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What is the longest you have kept (and used) an iPhone as your daily driver?

  • <6 months

    Votes: 3 0.6%
  • 6 months to a year

    Votes: 31 6.7%
  • 1-2 years

    Votes: 67 14.4%
  • 2-3 years

    Votes: 97 20.8%
  • 3-4 years

    Votes: 96 20.6%
  • 4+ years

    Votes: 172 36.9%

  • Total voters
    466
How’s your screen-on time on a full charge? Any special charge/use habits for the batt to last so long? Do you have 4G/LTE capability given many carriers have/will drop 3G soon?

6-8 hours of use. I never think about special charge habits. Start charging when the battery goes under 10% and always charge up to 100%.

My carrier (T-Mobile) hasn’t dropped 3G yet. Anyway, iPhone 4 can works without 3G, but the internet is extremely slow. There is no 4G/LTE in this model, so if carriers drop 3G, the only way to speed up the internet will be to change the phone.
 
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3 to 4 years? I can't remember - whatever the interval was between my 6s and X, and I was a little late to the game with the X. It's usually determined by how much I'm annoyed by reduced battery life. :)
 
can you explain why if you don’t mind me asking? I love it though the iPhone 4 was one of the best phones for its time / in GOAT tier with same ppi as 5/se/xr/11

Just because it works. There is nothing to complain about. Except for the home button (which died after 6-7 years), there is no hardware problem with the phone. The only problems are software-related. Some apps stopped working because of a lack of updates, but the majority of them are still functional today.

I had an iPhone 3G before (bought it because it was one of the few phones with 3G at that time). Next, I bought an iP4 because I loved the design. Newer iPhones did not offer anything interesting to me. Besides, their designs are just worse in my opinion.
 
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I kept my iPhone 4 for two years.

Starting with iPhone 5, I’ve upgraded every year upon new release.
 
A few threads/comments on here lately about longevity and keeping/getting rid of iPhones, especially with the 14 on the horizon.

Just curious to know, what is the longest you have kept (and used) a single iPhone for?

Not talking about a spare, or one you used for a while then kept in a drawer, but your actual daily driver. I'm talking about a single device, not simply using only iPhones for several generations. So if you went from a 7 to a X, only one model would count.

EDIT: Apologies for title gore...
A little less than 4 years on my 8 Plus.
 
Nice poll.

I was of the impression that most people buy new phones mostly every year.
Now I know why.

Like everything Apple we generally talk mostly about our new stuff, not our old devices that we had for some time. Unless they start messing with us, of course.
I thought I was an exception with having a 4 yr old iPhone now. But great to know that most ppl that participated don't buy new phone every year.
I definitely love buying new Apple devices when I need and feel like doing it. But that's it.
 
6-8 hours of use. I never think about special charge habits. Start charging when the battery goes under 10% and always charge up to 100%.….

My mind is blown…. iPhone 4 only spec’d 10hrs of SOT and most folks can barely manage half Apple Spec with new phones. And 12yrs with zero battery management?

I think Apple slipped you prototype solid state battery. You could probably sell that phone to NASA for big money.
 
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The phone I have used the longest is my SE1 from 2017 to 2021. Forced to replace it because it would run hot when opening Duolingo and peak performance capability caused it to shut down occasionally.
 
A few threads/comments on here lately about longevity and keeping/getting rid of iPhones, especially with the 14 on the horizon.

Just curious to know, what is the longest you have kept (and used) a single iPhone for?

Not talking about a spare, or one you used for a while then kept in a drawer, but your actual daily driver. I'm talking about a single device, not simply using only iPhones for several generations. So if you went from a 7 to a X, only one model would count.

EDIT: Apologies for title gore...
The only iPhone I have had was an iPhone 4S. I kept it for as long as I was contracted to with Sprint. In hindsight, I should have ETF'd my Sprint contract and seen if I could have bought a factory-unlocked one instead.

For the benefit of those who might not know, back in the day, Sprint was¹ a national cell network provider (as opposed to an MVNO like Ting, Straight Talk, etc.), and they used a CDMA cell network. CDMA does not use SIM cards as GSM does, which more-or-less meant CDMA phones were by definition carrier-locked. Also, "back in the day", it was pretty uncommon for someone to have an unlocked cell phone in general.

When the next generation (4th gen) of cellular data network was in the process of being developed and deployed, Sprint bet the farm on WiMAX, and the other major carriers went with LTE, as had most if not all carriers around the world.


¹ Sprint became to the cell carrier business what AOL was to online service providers (and then later ISPs): they lost like half or more of their customer base because their service was crap, their rates were sky-high, they mandated that to have data service at all you had to pay the extra for 4G service even though WiMAX was only offered briefly in a few markets and eventually shut down. Why T-Mobile acquired them I'll never understand. Sprint should have been left to just go bankrupt and out of business.
 
My mind is blown…. iPhone 4 only spec’d 10hrs of SOT and most folks can barely manage half Apple Spec with new phones. And 12yrs with zero battery management?

ip4.jpg
 
My record is a little less than 4 years (September 2016 iPhone 7 to April 2020 iPhone SE2). Basically just a specs upgrade but everything else looks the same.

I upgraded relatively quickly from the SE2 to the SE3 because I’m concerned Apple will axe the home button on the next iteration. Also, my SE2’s battery has gotten pretty bad (2-3x a day charging with just standby battery drain).
 
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In the early days I used to get almost what I paid for last year's model. Now it's close to $200 less than I paid. A bit around 55 cents a day.
 
9-10 months on an 11 pro. Ever since then it’s been anywhere from 2 weeks to currently 9 months on my 13 mini. I’ve swapped between the 13 mini and an se3 for the past 3-4 months.
 
The longest I've used an iPhone was for four years with the iPhone X. It would have been longer but it died after being submerged in water last year, so I replaced it with an iPhone 12 mini. I had previously used my iPhones for an average of three years before replacing them.
 
iPhone X until iPhone 11 Pro. So 2 years, XS was a garbage upgrade So skipped it.

otherwise I’ve upgraded every year.
 
Wow, you actually kept it at iOS 6. That's actually crazy for a 12 year old battery. Although usage isn't the same as screen on time but still. Would be interesting to check battery health and used cycles on it after all these years.

The design capacity of a 12-year old battery is 73.9%. Unfortunately, coconutBattery shows a cycle count as "Unknown".
 
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iPhone 7 Jet Black bought in 2017 and still going! I’ll finally be upgrading to the 14 Pro on launch.
That'll be my stepdad, from max storage Jet Black 7+.. I want a "Jet White" that matches the ceramic AW Edition...
 
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5s - bought October 2013 and stopped using daily in November 2017. Wanted a Rose Gold SE but couldn’t justify the money so kept the 5s until I gave Android a try.
 
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