Last month, Verizon and AT&T made official something you’ve probably been aware of for a while: American smartphone owners are upgrading a lot less than they used to. In fact, they’re hitting record lows at the two biggest US carriers, with people apparently more content than ever to keep hold of their existing device. This is a global trend, as the smartphone market is reaching maturity and saturation in many developed nations, and yet it’s most pronounced in the United States for a few reasons particular to the country.
The article focuses on the United States, but correctly points out this is a global trend in the developed world. Not only are phones quite expensive, they have also been more than good enough for quite a few years now, and there’s very little in the sense of revolutionary progress being made form generation to generation.
Earlier this year, I dropped my OnePlus 6T on a sharp rocky edge, and it broke the glass back. I sent it in for repairs – EUR40, not bad – and while it was being repaired, I dusted off my old Nexus 6P and used it instead. I was surprised by just how perfectly fine and usable it was – sure, it was a little slower here and there, the screen isn’t as nice, those sorts of things, but as a whole, if I hadn’t had the 6T to compare it to, I would be none the wiser.
It makes perfect sense for general consumers to stick with their expensive phones for longer, especially now that the market has pretty much saturated.
Why are there maybe seven brands of phones for sale in the US at very high prices, and over 100 brands and maybe 400 models available in the Chinese market? There is a simple answer — the Qualcomm monopoly. The patent mess keeps every else from entering the US market and nets Qualcomm $6 billion a year in profits.
It is ridiculous, I have Xaiomi and Umidigi phones on my desk that are as good as an iPhone 8 and I paid under $200 for them. They work just fine in the US market if you get models with the right bands. It has to work that way, millions of tourists bring their phones into the US every year, stick in a SIM card, and they work.
What’s the problem? Xaiomi, Umidigi, etc don’t have patent licenses from Qualcomm so they can’t directly enter the US market. If we’d get rid of this patent monopoly stupidity the average phone in the US would cost $200 and there would be a huge influx of new competitors.
I think you’re self answering (at least in part) why those Chinese phones are cheaper.. they are illegally stealing IP and not paying for it
Adurbe,
I am of a different opinion. Autonomous countries have the right to define what’s legal and what’s not. There’s no moral nor legal obligation for the chinese to follow in US footsteps in terms of our copyright and patent policy. Heck even within the US, more often than not our IP laws stem from corrupt influences designed to promote selfish corporate interests rather than public interests as the constitution intended. If I say “mickey mouse laws”, everyone knows exactly what I mean., US copyright terms are insane. And our corrupt patent system is responsible for raising barriers to entry, frivolous troll lawsuits, killing competition, unaffordable drug costs, etc. I’m actually thankful that there are countries that are willing to stand up against this racket. Adopting a US IP mono-culture world-wide would do much more harm than good! That’s not to say China doesn’t have problems, in particular they need to clamp down on counterfeit products that are fraudulently labeled and misrepresent what they are. Perhaps there’s a happy medium somewhere, but the US needs some major concessions to reach it.
There is the Elephant in the room. People are still running phones that are end of life on software support for banking and other security requiring tasks. This security reason is the reason to upgrade. Its also a reason not to buy a flagship phone.
Iphone has 5 years support if you buy it release day. iPhone XS Max in Australia where I am is like A$1,799 thats a nice A$359.80 A year. Remember for security you should junk that phone once its no longer getting updates. So the device should have a totally fixed lifespan.
Pixel 3 $1,199 if this only 2 years for popular phones this is insanely expensive at over 599.50 a year. If its 5 years it still steep at 239.8 a year.
Lot of ways a cheap sub 200 dollar android phone that you change over regularly and decent pocket digital camera is the best option. Well built digital camera gives you 10+ years of usage.
Please note if phones had a 10 year security life span costing 1000-2000 dollars would be reasonable.
https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone I am watching items like this with interest because this company looking to do a fairly low cost phone with 5 years of updates plus. Truly plus due to drivers going upstream. Lets say it end up 300 AUD the result would 60 AUD dollar a year cost.
Really think 150 USD a year of security support should really be the max price of any phone. So less years of security support offer to customers lower the price customers should be willing to pay.
You may have nearly infinite password through LineageOS on nearly any manstream phone if you want to…
Not that straight forwards lineage you also have phones fall out of officially supported and then even out of unofficially supported. So lineage is not unlimited lifespan.
People don’t think like that. People that care don’t want to pay $$ just to end up screwed again in another 5 years; and people that don’t care won’t pay either.
The real solution is to separate the OS from the hardware – e.g. make it more like PC where you get an OS that is never “end of lifed” and install it on whatever hardware you want. I’m hoping that this is/becomes (part of) Google’s long-term plan for Zircon (e.g. stable device driver interfaces so hardware manufacturers can release proprietary driver/s if they have to; with the OS being updated forever and continuing to be able to use the hardware manufacturer’s driver/s forever). Until/unless that happens you’re stuck with consumers being scammed by planned obsolescence and fear mongering.
Items like the
https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone
PinePhone are shipping out the box starting from new with the idea that you will be replacing the OS.
No they are not going Zircon method. Pine are going the drivers will be Linux kernel mainline.
The idea of stable driver ABI is kind of a pipe dream. No vendor has managed to-do this long term. With CPU bugs and other issues a binary driver is a security risk so binary drivers like it or not need a deprecation cycle..
**with the OS being updated forever and continuing to be able to use the hardware manufacturer’s driver/s forever**
So this idea is basically long term fiction with binary drivers. The only way you can use the manufacturers driver close to forever is if they release the source code and it ends up mainlined so getting auto patched as part of Linux kernel development. Do note I said close as the driver will disappear out of Linux kernel once hardware to test driver against is unable to found to report if the driver still works or not.
I think you mean “no vendor has tried to do this long term”.
Manufacturers releasing source code is a pipe dream. It has been for at least the last 20 years, and will continue to be for the next 20+ years. The best you can expect is as dodgy/unmaintained “shim” with the real driver in user-space; which is mostly what everyone producing Andriod phones does, and is the main cause of “couldn’t be stuffed constantly throwing away $$ maintaining it just because the Linux kernel devs are too stupid to make up their mind”.
Of course even when things do end up in Linux mainline they end up kicked out and unsupported eventually anyway – the kernel source code is massive already, and perpetual expansion isn’t a viable long-term option (especially when you start adding in all the “only for one specific model of smartphone from 10+ years ago” crap).
**”I think you mean “no vendor has tried to do this long term”.**
Not at all I meant exactly what I typed. Microsoft tried with windows mobile and Windows NT. Other vendors tried it as well. There is a pattern of tried and failed.
Hard reality here is the Linux kernel with mainlined drivers has a proven track record of being the last up-to date OS for mountains of hardware. In fact the support time frame for mainline drivers in the Linux kernel is longer than you can expect a phone to connect to secure carrier networks.
**Of course even when things do end up in Linux mainline they end up kicked out and unsupported eventually anyway – the kernel source code is massive already, and perpetual expansion isn’t a viable long-term option (especially when you start adding in all the “only for one specific model of smartphone from 10+ years ago” crap).**
By the time 10-15 years has past lot of mobile devices into failure normally due to network radio protocol changes..
Look closer at the pinephone. In fact look closer at a look of the phones they are mostly common core with the other devices they are making.
Perpetual expansion is not that big of a problem because there is a point when hardware will no longer be functional on the networks so can be deprecated then. Mobile devices life span is shorter than a lot use options.
Here is the horrible reality about the binary drivers in android phones there is a stack of different slightly customized binary drivers that when the drivers are reversed and made open source they merge into a single driver. Shock horror right. So maintaining open source drivers shared between vendors for 15 years in fact equals less man hours of work than maintain the current fragmented mess of individual vendor slight tweaked for 2 years.
There is really only two reason for a vendor not to open source the drivers.
1 Patent stupidity.
2 They want you on a treadmill buying new phones and in fact a willing to pay extra man hours of labor to have you there.
No. There was a pattern of “LOL, we’re releasing the next version of the OS and need people to stop using the old version and want to break all the old stuff”.
There has never been an honest attempt at a long-term driver interfaces (e.g. something intentionally designed for 100+ years, not < 5 years until the next version of the OS is released; and something that includes a rigorous and future-proof design process that involves all effected parties).
Why bother? They have a 5 phase plan (even if they don’t realize it yet); where phase 1 is to diddle with dev. boards that no normal person will ever care about; phase 2 is to diddle with a prototype hardware that no normal person will ever care about; phase 3 is to try to create a real phone, phase 4 is to realize they don’t have the $$ for the marketing needed to make people care about the half-assed piece of crap they churned out in phase 3; and then phase 5 is to move on to the next ill-planned idealistic joke that crosses their mind.
They will never get any market share because they won’t have any reason for any of the larger players (Qualcomm, Google, Apple, …) to support it (because those players don’t have a way to lock consumers into things like google play services to feed usage info into their advertising machine). Heck; the whole project will probably die because Qualcomm didn’t feel like giving them a licence to key patents and they have nothing to use as leverage in a cross-licencing deal.
Of course none of this has anything to do with the absurd fantasy of random volunteer developers hacking away at drivers to port the whole still-born cluster-bork to any existing smartphone hardware and then trying to get their code into mainline and discovering that nobody actually wants it in mainline because Linux (as opposed to Google’s specialized fork) is primarily designed for servers and HPC and not suitable for smartphones in the first place.
Don’t forget that this is not the first attempt at “open source Linux based smartphone OS” – Ubuntu tried (and failed), Mozilla tried (and failed), KDE tried (and failed), … If I remember right, even Intel tried (and failed). Mostly, 30% of CS graduates that have enough strength to hold their crack pipe tried and failed.
Note: I spent about an hour writing a full response, but wordpress decided it was more important that I prove I’m not a robot by asking me to find the answer to “1+4”, so I lost everything I typed. After the hassle I had with other wordpress bugs last time (refusing to allow a post because it had something that looked like a maths equation) it’s silly for me to care anymore; so from now on you shouldn’t expect much more than “zero effort” comments from me
For Windows; they don’t care about long term. They care about breaking everything when a new version is released so that they can sell more copies of the new version.
Why? They have a 5 phase plan (even though they don’t know it yet). 1st phase is diddling with development boards that no normal person will care about, and 2nd phase is diddling with a prototype that no normal person will care about. The 3rd phase is slapping together a half-baked mess. The 4th phase is realizing that they don’t have the $$ to fund a huge marketing campaign needed to get people to care about their half-baked mess. The 5th phase is for the developer to move on to the next idealistic joke project.
Mostly, either Qualcomm won’t let then have a licence to key patents (it’s not like they have anything to bargain with for a cross-licencing deal), and/or the established players (e.g. Apple, Google, etc) won’t support them because they have nothing to gain from that (e.g. Google can’t use it to lock people into google play services to feed usage info into their advertising machine).
Of course it’s not the first attempt at “Open source Linux-based smartphone OS”. KDE tried (and failed), Mozilla tried (and failed), Ubuntu tried (and failed), …. Heck, if I remember right even Intel tried (and failed).
**For Windows; they don’t care about long term. They care about breaking everything when a new version is released so that they can sell more copies of the new version.**
You need to look at the 1990s this is not true with the NT line or the 9x line or the Windows Embedded Compact. At this time Microsoft had the idea they would sell end users updates outside hardware makers. If you have not worked out it possible to sell more upgrades than copies with new hardware. Of course this does not work out once you have the security issues.
**Mostly, either Qualcomm won’t let then have a licence to key patents (it’s not like they have anything to bargain with for a cross-licencing deal), **
This is not the pine company problem. They are using a Quectel modem that has all the required Qualcomm licenses. Pine group for a long time have been very good at picking the right parts to get the required licenses that way.
Also the chassis of the pine phone is standard historic reference android smartphone this include removable battery and bezels. So pinephone in chassis is not using anything that can be patented anymore.
**KDE tried (and failed), Mozilla tried (and failed), Ubuntu tried (and failed), …. Heck, if I remember right even Intel tried (and failed).**
KDE has not failed yet. Pinephone is really their first made platform instead of using converted. It been a slow and painful process working out exactly what you could have made. The developers behind the plasma mobile os worked out early on that could not make phones just for their OS or there would not be enough market share.
Mozilla was wanting to have phones made only to run their Firefox OS. This is going to be a limited market share problem.
Ubuntu phone failed because they were not a hardware design company and attempted to straight up make a flagship phone so this is straight into patent fight because flagships is where patented stuff is. Also they were still wanting to make phone only for their OS.
Intel was using their own modem and stupidly got into a patent cat fight with Qualcomm.
The big thing here with the pinephone is you can think of it as a platform reference phone where the maker does not care what OS you run on it. Pine is basically treating mobile phone fairly much the same way different motherboard makers treat the OS market.
“Open source Linux-based smartphone OS”
This is not what pine is doing. Open Hardware Smartphone is what they are up to.
Pinephone full name **PINE64 Smartphone “PinePhone” Development Kit ** this gets interesting right.
**1st phase is diddling with development boards that no normal person will care about,**
This is the development board. Pine as group make development boards.
https://developer.qualcomm.com/hardware/snapdragon-845-hdk
There is no way you are putting a qualcomm mobile phone development kit in your pocket. Do note the screen on the Pinephone is the exact same layout as all mobile phone development kits.
Welcome to stupid here. Turns out making a mobile phone development kit the way qualcomm does uses more material than making a full blown phone that is designed to be dissembled as the pinephone is.
If the pinephone is successful this could change the way mobile phone development kits are done.
Change mobile phone development kits to be end user usable is separate the OS from the hardware and does not depend on a particular OS feature like google is add to android.
First, phones on their X birthday don’t magically become “unsecure”. Second, there’s a difference between an exploit that is technically possible and one that is actually easy to use/access for the offender. While a phone can technically be “at risk”, it can also be very rare to meet & satisfy the conditions required to use the exploit. I know a lot of people using “old” phones, 4-5+ year old dinosaurs that are supposedly “unsecure”. There has been a total of zero of them who have experienced the victim end of a hack.
I’ve said previously that of course having all the `latest & greatest` security patches is preferable, but even if you don’t you likely aren’t in any real danger. I’m not suggesting there are no threats, just that every serving of cell phone security FUD should come with a heaping side order of perspective.
Totally agree with this article. And it’s not even just the expensive phones. I’m using a Xiaomi Mi A1. Cost lb180 brand new and I’ve been using it for two years with no problems. It runs Android One so gets pretty timely updates and no bloatware.
Of course the camera and speakers etc are not the same quality as a high-end phone. But it is perfectly usable and the battery lasts two days for me.
Also using a Mi A1. My only complaint is that the last two security patches (March and April) came out near the end of the month for me instead of the middle like they used to.
Similar situation here. I bought a Moto G3 three years ago – I love it. It takes amazing photos (in daylight) to this day.
However, after three years I could hardly get half a days’ charge out of it. Solution? Borrow a friends heat gun, follow a youtube video and replace the battery with one off Aliexpress for $10! I’ll get another three years out of it as well.
Should also point out that thanks to LinageOS I was able to at least get it security patched up to January 2019. Works like a new phone.
I do wonder how many people bin perfectly good phones because the software is simply out of date, or the battery has worn! No wonder the planet is —–d!
The trick is to find an older model that gets the LineageOS upgrades/updates. I’ve setup 4 Nexus 6 and 1 Nexus 6p for my entourage like this. Always under 150US$ (usually 120)
I wouldn’t even consider buying a “new” phone. Anything above 175US$ is out of question.
The primary issue is that decent models have significantly increased in price. I’m not spending $1000 on a phone if I don’t have to. During my last upgrade, i went with an iphone 8 rather than a X because of the cost jump. I switched back after trying an android device for a year and a half. I would have stayed with android had I been able to find a decent email client. It was a deal breaker.
If you use exchange server or gmail, you can get a working client. If you use a stock dovecot imap server with mbox, you’re going to have trouble deleting email with the android client and various third party ones.
I’m not blown away with iOS like I once was. It doesn’t feel like significant improvements are happening anymore. Siri is dated compared to google assistant or even cortana. Apple maps got better but it’s not google maps. The hardware upgrades are boring. CPUs are stagnant due to qualcomm on the android side. Apple’s phones look the same for years. The X was the first change and it really ripped off android devices. There’s no reason to upgrade. The new CPUs aren’t that much faster. The RAM bumps are slowing down. Storage is stagnant considering the growth with SSDs.
5G may push some to upgrade but we’re at least 2 years out from any serious usage in large cities.
Honestly, my Nexus 6P is still my main phone. When the battery died, I got a new one and replaced it (20EUR vs 200EUR for an equivalent phone new).
Only thing that’s bothering me is the slight slowdown, which is probably part linked to software bloat, but also part to SSD ageing.
Still, nothing wrong with this 5 year old device, and I’ll keep on using it until it dies it’s death.
Where I come from, one would usually think there is only ONE reason to change your phone: if it does not work any more. Raising a question of “why are people NOT upgrading their phones” is just plain ridiculous in this mindset. I guess that’s what the saying “First world problems” is about.