Technology

Weirdly this was the biggest reason I switched from Android to iPhone. I’d used Android since the OG Motorola Droid, and pretty much upgraded every two years as soon as the contract allowed because after two years the phone would be buggy and unresponsive. Then I got a Google Pixel 2 and it was the first phone I’d had where it was still fine after two years, so I kept it. Even after 3 years it was still fine and I had no reason to upgrade, except it stopped receiving security fixes. My wife’s ex-husband is a professional hacker and his default mode is extortion, so trying to keep things up to date on security is important. Still, I was pretty disappointed that I was being pushed into buying a new phone for no reason other than Qualcomm and Google not wanting to support it.

Around the same time we had to get my stepdaughter’s iPhone repaired. It struck me that here she was using an iPhone 6 that was 6 years old at the time but still had parts available and was still getting software updates from the manufacturer. It didn’t have all the latest and greatest hardware but it was still perfectly functional and there was no need to upgrade unless we wanted to. As expensive as phones were getting, it felt harder and harder to justify buying something that was starting to cost $6-800 new and then have to do it again 2-3 years later. Was it ideal switching? No, and there were things I missed from Android, although they’ve slowly caught up (Apple finally added support to change the default notification sound just last year), but it works and at least I feel like I’m not wasting money on hardware that’s designed to break and go to a landfill in two years.