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Comment by rdschouw | Hacker News Reader

The increased pricing changed how I perceive replacing my X with a new one. I used to routinely upgrade yearly up to the SE. Now, I'll keep I plan to keep using it until it no longer functions. Similar to my laptop upgrade cycle which is every 3 years now.

I think Apple is biting themselves in the foot with the increased pricing. I think it is significantly slowing down the replacement cycle. My dad typically buys my old phone and then his phone goes to my mom. Now, he replaced the batteries since no phone is coming his way through me.

On the upside, it's better for the environment.

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Apple fully expects the replacement cycle to slow. They said that they are trying to make phones last longer. They are focusing on service revenue and accessories like the Watch.

Which is a good thing, I can't see why these devices shouldn't last five years or more.

The mobile phone cycle is just a redux of what happened with PCs until around 2007. Computers were getting a lot faster and software coming out actually demanded better computers.

Honestly, around 2009 and the introduction of the Core 2 Duo, computers became good enough for most people.

I just retired a circa 2009 Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz Dell laptop with 8GB of RAM running Windows 10 with one of the last great 15 inch 1920x1200 displays (as opposed to the 1920x1080) as my Plex Server about two months ago.

In day to day use, I couldn’t tell the difference between that and newer computers besides the spinning hard drive vs SSD. It has a gigabit Ethernet port and was wired into my network. It had just as much of RAM as most computers sold today, the hard drive was the same size (but much slower), the screen was better than what comes in many consumer laptops and most computers today don’t come with gigabit Ethernet.

In 2009, a computer from 2000 would have been unusable. (http://www.topdesignmag.com/top-performance-computer-looked-...)

Mobile processors are now getting that way. While an iPhone 5S from 2013 is perfectly usable running iOS 13, there is no way that an iPhone 3G from 2008 would have been something you wanted to use in 2013.

I tell people the 6S is when phones became fast enough. It doubled the RAM and speed of the 6. It opens apps nearly as fast as any of the new phones[0].

[0] Day to Day apps. Not heavy games and such.

The only reason I upgraded from my 6s to 8 plus was the massive battery. I gave my son my old 6s - with a newish battery and the Apple battery case and he loves it.

A 2 year replacement cycle of iphone+apple watch is better for apple than a 1 year replacement cycle of just iphone, because it means people are more invested in the ecosystem.

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