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I still use an iPhone 6 as my main phone, and works great. The trick is that I haven't upgraded iOS in at least a couple of years. I also kept an iPhone 5 as a

I still use an iPhone 6 as my main phone, and works great. The trick is that I haven't upgraded iOS in at least a couple of years. I also kept an iPhone 5 as a music player at home, until a few months ago when, despite not upgrading the software, it became unusably slow (even for just playing music).

rajangdavis 6y ago
What if there is a security issue with your OS?
- escardin 6y ago
  They're screwed unless they update. Luckily the iPhone 6 was still getting security updates as of this year. It doesn't have ios 13+ but it does have security updates on 12. As a 6 user for another month or so, my biggest complaint isn't slowness, it's the lack of ram that causes apps to be closed readily whenever you switch, compounded by the apps having to boot/reload again. Most of the apps I use aren't IOS apps, they're things like chrome. This is nothing like using a 3g or a 4 until they stopped getting updates, those were downright painful to use. This is merely frustrating. I don't know what people expect from their phones, but 5-6 years of updates and the phone still running well is incredible. I hope my next iPhone gets me another 6 years. It seems likely. I don't know what it's like in Android land, but I expect that the number people using a phone at all for 6 years is even less than those using old iPhones. At least they had way more ram for a same era phone.
  - solveit 6y ago
    > I don't know what people expect from their phones, but 5-6 years of updates and the phone still running well is incredible. My phone is a computer that happens to occasionally make calls. I expect a flagship computer to easily last a decade and phones should too. In fairness, this attitude of mine is fairly recent and probably attributable to the fact that phones are now the price of computers. So it only applies a little to the iPhone 6, but will apply in full power to the next iPhone.
  - ta1234567890 6y ago
    > I don't know what people expect from their phones, but 5-6 years of updates and the phone still running well is incredible. I thought about that recently. And I would want for my phone to be something akin to my car, lasting for several years (10-20 of I take care of it), being able to repair it, and not needing constant updates just to keep working (although Tesla seems to be going in the smartphone direction).
- cyberdrunk 6y ago
  Apple patches security vulns even in older versions of iOS (to support people whose device is too old to upgrade to the latest version) - I don't know for how long though.
fhood 6y ago
Hmm, my buddy has a 6s that is kept fairly up to date, and he says he had to do a battery replacement, but other than that it runs well.
- ahmedalsudani 6y ago
  A lot of people on this site still use the original iPhone SE. As you mention, replacing the battery is usually all an iPhone requires.
  - jonnytran 6y ago
    Yes, I'm still using the original SE, and I love it. Even the new "mini" is still bigger than it. Luckily the latest iOS 14 still works on it, but I'm afraid that this will be the last one before they drop support.
- scrooched_moose 6y ago
  I begrudgingly upgraded from a 6S to the new SE back in August due to a shattered screen. Other than a substantial camera upgrade, louder speakers, and no headphone jack I honestly couldn't notice a difference between the two. The 6S is still a rock solid phone.
tachyonbeam 6y ago
Apple does some funny CPU throttling when your battery gets old. Instead of just telling you "your battery needs to be replaced", they scale down your CPU's frequency to the point where the phone becomes completely unusable. It's not great. Most people don't realize that they could get their battery replaced in a matter of minutes, at a cost of about $50. I've done it with an old iPhone, and it worked like-new again.
- jws 6y ago
  The iPhone 5 does not do battery performance management. If your phone has gone into performance management (to prevent crashing) you will see it in your Battery Health "Settings" panel. You can disable it there as well if you would rather crash than slow down.
codeisawesome 6y ago
Wait so is it actually the case that iOS upgrades make iPhones run slower?
- ta1234567890 6y ago
  Might not be on purpose, i.e. a newer os might just expect more resources to run, which are just not available on an older phone. The same happens with computers, try running the latest windows or macos on a 5 year old computer, it will probably run, but definitely not as smoothly as the os of the time when the computer was built.
  - Klinky 6y ago
    Given that CPU perf on desktop has been rather stalled the last 5 - 7 years, it probably wouldn't be that bad.
nabeards 6y ago
I also use an iPhone 6 as my main (and only) phone. I have the latest updates installed on it and just had a new battery installed in June. It works perfectly well! Of note, possibly, is that I have neither Facebook nor Twitter installed. I do use a slew of other apps though, without issue.

rajangdavis 6y ago

What if there is a security issue with your OS?

escardin 6y ago
They're screwed unless they update. Luckily the iPhone 6 was still getting security updates as of this year. It doesn't have ios 13+ but it does have security updates on 12. As a 6 user for another month or so, my biggest complaint isn't slowness, it's the lack of ram that causes apps to be closed readily whenever you switch, compounded by the apps having to boot/reload again. Most of the apps I use aren't IOS apps, they're things like chrome. This is nothing like using a 3g or a 4 until they stopped getting updates, those were downright painful to use. This is merely frustrating. I don't know what people expect from their phones, but 5-6 years of updates and the phone still running well is incredible. I hope my next iPhone gets me another 6 years. It seems likely. I don't know what it's like in Android land, but I expect that the number people using a phone at all for 6 years is even less than those using old iPhones. At least they had way more ram for a same era phone.
- solveit 6y ago
  > I don't know what people expect from their phones, but 5-6 years of updates and the phone still running well is incredible. My phone is a computer that happens to occasionally make calls. I expect a flagship computer to easily last a decade and phones should too. In fairness, this attitude of mine is fairly recent and probably attributable to the fact that phones are now the price of computers. So it only applies a little to the iPhone 6, but will apply in full power to the next iPhone.
- ta1234567890 6y ago
  > I don't know what people expect from their phones, but 5-6 years of updates and the phone still running well is incredible. I thought about that recently. And I would want for my phone to be something akin to my car, lasting for several years (10-20 of I take care of it), being able to repair it, and not needing constant updates just to keep working (although Tesla seems to be going in the smartphone direction).
cyberdrunk 6y ago
Apple patches security vulns even in older versions of iOS (to support people whose device is too old to upgrade to the latest version) - I don't know for how long though.

fhood 6y ago

Hmm, my buddy has a 6s that is kept fairly up to date, and he says he had to do a battery replacement, but other than that it runs well.

ahmedalsudani 6y ago
A lot of people on this site still use the original iPhone SE. As you mention, replacing the battery is usually all an iPhone requires.
- jonnytran 6y ago
  Yes, I'm still using the original SE, and I love it. Even the new "mini" is still bigger than it. Luckily the latest iOS 14 still works on it, but I'm afraid that this will be the last one before they drop support.
scrooched_moose 6y ago
I begrudgingly upgraded from a 6S to the new SE back in August due to a shattered screen. Other than a substantial camera upgrade, louder speakers, and no headphone jack I honestly couldn't notice a difference between the two. The 6S is still a rock solid phone.

tachyonbeam 6y ago

Apple does some funny CPU throttling when your battery gets old. Instead of just telling you "your battery needs to be replaced", they scale down your CPU's frequency to the point where the phone becomes completely unusable. It's not great. Most people don't realize that they could get their battery replaced in a matter of minutes, at a cost of about $50. I've done it with an old iPhone, and it worked like-new again.

jws 6y ago
The iPhone 5 does not do battery performance management. If your phone has gone into performance management (to prevent crashing) you will see it in your Battery Health "Settings" panel. You can disable it there as well if you would rather crash than slow down.

codeisawesome 6y ago

Wait so is it actually the case that iOS upgrades make iPhones run slower?

ta1234567890 6y ago
Might not be on purpose, i.e. a newer os might just expect more resources to run, which are just not available on an older phone. The same happens with computers, try running the latest windows or macos on a 5 year old computer, it will probably run, but definitely not as smoothly as the os of the time when the computer was built.
- Klinky 6y ago
  Given that CPU perf on desktop has been rather stalled the last 5 - 7 years, it probably wouldn't be that bad.

nabeards 6y ago

I also use an iPhone 6 as my main (and only) phone. I have the latest updates installed on it and just had a new battery installed in June. It works perfectly well! Of note, possibly, is that I have neither Facebook nor Twitter installed. I do use a slew of other apps though, without issue.