But given that 37 percent of people say battery life is
their chief complaint about existing iPhones, one of the
top results in our iPhone testing might convince them to
upgrade—the materially longer battery life we’re seeing
on the new iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max.
A NEW PHONE EVERY YEAR? NOT ANYMORE
The tech press writes about iPhones as though people
get a new phone every year, but that’s just not the case.
According to Statista, most people hang onto their
phones for between two and three years. Statista sees
that number going down in the future, possibly as the
5G transition brings radical new capabilities each year
from 2020 to 2024.
Those radical new capabilities aren’t coming right away,
though. This year’s new phones are generally just
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may not be enough to coax $1,000 out of potential
buyers’ wallets.
This may change, if the rumors about the 2020 iPhones
are true. Next year’s phones may have a new design and
use 5G networks, which will be much more widespread
by September 2020.
So there are probably a lot of people with older iPhones
hanging onto them or picking up the lower-cost iPhone
8 and XR to save their pennies for a rumored
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The tech press
writes about
iPhones as
though people
get a new
phone every
year, but
that’s just not
the case.PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION (^) I SUBSCRIBE (^) I OCTOBER 2019