? The XR is a huge upgrade from that. Let alone the 14

 

[rgwebb]

It's that time of year again, when Apple and its legions of followers will make you think you need to separate yourself from $1,500 of hard-earned money to get a new phone.

Here's a checklist I use when thinking about acquiring a new phone.

1. Will the phone do anything I need? No.
2. With the new phone, will I end up doing exactly the same things I'm doing with my present phone? Yes.
3. Will the phone make me happier? No.
4. Will the phone make me poorer? Yes, in several ways.

Food for thought...

So today I got a new battery for my 8 Plus. Totally happy, and probably good for another 2 years.

I think making personal purchasing decision-making matrices are wise but I also think they're truly personal.

I tend to agree with your framework though. It roughly follows how I have arranged my process flow...

 

[The Californian]

You are most certainly not a photographer, not a “digital creative”, or an academic/professional creating text or numbers for work -No professional is out there replacing his laptop or desktop with an iPhone.

Yes, smartphones can do a little bit of everything. But their core value is calls and text.

Everything else is done with more precision and efficiency on bigger devices that are made for one thing only.

Some TikTok'ers and SoMe influencers might be making a living off their iPhones. But they are exceptions and you are not.

Neither your iPhone Pro or iPad Pro are computers, Apple has deliberately designed those devices and limited their software and I/O to make sure you still need a Mac/PC.

If all brands dropped doing new phones this year you couldn't upgrade and absolutely nothing would change about how you use your current smartphone.

iPhones are not art or shares -they are consumer electronics and liabilities. I don't care what deal you're getting or what the upgrades are this year.

I’m a physician. Prior to the iPhone I would have to go to my office, log in to the computer, and load up images, or charts/labs/test results to review when I was asked to consult on a patient. This often meant when I would get paged about a patient, the physician reaching out to me would have to wait until I could get to the computer, which at times could be in excess of an hour. Now I can retrieve any of that information on my iPhone in minutes, or less. Having an iPhone (in reality any smartphone for that fact would work) has significantly improved the speed at which I can direct care for a patient, and that patient can receive treatment, which I have no doubt has significantly improved the outcome for numerous patients.

But I guess according to you, I’m not a professional since I was able to replace my laptop, and home computer with an iPhone.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

in the UK we are in the midst of a cost of living crisis. Not sure how the rest of the world is coping but inflation is sky high and interest rates are only up slightly (still not good news for savers). Things are getting more expensive, petrol, cars, houses, food, energy bills, clothes..... no doubt this will mean a substantial price rise for the new iPhones in the UK, and with all the other price rises in play for standard things like the weekly shopping, well, this year I have other priorities rather than a new phone.

Indeed I’d imagine mobile phone upgrades here in the UK will be down considerably this year and increased prices will just ensure this further. It’s unbelievable how expensive everything has gotten since April as the war in Ukraine has taken its toll on our supply chains. I’ll probably upgrade but I know plenty who have put this sort of expense way down their list of priorities. We are going to be paying £500 a month in heating bills this winter for goodness sake.

Interest rate will be 4% next January and I’m glad because I have tonnes of savings so I’ll probably get about 10k interest alone.

That’s really good for you then. The cost of everything else is going up or has significantly gone up so you’ll lose a lot more than you make in the longterm. Petrol and diesel is due to go up again in October with forecasts saying we could be back to paying £2 a litre again, not good.

 

[mjschabow]

After trading in or selling my iPhone, it costs me roughly $300-$400 per year to upgrade. Sit on your iPhone 13 Pro Max for 3 years and then upgrade to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and you'll pay about $1200. So in the long run, you'll pay about the same, maybe a smidge more upgrading every year but not significantly different and you get to enjoy the latest tech. If you like to have the latest tech and can afford it every year, why not?

 

[kc9hzn]

So minorly incremental. Again…

Literally the always on display is probably the only way to tell the difference between it and the 13. Or the 12 for that matter.

The other items literally make no real practical or perceivable difference in day to day use…

LDRRP5 RAM.. seriously…

I never sat around and said gee I wish I had Wifi 6e because it would be faster or I wish the notch was lower…

Mind you I will still buy it 😂

Minorly incremental year over year, perhaps, but OP is apparently on an iPhone 8+ still. That’s four years of upgrades (effectively 5 if you consider that the 8 was barely an upgrade from the 7 and was the mid-range vs the iPhone X). The RAM increases alone probably would make browsing the web a lot less painful, considering 4 years of web bloat (and mobile web bloat, at that*).

* Software doesn’t rust, no, but actively developed sites always increase in bloat over time, especially news sites and the like. And bloat’s always been worse on the mobile web, maybe because web devs feel they can always just throw more JavaScript at a page to make it more “progressive”. Progressive Web Apps almost always tend to run worse on mobile devices than on desktops, and part of that seems to be a tendency for ever more JavaScript based page navigation (since touch screens just absolutely need JavaScript navigation, it’s not like they can display simple text layouts like IE6 could /s), not to mention autoloading articles and endless internal link boxes once you’ve finished an article. I honestly find that websites and web browsers tend to be the primary reason for the purchase of new computers these days. You could still use an old PPC based Mac these days to do the same tasks you did on them back in 2004 (or even 1994) just so long as you don’t need to go online on it.

 

[Cobold]

I say yes to 14 Pro Max.

You only live once and I might be dead by tomorrow if crazy Vladi is pullin‘ the trigger, so what. It’s only money.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

After trading in or selling my iPhone, it costs me roughly $300-$400 per year to upgrade. Sit on your iPhone 13 Pro Max for 3 years and then upgrade to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and you'll pay about $1200. So in the long run, you'll pay about the same, maybe a smidge more upgrading every year but not significantly different and you get to enjoy the latest tech. If you like to have the latest tech and can afford it every year, why not?

My fear is I’d get very bored if I was getting a new phone every 12 months. It’s hardly anytime to really enjoy a device really. Longer periods between upgrades make it a bit more interesting for me as the differences are bigger and you’re not having to buy additional accessories like cases after short period ls too. Whatever works though, if people want a new device every year then great.

 

[symphony]

What people say to avoid FOMO

 

[mjschabow]

My fear is I’d get very bored if I was getting a new phone every 12 months. It’s hardly anytime to really enjoy a device really. Longer periods between upgrades make it a bit more interesting for me as the differences are bigger and you’re not having to buy additional accessories like cases after short period ls too. Whatever works though, if people want a new device every year then great.

I think I would get bored if it weren't for the current advances in camera tech. That's pretty much my #1 thing and every year the tech improves enough for me to get pumped about.