Apple is the company where every new iPhone release is both simultaneously boring, not worth it and a sure sign of their impending collapse and also somehow a vicious treadmill which forces people to upgrade every year, throwing out their old phone and contributing to e-waste. They could announce a cure for cancer tomorrow and within a month people would be back to asking what have they innovated recently. People just like to complain.
Perhaps it’s just a language slip, how are people forced to upgrade every year? My experience is the opposite: ios 15 is still supported[0] and my 2016 iPhone let me access the World Wide Web.
The force your talking about comes instead from developers (like me) that implements features and systems always more CPU/GPU hungry.
In certain circles it's assumed that people buy a new phone every year. Then they make 30 minute Youtube videos lambasting Apple about "incremental upgrades" and "zero innovation"
While also not getting that they're NOT the target market.
For the person whose iPhone finally (after half a decade or more) falls out of major version support a 5-6 generation jump on hardware is amazing.
Certain part of apple customer culture seems to be peculiar, a lot(?) of traditional customers seem to care a lot about "redesigns", partly because they want every time to get the new shiny thing anyway. Having started using anything apple only after apple silicon, it feels weird seeing these takes in forums. For reviewers it makes sense, as they need things to talk about, but I don't get this for other customers, esp since for me and many people "redesigns" for the sake of redesigning are typically hated except if they are actually addressing actual practical or aesthetic issues. Eg the touchpad thing was indeed horrible and many people hate it for a reason, but redesign requests are not limited to actual things people do not like. I don't think I have seen this as much for other companies and I do not get why they care (maybe they are just bored?).
I think some people see having an older generation iPhone as sending a signal of "I’m poor", a status thing. Pretty ugly thing, but the act of buying iPhones on credit happens too often.
People quickly become accustomed to common occurrences that are not threatening (like extreme weather events). Apollo 8 was the first time humans reached the moon, just orbiting it. Sixteen months later, in a time with much less media and information than we have now, US TV networks chose not to broadcast an en-route feed for Apollo 13 because this was no longer seen as interesting. We often seem spoiled, we often seem prone to complaining, and we often seem more enamored with something new. Yet there are so many remarkable things we take for granted.
That’s because it’s called “the news”, not “the olds”.
When I teach people how to talk to reporters I always emphasize this. If it’s the 10th time something happened, you need to explain it in terms of what’s -new- or your info won’t go beyond the pitch meeting.
Thats why your town’s street fair makes a big deal that it’s the 10th anniversary event. It’s “news” that you’ve hit a round number. That’s why Trump breaks the law in a little way before doing it in a big way… the second time isn’t interesting.
People who upgrade every year don't do it for technical needs. We're long past the times when phones were inadequate and yearly improvements were big leaps that made them less unusable.
Yearly phone upgrades are just to sport the latest model, symbolizes status. Or if there's some deal where you can do it for close to no cost, better than long upgrade cycles, but I don't think "free upgrades" are common.
Add me to the group. I’m on iPhone 11 and I couldn’t be happier. I do follow their new launches and then look at what I have. It looks and works like new, have absolutely no complaints. 6+ years and going strong.
iPhone 12 mini here, I replaced the battery last year, and still going strong. Actually, I fear the day I'm forced to upgrade due not having the mini size available anymore...
See!? They waste all this time and money curing cancer, which ended up being soo easy in the end, and not a single bit of effort into curing Alzheimer’s. Pricks.
