Where do old iOS devices end up?

[MacBH928]

So I have a couple of old iOS devices. They function just as good as they did on day one, and the reason I upgrade is, as everyone else, because I want the faster shinier new product. Feels a waste that they will end up in the trash. The computers and memory in them are very capable and can be put to use in many forms.

Of the 10s of million iOS devices sold, where do they end up? just electronic waste?

 

[Longkeg]

For me, the most recently retired iOS gizmo gets an HDMI dongle and is turned into a poor man’s video streamer. Older devices get sent to whichever outfit is paying best for used iOS things.

 

[MacBH928]

how do you control the video playback? you walk up to the tv?

 

[Longkeg]

I did say it was a “poor mans” set up. Yes, you’d have to control playback from the device itself. But being a poor, lazy man I have an HDMI cable long enough to reach from my recliner to the back of the TV.

 

[Tech198]

So I have a couple of old iOS devices. They function just as good as they did on day one, and the reason I upgrade is, as everyone else, because I want the faster shinier new product. Feels a waste that they will end up in the trash. The computers and memory in them are very capable and can be put to use in many forms.

Of the 10s of million iOS devices sold, where do they end up? just electronic waste?

Who really knows..

 

[HDFan]

You can donate them to those who can't afford it. I gave an old iPhone loaded with music and some Grado headphones to a Music school in Cuba.

 

[LizKat]

So I have a couple of old iOS devices. They function just as good as they did on day one, and the reason I upgrade is, as everyone else, because I want the faster shinier new product. Feels a waste that they will end up in the trash. The computers and memory in them are very capable and can be put to use in many forms.

Of the 10s of million iOS devices sold, where do they end up? just electronic waste?

I regard older iOS devices as akin to cars so great that one is inclined to keep them and drive them into the ground, even if they become the equivalent of the car you drive to the park'n'ride near the end of useful lifetime. Before I hand an old iPhone or iPad on to some kid in my stone broke county, it usually migrates from primary device of its kind in my household to a specialized data server - podcasts, or purchased TV shows / movies, or that one in my studio called "All Bach all the Time".

Apple gear can last long enough to become in and of itself an evangelist for the company's products and services, especially if handed on to someone else while an AppleCare+ warranty is still in force. I love it when I hear by the grapevine in this still largely rural area that a kid who got some of my old iOS gear or a laptop not only caught the coding bug but has since gone off to college, majored in computer science and joined the ranks of cybersecurity or AI programmers. Reminds me of when my gift of an Apple IIc apparently sparked something in a nephew's head and sent him along the path to becoming an aeronautical engineer. That was obviously many decades ago, but around here a computing device still sometimes turns out to be the nudge towards a ticket off the dairy farming reservation... and dairy farming definitely ain't what it used to be, what with all the consolidation under corporate farming umbrellas.

 

[MacBH928]

I regard older iOS devices as akin to cars so great that one is inclined to keep them and drive them into the ground, even if they become the equivalent of the car you drive to the park'n'ride near the end of useful lifetime. Before I hand an old iPhone or iPad on to some kid in my stone broke county, it usually migrates from primary device of its kind in my household to a specialized data server - podcasts, or purchased TV shows / movies, or that one in my studio called "All Bach all the Time".

Apple gear can last long enough to become in and of itself an evangelist for the company's products and services, especially if handed on to someone else while an AppleCare+ warranty is still in force. I love it when I hear by the grapevine in this still largely rural area that a kid who got some of my old iOS gear or a laptop not only caught the coding bug but has since gone off to college, majored in computer science and joined the ranks of cybersecurity or AI programmers. Reminds me of when my gift of an Apple IIc apparently sparked something in a nephew's head and sent him along the path to becoming an aeronautical engineer. That was obviously many decades ago, but around here a computing device still sometimes turns out to be the nudge towards a ticket off the dairy farming reservation... and dairy farming definitely ain't what it used to be, what with all the consolidation under corporate farming umbrellas.

I share your thought, I feel like some villager kid in Kenya or Indonesia will be ecstatic to receive my iPad Air or iPhone 7. You also never know how it will affect his life, maybe he becomes the next Bill Gates for his home country. Butterfly effect.