'People upgrade their phones way too often,' says ex-Apple employee

"It wasn't broken — I just felt like I'd had it long enough." "I think I replace mine every two or three years."

People upgrade their smartphones for reasons that go well beyond breakdowns or sluggish performance. Every new model brings fresh camera features and design tweaks, making it easy to feel like it is time for a change. But one tech influencer says that if a phone handles daily life without any real friction, there is no pressing reason to replace it.

Tyler Morgan, a tech influencer and former Apple employee, recently took to TikTok to lay out the signs that a phone does not yet need replacing, arguing that people are upgrading "more than necessary" and wasting money in the process. Morgan, who has built a following of more than 2 million on TikTok by sharing Apple product tips, said the upgrade cycle has become far shorter than it needs to be.

Morgan said that if a phone can last a full day on a single charge, there is no need to buy a new one. If the battery drains fast enough to disrupt daily life, however, that is the point at which replacing the device makes sense.

"If you're upgrading from an iPhone 14 Pro to a 17 Pro Max, you're probably not going to notice much of a difference," he said. "You're getting maybe an hour more of battery life." Replacing a phone simply because a newer model exists, he added, often delivers poor value for the cost.

"Most upgrades happen every three to four years. The ones in between are minor feature improvements that don't really affect how you use your phone day to day," Morgan said, adding that users would not be missing out on anything significant by holding off.

He also advised: "Don't upgrade just because you want the latest thing — upgrade when you can actually feel the difference."

The average lifespan of a smartphone body is typically three to four years. According to Counterpoint Research, South Koreans replaced their phones every 33 months as of 2024 — about 10 months shorter than the global average of 43 months.

However, the battery — the phone's most critical consumable — degrades to about 80 percent of its original capacity after roughly two years, or approximately 500 charge cycles. Much of what feels like a decline in overall performance is likely battery aging rather than any fault with the device itself.

Battery aging is one of the leading causes of smartphone slowdowns. As a battery wears out, it can no longer deliver peak power, prompting the operating system to throttle performance automatically to prevent sudden shutdowns. In many cases, simply replacing the battery can restore a significant portion of the phone's original performance.

bbo@heraldcorp.com