People Are Keeping Their Phones Longer Because There's Not Much Reason To Upgrade, Study Finds (vice.com)

According to a recent study by Hyla Mobile as reported by the Wall Street Journal, a mobile-device trade-in company, the average age of an iPhone at trade-in is now 2.92 years. That's up from 2.38 years in 2016, and 2.59 in 2017, according to the company. From a report: Part of this, according to Biju Nair, chief executive of Hyla Mobile, is because phone plan carriers moved from a subsidized payment model for new phones, to payment plans, as smartphones got more expensive over the years. Now, if you purchase it from a big carrier like Verizon or T-Mobile as part of a plan package, your phone is basically on loan to you from the carrier, while you make smaller monthly payments until it's paid off and you own it outright.

It can take years to pay off a new smartphone (the iPhone XS Max costs almost $1,100), and once you've done it, there's not much incentive to give up that investment -- especially when the newest models aren't much different in terms of specs and performance than the one you already have. Add to this the efforts by right-to-repair groups to raise awareness about the fact that your phone actually doesn't need to go in the garbage every time you crack the screen, and you've got people keeping their phones longer. The way we view new technology has also changed in recent years.

Comments

Newer = worse

[MrLogic17]

I want my darn headphone jack. And I'm keeping it until my phone is unrepairable.

Re:Newer = worse

[Anonymous Coward]

I want my darn headphone jack. And I'm keeping it until my phone is unrepairable.

Nobody cares.

I care, and so do millions who are either forgoing upgrading or are increasingly buying portable audio/media players or are buying dongles that allow simultaneous 3.5 mm headphone connections and USB-C or Lightning charging, because it was stupid to remove the ubiquitous 3.5 mm standard in the first place. There is nothing wrong with it.

Re: +1

[pgmrdlm]

Buy an extra battery. Carry it without when you are out and about. Instead of carrying a charging cord for IF you can find a place to plug it in. Pull the back off the phone, pop the battery, and put the replacement in.
Oh no Mr. Bill, you are now back to 100 percent without having to charge.
Big deal that at night you charge your battery and your phone at the same time. How many devices do you have that need charged? But a multi usb charger, and problem is solved.

Re: +1

[edwdig]

Or do like the rest of us and buy a USB battery pack. You can get one for under $20 that fits in your pocket and can provide a full charge to a phone 4+ times. No need to turn your phone off and take it apart, and it works with all your USB devices.

I have two requirements, and only update when..

[CptLoRes]

there is a good reason for the update.

My last update was from Samsung Galaxy S3 to the S7. The reasons being much better camera and wanting to try the Samsung/Occolus VR googles.

And my two requirements are:
1. Headphone jack
2. Support for secondary SD-Card storage so that I can have 256GB+ storage for video, audio and pictures without extortionist prices (Internal storage for apps only)

So the way things are going now, it seems my S7 will have to last for a long, long time.

Re:Why not use them until they die?

[fish_in_the_c]

But do they care ... most picture aren't taken to be good, they are taken to remember or commemorate a moment or event, or to communicate to someone else something about yourself.

It is kind of like the whole loss-y compression debate, for most people, most of the time , there is a good enough, and unless you are a professional , or someone who make money at it you are unlikely to have interest in paying the required premium to get passed 'good enough'.

Re:Newer = worse for Android too

[Voyager529]

Samsung is the one vendor still keeping most of these features around.

IR blasting, removable batteries, physical/reprogrammable buttons, and unlocked bootloaders would like to have a word with you.