Apple's push back to that is prematurely ending software support for some of their products. I'm a bit salty that they dropped two generations of Apple Watches for watchOS 11, which includes my SE 1st gen.
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Apple Users Are Keeping Their Devices for Longer as Upgrades Slow
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What blows my mind is seeing group of young teenagers all using iPhone Pro Maxes. Oh right, maybe they’re YouTube influencers. 🙄
Wow, there are a lot of cynical, angry people around these days!
I’ve just upgraded to my third Mac in 16 years. I tend to use my computers until forced to upgrade, either by hardware failure or by evolving software demands, and my Macs have served me far better than all the PCs I’ve ever bought or built. They’re expensive, but the cost is justified for me (mostly, no one can excuse some of the upgrade prices)
My 3GS was the first phone I ever had that I kept for a full two years, until my 8 Plus. I nearly didn’t upgrade to my 14, and would have just replaced the battery, but I damaged the speakers so the repair costs vs replacement we’re close enough that I decided to upgrade.
Smartphones are a mature platform now. The performance jumps are smaller, there aren’t many new features that are must haves, so it’s much easier to keep them longer. My 8 Plus still rooms really well, as long as you don’t try to make a phone call!
I would absolutely upgrade from my iPad Air 2 If I could afford it, but they’re frightfully expensive, here in Australia. I don’t know where I could possibly find the $1299 for the 13” M2 iPad. At that price, I’d need to get a decade of use out of it!
I’ve just upgraded to my third Mac in 16 years. I tend to use my computers until forced to upgrade, either by hardware failure or by evolving software demands, and my Macs have served me far better than all the PCs I’ve ever bought or built. They’re expensive, but the cost is justified for me (mostly, no one can excuse some of the upgrade prices)
My 3GS was the first phone I ever had that I kept for a full two years, until my 8 Plus. I nearly didn’t upgrade to my 14, and would have just replaced the battery, but I damaged the speakers so the repair costs vs replacement we’re close enough that I decided to upgrade.
Smartphones are a mature platform now. The performance jumps are smaller, there aren’t many new features that are must haves, so it’s much easier to keep them longer. My 8 Plus still rooms really well, as long as you don’t try to make a phone call!
I would absolutely upgrade from my iPad Air 2 If I could afford it, but they’re frightfully expensive, here in Australia. I don’t know where I could possibly find the $1299 for the 13” M2 iPad. At that price, I’d need to get a decade of use out of it!
The 27" iMac on which I am typing this just turned 7. The toughest job it has to do is Lightroom for large DNG photos, and it's fine. I suppose a current model Mac Studio would save me a minute or three exporting the jpgs, but that's not worth $5K for a Studio and a display. So I'll run this one until it croaks.
For what it's worth i'm keeping my iPhone 6s until it becomes out of date.
I think with this Apple will stop extending iOS upgrades for more than 4 years.
Even, we can end with macOS limited only to 7-8 years of support.
Even, we can end with macOS limited only to 7-8 years of support.
iOS 15 will stop receiving security updates this fall and after that various ID/banking apps will likely withdraw their support.
So, prepare your wallet! It has had a decent run, that one.
Glad you included the universe of cell phones. Shows all manufacturers have no innovative blood, I guess.
No reason for you to upgrade.
You just made a sweeping generalization of “devices”. Which is it? Apple or everybody?
Some people would want them. Don’t include me in your”we”.
Well yes we do. This ai is a hot rocket.
Apples been in business for decades and three failures? They are batting 1000.
Where would we be? Have you given this suggestion to apple via the feedback app?
No it doesn’t.
The supply chain guy worked some miracles.
Start a shareholder revolt?
I upgraded three of my Apple devices this year. My phone, my iPad, and my watch.
My phone went from an SE2020 to a refurbished iPhone 12 mini.
My iPad went from a mini 5 to a refurbished 11” M1 iPad Pro.
My watch went from a series 4 to an Ultra 2, but that was almost a refurbished Ultra 1.
Everything was over 4-years old, and only one was replaced by a “new” full-priced item.
I keep being tempted to upgrade my old Mac mini, but I don’t use it much.
As much as I’m drawn to new Apple products, there’s not sufficient appeal to spend the money on them.
My phone went from an SE2020 to a refurbished iPhone 12 mini.
My iPad went from a mini 5 to a refurbished 11” M1 iPad Pro.
My watch went from a series 4 to an Ultra 2, but that was almost a refurbished Ultra 1.
Everything was over 4-years old, and only one was replaced by a “new” full-priced item.
I keep being tempted to upgrade my old Mac mini, but I don’t use it much.
As much as I’m drawn to new Apple products, there’s not sufficient appeal to spend the money on them.
iPhone 13 Pro here. Will likely upgrade this year for Apple Intelligence.
My 14” M1Pro MacBook Pro has been surprisingly resilient. I use a lot of CPU for audio plugins in Cubase and I rarely hit the limit even with large track counts. I don’t think I’ll upgrade anytime soon.
Two things holding me back from upgrading are cost (they have gone up a lot since the M1 Pro) and the fact that the new chips have more efficiency cores and less performance cores.
To get performance that is significantly better means going for the Max chip at the moment and that’s just too expensive.
My M1 12.9” IPad Pro has several more years left in it. But I did just update my Paperlike screen protector and carry case
My 14” M1Pro MacBook Pro has been surprisingly resilient. I use a lot of CPU for audio plugins in Cubase and I rarely hit the limit even with large track counts. I don’t think I’ll upgrade anytime soon.
Two things holding me back from upgrading are cost (they have gone up a lot since the M1 Pro) and the fact that the new chips have more efficiency cores and less performance cores.
To get performance that is significantly better means going for the Max chip at the moment and that’s just too expensive.
My M1 12.9” IPad Pro has several more years left in it. But I did just update my Paperlike screen protector and carry case
In my case:
iPhone - no upgrade path for the mini size (have 12 mini, was going to skip 13 mini until the announcement that it's discontinued, then bought a 13 mini as a backup), and lack of physical SIM slot makes newer iPhones unattractive to me
iPad - on the M1 iPad Pro. The later revisions are incremental at best and the iPad is still very fast.
Mac - on 14" M1 Pro MBP. Still works fine since I bought it with 32GB RAM+1TB SSD, but in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about replacing it with an AMD laptop since I'm disappointed with new macOS and Apple Silicon Macs in general.
iPhone - no upgrade path for the mini size (have 12 mini, was going to skip 13 mini until the announcement that it's discontinued, then bought a 13 mini as a backup), and lack of physical SIM slot makes newer iPhones unattractive to me
iPad - on the M1 iPad Pro. The later revisions are incremental at best and the iPad is still very fast.
Mac - on 14" M1 Pro MBP. Still works fine since I bought it with 32GB RAM+1TB SSD, but in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about replacing it with an AMD laptop since I'm disappointed with new macOS and Apple Silicon Macs in general.
With most people struggling to pay the bills who can afford to buy new tech unless you absolutely need too?
First of all, no it's not. Last one came out one and a half years ago. But that version for whichever reason did receive more security updates than usual.
But the ios12 oddity doesn't get in the way for aforementioned apps usually dropping support like a hot potato after two versions. YMMV might vary by country, of course.
I am still rocking my iPhone 8 Plus which is on its second battery. It’s a little sluggish, but not impossibly so.
I’ll upgrade to the 16 in the fall, which should be an impressive leap, relatively speaking.
I’ll upgrade to the 16 in the fall, which should be an impressive leap, relatively speaking.
Apple have been doing this for the better part of a decade.
I believe upgrade cycles are slowing because the underlying operating systems and peoples use cases haven't fundamentally changed in years.
The big choke point from a work perspective for older Mac OS machines was battery life and 4k video processing. Apple silicon fixed that.
The problem with iPadOs is that quite a lot of pro apps are either cut down versions of their desktop counter part or simply don't exist. If they do exist often they are just an extension to the desktop version and requiring you to deploy everything via the could.
Same with iPhone OS. Yes new OS versions ad features that are often only available on only the newest iPhones but they often just gadgets.
I think we have reached the good enough point with most Apple devices and people only upgrade when the old device breaks or repair is too expensive.
The biggest question now is will we see an increase in feature bloat making the devices less usable. I hope not.
The big choke point from a work perspective for older Mac OS machines was battery life and 4k video processing. Apple silicon fixed that.
The problem with iPadOs is that quite a lot of pro apps are either cut down versions of their desktop counter part or simply don't exist. If they do exist often they are just an extension to the desktop version and requiring you to deploy everything via the could.
Same with iPhone OS. Yes new OS versions ad features that are often only available on only the newest iPhones but they often just gadgets.
I think we have reached the good enough point with most Apple devices and people only upgrade when the old device breaks or repair is too expensive.
The biggest question now is will we see an increase in feature bloat making the devices less usable. I hope not.
Yes the big problem is 3rd party apps dropping support, people complain about apple but all you need is IOS 10 for most apps
A wise man once said “If you keep your eye on the profit, you're going to skimp on the product. But if you focus on making really great products, then the profits will follow.”
I miss that guy.
Thank goodness there is someone at the helm that thinks the same way -- as shown by the profits that followed.
I don't believe Apple is unhappy with the consumers that choose not to upgrade. Some still provide Apple with service revenue. I'm sure there are some that there is no additional outlay for services. At least here, there is icloud+ and apple tv+. Plus in the last two years there has been two phone upgrades.
Sure they do. Plenty of people will happily buy new devices on monthly payment plans where the real cost gets hidden.
Devices are lasting longer and longer anyway, so it’s diminishing returns.