There’s nothing more exciting than unboxing your brand new phone. After spending a fortune on it, you’re more than ready to set it up. But what you don’t realize is that in just one year, your phone is already considered outdated.
Apple is one of the biggest tech companies to take advantage of their consumers. They know that iOS is a clean and user-friendly system, so a lot of people tend to choose it over Android. That’s why they’re able to milk more money from consumers. No matter how expensive their products get, no matter how soon you just bought your new iPhone, Apple knows you’ll always come back for more.
My first iPhone was the old SE model. When I bought it, there were already two newer models released. After owning my phone for only one year, the software updates no longer worked on my phone. Fast forward a few years, and I was having constant issues that weren’t being resolved. Random crashes, frozen screens, heating up, and random battery plummets. These are usually things that a software update would fix, but since my phone was already four years old at the time, it was no longer included in the updates.
That’s how Apple gets you — they only have the software updates work for the newer models. I was stuck scrambling to buy another phone because the one I had was no longer working, although I had only owned it for three years. And what did I replace it with? An iPhone. We’re constantly in this loop of buying new phones and then replacing them only a couple years later. And it’s not just with iPhones — Apple does the exact same thing with their iPads, too.
You’re probably wondering why I didn’t just go to Apple to get my phone fixed. Well, I actually contacted them, and they told me the only solution was buying an entirely new model. Why would I buy another of the same exact one when Apple clearly wanted me to purchase the newest one?
And it’s not just the endless cycle of replacing our technology that’s bothersome, but also the rising prices. Apple will raise the price of their iPhones by a couple hundred dollars every few years but won’t have any significantly new or exciting features to justify the increase.
So why do we keep giving in? Why do we keep upgrading our technology when companies like Apple want us to? It’s simple — we need our technology. We’re a technology-driven society and most people can barely survive without their phone. For as long as companies like Apple make software updates no longer eligible for older models and refuse to fix our devices, we as consumers are forced to give in to the corrupt system of replacing our expensive phones every couple of years.
