Pretty sure that developer interest is not to be a problem. The Duo will sell more units in a month (or less) than every AVP ever sold.

Apple told developers in June at WWDC to not assume fixed screen sizes. Well-written apps will work on any screen size thanks to Apple's APIs.

Some apps will need to be tweaked to take advantage of some Duo features no doubt, but I suspect that's not going to be a deal breaker.

Apple can force iOS devs to do whatever they want. It may be basic support, but Apple devs will do whatever Apple tells them to do.

Or financing, paying it off over a fixed term, after which you own it outright?

The latter, I understand. And I'm also familiar with it.

But the former, I find hard to believe. Although, I'm not from the US. Are you telling me people rented nokia bricks in the aughts?

> Are you telling me people rented nokia bricks in the aughts?

Myself and my family did, for sure. My parents made me pay my own phone bill too, so I spent a long time in the Alltel shop staring at the different phones and probably annoying the clerk.

Or like many of us, you buy cheaper phones outright for your prepaid phone plans. The fact that people still go for contract phone services and finance a new phone every two years blows my mind. Especially when I can get all the data/minutes/texts I need for $15 a month on a service like Tello, and just get a phone for $200-400 that I can use until it dies.

To this day, I suspect many people have a line-item on their Internet bill for their modem/router rental/lease.

Why you would find this hard to believe is actually the curious thing to me.

2. If you’re upgrading your phone on a one or two year cycle, you end up paying the sticker price minus the trade in value at the end of the term.

I don’t really see an issue in either scenario?

Like leasing a car, the residual value may differ, which can either make it worthwhile or not. Around ten years ago the lease deals were really good. Nowadays my carrier has all but discouraged them.

People have been leasing and renting phones since the 1930's. I guess you missed out on the Ma Bell century.

Where I'm from, it is common to finance a phone as part of a mobile contract: your monthly payment includes a device payment and the network subscription cost. Typically 24 months, but in recent years I've seen 36 month contracts as well. But at the end of the term the device is yours outright. No further down payments needed. Usually the device payment is effectively 0% APR over the 2 years, so it's a pretty lucrative deal. I've purchased all my phones this way over the past 20 years.

I just buy more shares of blue chip companies and let them pay in the future for anything I want to buy.

I may be swayed by a second gen Air in the spring, as I would like a lighter phone that feels less of an imposition in my pocket and my life in general. But it almost certainly won’t have the zoom camera, which has unexpectedly become one of my favourite and most used features of the 17 Pro. Why the two-camera phones all come with the ultrawide instead of the telephoto is baffling to me. Perhaps I’m an anomaly, but I never use the ultrawide lens.

except for those monthly payments you never get to stop making, yeah it's free.

Of course, these days a three or four or more year old phone is often still perfectly usable even for a tech enthusiast.

Honest question: why? Why every year?

I could tell you it's because I always wanted to have the best camera, best battery life, etc and those are true too but the bottom line was: it was fun and I could afford it.

I've always known it wasn't the smartest financial decision but no one acts 100% financially "smart" and joy is something you can't measure the value of quite so easily, I got a lot of joy out of having the newest phone. Not as a "look at me, I have the newest phone", I never would shove it someone's face or even call attention to it, buying the new phone was for me, not for anyone else or some kind of "status".

It's a toy and I decided that it was worth the "waste" due to the excitement/joy I got from it.

I'm still rocking my iPhone 12 mini but am planning on getting an 18 when the normal one is released :-)