For some people, the older the smartphone, the better

The middle of this article feels like an ad push for all the nifty features of new smartphones and their respective companies.

I held on to my clamshell cellphone for 9 years and only stopped using it because DoCoMo stopped the MOVA service required to run it.

I've had my smartphone for almost 4 years (Samsung Galaxy LTE II) and don't have any desire to upgrade. It still works like a charm (aside from the increasing number of applications that only work on newer models.)

In speaking of the benefits of holding on to old phones, this article should have mentioned the tremendous waste created by each upgrade and the social destabilization caused by the race to profit off of rare earth metals in Africa. We have to be more aware of the true costs of our consumer pleasures.

I have no kind of mobile phone. When the first one broke I figured I didn't really need one. As they say, they are devices for turning solitude into servitude.

For the most part, there is no need to upgrade to the latest version..that said, if you plan to keep older models (like 5+ years/no longer supported) you should take extra care about viruses/protecting yourself.

The older the phone/computer/etc is, the more vulnerable it is.

The older the phone/computer/etc is, the more vulnerable it is.

OS upgrades are free for Macs and iPhones, so as long as users upgrade their OS, they will be as safe as anyone from vulnerabilities.

The older the phone/computer/etc is, the more vulnerable it is.

Or just an Apple.

"Jitterbug" please. Two numbers: Mom and cops.

The older the phone/computer/etc is, the more vulnerable it is.

Not necessarily. I have a DoCoMo flip phone (or as my friends like to call it, my "dad phone") and it's all but impervious to viruses, with its hardwired OS. I can count the number of times my phone has crashed on three fingers over the 6 years I've had this phone.

And the cost isn't bad either. Compared to most smartphone plans, my old warhorse averages US$15 cheaper per month, even with an unlimited data plan that I take advantage of

This dinosaur provides me with virtually everything I could need from a mobile device for home and work. Phone calls and e-mail? Of course. Electronic pay (o-saifu keita)? Yup. High resolution camera and video? Yup. Real-time GPS navigation, weather, news, Youtube video? Yup, yup, yup.

What else is there? Gaming? Social Media? Streaming whatever? I don't need that degree of connectedness to make it through the day. I've got a family and job, for Pete's sake.

Short of my device finally succumbing to age, I don't see myself giving up my "dad phone" any time soon.

Upgrades are particularly important for Apple because iPhones account for more than half of its revenue.

That's why Apple are the masters of planned obsolescence, so those who buy iphones and ipads will never get the absolute latest technology available. Apple know many millions will automatically upgrade to a newer model mainly because of the hype. The iphone has become the only product to be given vast, free worldwide news coverage for each new iteration. In effect, with its huge (many say sheep-like) fanbase, Apple has no competition and can easily control its technological advances so as to be issued in small increments. In other words, when the iphone 7 is released, it can be said with certainty that the 7s and maybe even the iphone 8 has already been planned.

Don't have a smartphone and don't want one. Ruins your eyes looking at the tiny screens for hours everyday. Opticians are happy though due to the coming massive explosion in the numbers of myopia suffering young people. Their market for glasses will expand enormously.

Yeah because it's not like they'd have the functionality to change font sizes, or zoom in, or even bigger sized screens or anything, right?

In other words, when the iphone 7 is released, it can be said with certainty that the 7s and maybe even the iphone 8 has already been planned

As opposed to a Samsung Galaxy, or Audi A4, or skinny jeans, for that matter?

Their market for glasses will expand enormously.

I believe the market you're probably talking about is contact lenses, or even radial keratotomy surgery. Like older smartphones, glasses too are suffering from their own particular era of gradual obsolescence. :)

As opposed to a Samsung Galaxy

Most definitely yes, because android phone makers have intense competition; they've no choice but to put the best they have out there as soon as possible. Apple do not have to worry about competition to anywhere the same extent because the vast majority of their "fans" are staying with Apple products however slow or incremental the release of "new" iphone or ipad technology.

I have an iPhone 4s and have used it happily for the past 5 years+. I love the ability to use it with one hand and it's more robust case means, it hasn't broken once even though I have dropped it many many times. The new iPhones are simply to big and fragile for my use. I read Steve Job's biography and he said there would never be an iPhone that couldn't be used with one hand, as long as he was alive and running apple. He died and we got the iPhone 6. I'm waiting for the 6c to come out early next year. Same size as the 5s but with upgraded camera and processor. I think it will be worth the wait to have a phone size phone, not a mini tablet as the 6s is.

Agreed. The iPhone 6 Plus is absurdly large. It's a damned brick. Not quite a phone, not quite a tablet, but quite definitely a hasty and obviously desperate attempt by the powers-that-be at Apple to appear as innovative and visionary as Jobs in the vacuum left after his death.

it's more robust case means, it hasn't broken once even though I have dropped it many many times. The new iPhones are simply to big and fragile for my use.

On the contrary, my iphone 4 glass broke so many times (I don't use a case), but my iphone 6 glass hasn't broken even though I still drop my phone just as much as I did with the 4. The glass on each version of the iphone has increased in strength significantly.

Every time you upgrade your phone that landfill in China gets a few square centimeters bigger....

For talking to people, I use a DoCoMo flip phone, nice big screen and nationwide coverage; and it works well overseas too. Usually change it every 5~6 years. For email out of the office, browsing and a portable library for work, I use an iPhone. Just upgraded from a 4 to a 6s after 5 years or so, due to the battery losing charge and inability to 'tether', though the 4 still works for music and via WiFi. Both just tools to do the job.

I have no smartphone and actually have not even such a need for a mobile anymore. You can handle everything by email (everything related to work, of course) and in a city like Tokyo there is plenty of mostly free wifi spots to send and receive. Actually I am considering canceling completely my mobile contract. Useless money. If you do not have a business that requires you to keep contacts while on the move all the time, the mobile is really an unnecessary tool these days: similar traffic can go through internet, while I am sure you can refrain from checking your acquaintances crap on FB and tweeter for a few hours when outside. And let's not mention even the costs... 6-7000 a month, just to leave on a table and enslaved to it for 2 years at least... No thanks. Happy with my iPad. ;-)

Not surprisingly, Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure argues that having the latest model is important to many people. Phones are “the most valued personal possession that we have,” Claure said in an interview. “We use our phone to capture the memories of our lives.”

If this is even remotely true I would many smartphone users have NO LIVES LOL!!

I use them, but I hate them, they were supposed to make things easier & better, but they just make life more hectic, everyone I work with worldwide expects me to be awake 24/7 & have my damned phone charged & in my hand ready to reply, its really starting to grate!