This! I've been an iPhone user since the first version too and am contemplating a switch simply because the price to be in the ecosystem is more than I'm willing to pay. I'm on an iPhone 7 still and when this gives up, I'm going to jump ship

Price _per se_ would not be a concern if competition wasn't there. I just bought an iPad Pro this year. Nothing Android based even comes close. But unfortunately for Apple (and fortunately for us) there is stiff competition in the smartphone space. And Apple will either have to innovate and/or cut prices. Incremental upgrades at triple digit prices aren't going to work.

As a recent XS buyer (upgrade from iPhone 7) my strategy is just going to be waiting 2 or more upgrade cycles before buying again. I still value the ecosystem and trust Apple with my data more than anyone else, especially in the case of iMessage.

I don't think I'll miss anything serious from skipping upgrade cycles. I'm not much of a camera user and Face ID is meh to me so From iPhone 6 to XS I've barely seen any improvements I care about other than water resistance which was a 6 -> 7 upgrade.

I don't know. I keep trying Android; I have a few Android devices (around the $600 point) and it just seems too much of a hassle. A lot of it can probably be chalked up to be how fragmented Android has, and how the handset vendors block/break things like updates, but I'm not interested in trying to research my best fit, or fight my way through online resources. There's a handful of features that I'd definitely love seeing, but I don't feel strongly enough about them that I'd deal with that kind of disruption to my life.

That's what's so attractive about this Nokia model in particular (and about other phones under the Android One designation): it has pure Android Pie, without crapware or half-assed vendor customizations, with guaranteed security and OS updates.

This is one of the reasons I bought a Nokia 8 when my Nexus 5X started to boot-loop. However, still no Pie update, kind of feels like they are not as fast as Nexus/Pixel updates used to be.

Thanks, that Nokia 6.1 looks interesting. I note the mention of how the sides are designed to be gripped securely; my iPhone 8 always feels a bit slippery.

If I could find a suitable replacement for the Apple Watch (which I find very useful) then I'd be very tempted by this.

I don't think there's going to be viable competition to Watch in foreseeable future. Watch 4 is a very strong and "deep" product, far beyond what anybody else can make. That's why they can charge so much for it. But if my iPhone 8 dies, there's no way I'm ever paying $1k for a new phone, even if I have to ditch the Watch.

Unfortunately, I think you're right about viable competition. Google's equivalent seems to be the closest in terms of features but from what I've seen the watches are buggy and slow, as well as having privacy issues.

I've got the latest watch and it is very good, so although the price is high it does not seem particularly unreasonable.

iPhones, on the other hand, give me the impression of being very expensive for what they offer and I find them unsatisfactory in a variety of ways. Currently, I plan to keep the iPhone 8 for as long as I can then decide what to do depending on the state of the market; this will probably involve getting a reasonably-priced Android phone with a custom ROM and some sort of fitness tracker.

The problem with those Android phones is that they run Android.