Other Is your current iPhone enough?

[Lab1]

I upgraded last year from a 13 pro to a 17 pro. I will not upgrade again for a few years. I am quite happy with my current phone.

 

[RyanFox]

I’m at a strange point with my Apple fandom. For the past few years, I honestly don’t feel a strong desire to upgrade to any of the new iPhones.

I currently have an iPhone 15 Pro, and it still does 99% of what I need. Apple almost sold me on the iPhone Air, but the lack of strong dual speakers ultimately turned me off.

So I created this poll to see where everyone else stands. Do any of the new iPhones appeal to you? If you’re not upgrading, what’s holding you back- is it the weight, price, colors, features, or something else?

I'm also using iPhone 15 Pro. I have no reason to buy a new iPhone except for the battery. It's crazy that if I'm going out, I only feel safe if I bring 2 5000mah power banks. According to tests on the internet (geekerwan), its lasting time is even shorter than iPhone Air.

I changed the battery at the beginning of this year, however the lasting time still sucks.
I think maybe I bought the iPhone 15 pro as soon as it was released, and there are some problems in the first production?

Anyway I'm going to buy the 20th anniversary iPhone next year. This is the only reason I don't want to switch to iPhone 18 pro.

BTW may I ask how is your iPhone 15 pro doing with its battery? Are u experiencing the same problem or it is just me? My friend with iPhone 15 pro max has similar problem but slighter (probably because larger battery). He also bought the first produced iPhones that year.

 

[NeonNights]

I upgraded last year from a 13 pro to a 17 pro. I will not upgrade again for a few years. I am quite happy with my current phone.

I applaud your resolve.

My wife also happily keeps the same iPhone as long as 6 years. She's currently on an iPhone 15 Pro and no interest in the new 18 series, nor the Duo. There is great value (and savings) in self-contentment.

 

[rocketbuc]

13 Mini.
Physical size & weight > everything else for me.

We should have 13 mini as a possible selection…to start convincing Apple about the market potential.

 

[rocketbuc]

Mine is still on iOS 18. I read all the reviews of 26 and nope out. I’ll see how people like— or don’t like— 27 on their 13 Minis before deciding whether or not to install it.

Mine is the same. Works perfectly!

 

[operand]

My personal phone is a 16 Pro, and my work phone is an SE3. The SE3 is so small and light, I wish my personal one was as well.

 

[Dirk Pieters]

When my iPhone 6 died unexpectedly I bought the 14 Pro, which was the model back then. My only regret is not waiting for the 15 Pro, which would have gotten rid of the lightning port of the 14. Oh well.

I love having an iPhone with me. At the same time I can't imagine why I would upgrade more. I get it: the cameras improve all the time, but at the same time: none of the pictures we take are printed or shown on a large screen.

I bet that 99% of pictures taken with iPhones worldwide are never printed or used in such a way that the improved quality makes a difference. To each their own I suppose.

Next week I will probably be holding an 18 Pro at an Apple store next to my iPhone 14 Pro and wonder why I should cough up that much for what is essentially the same phone.

 

[subjonas]

My current Air will be the best phone option for me for the foreseeable future*. I can't stand how big, thick, and heavy phones have gotten and are still getting. The Duo is smallish when folded, but it's still very thick and very heavy, so it's a no go for me. The Air on the other hand got rid of both thick and heavy, only leaving big. And a phone grip mostly works around the "big" issue--not ideally but tolerably.

My only remaining major sticking point with the Air was losing the telephoto camera. Like everyone I'd love to have the most powerful camera available integrated into my phone. Yearly camera improvements are probably what drive most phone upgrade sales. But ever-improving cameras are inherently tied to ever-growing size/weight phones. After realizing this, I had to drop out of that race. I gave up on the idea of ever having a good phone and good camera in one device (with our technology for the foreseeable future). Because for me, a core quality of a good phone is good ergonomics, which is not necessarily a core quality of a good camera. In other words, I want my phone to be as functional as possible within the limitation set by ergonomics, and I want my camera to be as ergonomic as possible within the limitation set by function.

So along with my Air, I got myself a dedicated superzoom compact camera that I bring in a fanny pack or jacket pocket when I think I might want to use it. And it turns out it's actually not that often. The only real downside then is that I may not have my dedicated camera for the spontaneous moments where I'd want to use it. But it also turns out that's extremely rare. So just in terms of pure math, always carrying a beefy phone around for its camera capability is a very poor ROI for me, if the investment is discomfort.

Before the Air was announced, after my SE3 broke and Apple had taken all smallish iPhones (SE3 and Mini) out of the lineup, I did try a 16 Pro Max under the assumption that all iPhones would be big and heavy going forward. But after the Air was released, I couldn't switch from my 16PM fast enough. Now with the Air I live light again, and with the dedicated camera I'm able to capture moments and events in fidelity that isn't possible with even an iPhone Pro. (To be clear, of course carrying my Air plus the dedicated camera is more cumbersome than carrying a single thicker heavier phone, but because I do it so infrequently, and even when I'm carrying the camera I'm still doing 95% of my device interaction with my light thin Air and only using the camera to take pictures, I'm living lighter and more comfortably overall and by a lot).

Moral of the story is- in some situations, it pays to combine tools into one; in other situations, dedicated tools are better--so one just has to figure out one's situation.

*All that said, I do have a somewhat big wish for the Air, and that's Displayport. I occasionally like to use my MR glasses while traveling and I haven't been able to do that since I got the Air. If the Air 2 has that (which rumors don't suggest), then I will likely upgrade. Then after that, no more for a long while! (Probably)

 

[Dirk Pieters]

My only remaining major sticking point with the Air was losing the telephoto camera. Like everyone I'd love to have the most powerful camera available integrated into my phone. Yearly camera improvements are probably what drive most phone upgrade sales. But ever-improving cameras are inherently tied to ever-growing size/weight phones. After realizing this, I had to drop out of that race. I gave up on the idea of ever having a good phone and good camera in one device (with our technology for the foreseeable future). Because for me, a core quality of a good phone is good ergonomics, which is not necessarily a core quality of a good camera. In other words, I want my phone to be as functional as possible within the limitation set by ergonomics, and I want my camera to be as ergonomic as possible within the limitation set by function.

I have some doubts about the quality of cameras in smartphones. I will happily admit that they can produce great pictures, but so much of that is software. When my wife and I take a selfie with her 16 Pro in Portrait mode or whatever it's called, sure: it's great. But it's software.

I did landscape photography for a while. I had a Fuji XT-4 and a few lenses and I was always up at sunrise in a local area near a river with good chance of fog. What a camera like that captures in raw format is boring as hell. I had my camera setup for bracketing with different exposures. Taking a picture resulted in 5 raw images with different lighting.

Then comes the magic. I used CaptureOne as software which allows you combine these raw images, it takes the best out of every picture and spits out one fantastic image. Pull a few sliders to emphasise bits here and there and all of a sudden people believe you're some photography God who managed to capture a fantastic sunrise in the fog.

It's all fake. It's all software.

The size of a sensor, even in a crop camera like the XT-4 is huge. Fullframe even bigger. Even see the size of a medium format sensor? It's huuuuuuuuge. Smartphones have nothing of the sort. Have you looked up the size of the sensor in an iPhone Pro? It's the size of the nail of your pinky finger, if that.

I've seen great iPhone shots, insanely great even. But the majority of that was software. I'm sure the cameras between different iPhone versions get better, but I bet the processing software is equally responsible for the improvements in quality.

I think you made the right choice.