You don’t need to upgrade every year, they are simply available. The yearly upgrade rarely makes sense, as things don’t change much year to year. However, when you are ready for something new, it’s nice that a recent phone it’s available and you aren’t having to buy something that came out 4 years ago. Also, over time, those yearly updates stack to turn into a pretty meaningful improvement over time.

> in this economy is the upsell of a new phone every year really justified

iPhones are luxury goods (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_goods), not essential goods that need to "justify" a price increase.

iPhone Duo will sell out within an hour even at $2k.

The bezel on the Duo has over 100 parts alone, I just foresee bad quality and this going like the Apple Vision Pro

I agree, i dont need to upgrade, hence why its not justifiable. Also buying refurb on Back Market etc., and doing a BYOD Plan its cheaper too

Nothing super compelling about the iPhone 18 from my perspective aside from being 20-50% faster. Unless Apple pulls "battery gate" again, I am happy to stay put.

I have an iPhone Air, which starts at $1099. The Duo has 3 screens, I can understand that price increase. I don't think the price is that unreasonable, especially with memory and cpu prices shooting up since I purchased the iPhone Air. I am disappointed that it doesn't have Face ID though.

i buy used everything these days unless i have a business need when it comes to electronics.

i still use m1 max 32gb which i got last year. i got it for $899. it replaced a intel mbp which had served me well for 5 years.

i use an iphone 15.

idk i mean i have money so im not broke or poor.

but you can bet your ass even if i had more, like $100 billion or whatever, i am STILL NOT going to drop $2k on something if its not going to make a meaningfully life changing different in my life.

it’s just a phone made for doing the Least Common Denominator type shit. like calling and texting or doom scrolling a bit

consumerism is for losers. no shame in that.

i rather just collect the money via my indirect investments including in apple if others want to blow their money tho!

i can spend it on something actually unique and interesting :) like high end audiophile earbuds which sound amazing but are brittle and have issues. so i’ll buy 2-3 pairs of those while one of them is under repair :)