The iPhone 6s is Dead. Long Live the iPhone 6s.
by Vianney Vaute / CCO, Back Market
For months, the world was speculating about the new iPhone and holding its breath for one of the most awaited press conferences of the year. The buildup was enormous, with blogs and chat rooms filled with rumors and conjectures for and from iPhone fanatics.
People find it easy to forget that just a short year before, we were similarly bombarded with a previous fleet of models that, if we’re being honest about it, weren’t significantly better than their perfectly adequate predecessors. A design tweak here, a slight upgrade to a camera there, maybe a new color or two: all part of the plot to manufacture a wave of mass amnesia that Apple is coordinating.
In spite of its legendary marketing magic, close industry watchers are catching on. Says Ewan Spence in Forbes, ahead of the 2018 launch: “The latest leaks around Apple’s new iPhones show that very little has changed in the twelve months since the launch of the iPhone X.”
Meanwhile, the iPhone 6s — arguably the device that defined the current generation of smartphones — is soon to be cast aside. In spite of the revolutionary design that introduced us to the 12-megapixel camera and 3D Touch technology, Apple counts on the fact that its disappearance from the Apple store will be enough to render the iPhone 6s obsolete in the minds of consumers.
“No” says iPhone 6s to its forced retirement.
(Check out the #heretostay campaign)
We expect no deviation from the custom dictating that the release of the new iPhone model also marks the disappearance of the iPhone 6s from Apple’s catalog. This, just a mere 3 years after a launch similarly made with much ado. It’s a well-oiled mechanism that has been in place since the very first iPhone, and Apple has groomed its consumers to happily accept this pace of obsolescence. As Spence points out in his commentary, the incremental pace of innovation is part of the “formula that will see the existing user base happy to update to ‘something the same but a little bit better’ when their contracts are up.”
And yet, the iPhone 6s has its staunch defenders . Noted smartphone industry watcher Antonio Villa-Boas at Business Insider recently offered up 11 good reasons why the iPhone 6S is a smarter purchase than the latest models Apple introduced. (Spoiler alert: saving more than $500 is just one of those reasons). His conclusion: “The iPhone 6S is an example of how recent iPhones have longer life spans when it comes to performance — and that we don’t need to spend top dollar for the new models.”
Now more than ever, people need to be reminded that despite Apple’s psychological warfare against common sense, the iPhone 6S still retains the qualities that have made it one of the most popular smartphones ever, with more than 80 million sold worldwide.
The iPhone 6s, heavyweight champion of refurbished electronics.
The truth is a that a well-made smartphone — and iPhones are indeed well made — can last for much longer than Apple would like for you to keep them. With modern refurbishing technology, devices’ lives can be extended for years while offering consumers a like-new iPhone at a third of its original cost, and at a fraction of the cost of new $1,000+ models.
The iPhone 6s still has many good years ahead of it. In its three years in the market, it has taken the lead in the refurbished category (which itself is the fastest growing category of smartphone sales), representing more than 21% of sales (source: Back Market).
Unprecedented electronic waste.
The reasons to stand behind the iPhone 6s go far beyond getting a good deal. Our current fixation with new devices has a devastating impact on the earth. Globally, a U.N. report estimated that as much as 90 percent of the world’s electronic waste — worth $19 billion — was being illegally traded or dumped6.
Estimated to grow to more than 230 million users in 2018 US smartphone users will soon account for 10% of all smartphone users worldwide. With each phone having a lifespan of only 18 months to 2 years, it’s no surprise that the US is the second-largest producer of e-waste in the world. As a country we produced 6.3 MT of e-waste in 2016 — a growth percentage of 85% since 2012 — and we’re still amping up our pace.
While we certainly can’t lay the blame entirely on Apple, in the wake of its becoming the first company valued at $1 trillion it needs to step up. Writer Michael Green points out in a commentary for Green Biz, “…as the newly crowned leader of the global economy, and one which professes to take its green credentials seriously, Apple arguably has more influence that almost any other company on the direction of the global economy…companies such as Apple can and certainly should be doing a lot more to lead as an example for its incredibly rich and powerful tech sector peers.”
In the meantime, we also need to do our part. In spite of the pomp and circumstance in Cupertino, we urge consumers to stop systematically turning to new models. This fight against what we can accurately call a kind of new device bulimia — where new models are gobbled up and then soon enough purged — is an effective way for us to combat the overproduction of electronics, the overexploitation of natural resources, and the explosion of e-waste.
This is a good time as any to start arming ourselves against the mind tricks that make us crave new objects simply because they’re new. We can start by rethinking the iPhone 6s. It’s still as good as its always been, and adopting one now is actually for our own good.
