this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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I did upgrade my phone this year... to an iPhone 13, which I can pay a few dollars a month to AT&T for. And I only did that because my XR's battery was dying. I would have been fine to keep it indefinitely. I see no good reason to upgrade and really, the only reason I had to was built-in obsolescence. A 5-year-old phone should not have a battery that goes to shit. Maybe 10 years old.
I mean, you could have just paid the $90 to have the battery replaced by Apple with an OEM battery and kept it for another 5 years…
Batteries are consumable items. They go bad. 5 years for a lithium battery that you cycle through at least once a day is good. That’s 1825 charge cycles.
5 years would be fantastic. Mine last 2-3 at the most. People don’t realize how much they use their devices.
Some people Are very heavy users, and as such should expect a little higher maintenance costs.
I had my base iPhone 12 for 3 years and had 88% battery health before I gave it to my dad. I think that’s pretty good, and I used more than one full charge a day. He’ll have it at least another 2 years before needing a battery replacement.
I’ll have my 15 pro for probably 5 years before giving it off to him, though I expect to replace the battery once.
I could have, or I could pay a couple of bucks a month for a new phone and not have to scrounge up $90.
So it wasn’t planned obsolescence then. You just wanted to upgrade rather than replace the battery and keep the phone you say had no reason to upgrade.
I wanted to do what I could afford. Maybe you can afford whatever you like, but I can't.
That’s fine, but a different argument than just saying planned obsolescence.
That's not planned obsolescence. Making lithium batteries that survive thousands of charges is just really, really hard. Physics only allows them to last so long. Five years is pretty good for a phone. Frankly, I think making a rechargeable battery that lasts all day and lasts 10 years in a passively-cooled phone is just impossible with our current technology.