I held on to my 13 Pro until the 17 pro came out, so I wouldnt be surprised if a lot of this is people finally going "ok maybe now" and the 16 just lands on the biggest group.

I found myself using both phones as I transitioned off the old one and barely noticing the difference mind you, which is a good sign in my eyes. I think Smartphones for the last 6 to 8 years are finally very stable. More stable than a Windows 11 laptop on Hardware people in the 2000s could only dream of.

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schmichael 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I recently upgraded from an iPhone 12 to an iPhone 16 because I couldn't figure out how to free enough storage on the 12. The battery was still more than good enough to go a full day.

I don't notice any difference other than now I have a pile of useless lightning cables (good riddance). Honestly kind of a relief as I liked the 12 just fine. Phones kind of seem like a Solved tech these days. About as exciting to upgrade them as upgrading my Brother Laser Printer.

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simmonmt 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Interesting. I made the same jump and noticed a huge increase in speed and decrease in memory pressure (the likelihood that iOS will kill an app I've switched away from). I miss the physical silent mode button though.

	▲	giancarlostoro 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The new button was driving me a little crazy I hit it now and then when I think I'm doing volume up. I wish they had moved that button literally anywhere else.
	▲	schmichael 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I honestly never noticed memory pressure. I am not a heavy app user. Chat, browsing, and pictures of my kids are the vast majority of my phone usage. Not exactly intensive stuff. The camera button on the 16 seems to have been perfectly engineered to be exactly where I grab my phone. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but in the mean time I have so many blurry photos of desktops and pants to enjoy.

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evanreichard 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not sure if it was the same bug, but I had a storage issue where System Data ballooned to like 200GB.

It had the most bizarre solution; airplane mode, set time to one year in the future, reboot, wait a few minutes, set time to 6mo in the future, reboot, wait a few minutes, set time to now, reboot. Went from 200GB to like 15GB. Was ridiculous.

(For anyone looking at this and considering doing it, you also need to ensure iMessage retention is forever, otherwise the iPhone will think it's a year old and delete the messages)

	▲	schmichael 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not sure why you're being downvoted, that was my exact issue. I only had a 128 GB iPhone 12 though and System Data had eaten up over 60 GB. As I cleared off more apps and data it would just eat up the excess. The internet seems full of various wild fixes, but I could afford an upgrade so saved myself the hassle of futzing.

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smallmancontrov 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If Apple ever implements SMS anti-spam that actually works, I'll buy the upgrade it a heartbeat. It's been a solved problem on the google side for years so it's clearly not impossible.

	▲	giancarlostoro 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I saw a setting to detect some spam that I toggled on sometime back. I don't know if I'm just getting less spam period, but I feel like maybe it helps? It's hard to tell.

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bombcar 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Besides Touch ID I'd be really hard pressed to tell you something my current iPhone can do that the iPhone 8+ couldn't, let alone something it can do that I use.

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devin 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The cameras have had leaps if you're talking about that kind of timescale. Otherwise, I mostly agree.

	▲	macintux 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I'd probably be fine still using my iPhone 3G were it not for the camera. An upgrade every 2-3 years feels practically mandatory for better photos.
	▲	bombcar 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Honestly the biggest thing I notice is the 5x zoom camera, everything else is a "wow that's nice" when I do a direct comparison, but I promptly forget about it (similar to looking at 4K HD vs 480i and then promptly forgetting about it when actually watching the movie; so many times I've realized it was using the older smaller file). Battery life, I guess, if I had to pick something else.
	▲	solarkraft 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Have they started becoming better again? I had the X before the current 13 and am still regularly disappointed by the camera.

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nozzlegear 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It sounds silly, but I've got an iPhone 14 Pro and have been eyeing that action button on the side of the new iPhones. I'll probably upgrade just for that little button once they announce an iPhone 18 later this summer.

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dijit 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I haven't enjoyed the iPhone since it could sit flat on a table. (5S)

I can't tell you that I use the phone differently than I did then, because I don't. The camera on a phone, for me, is a nice to have in the moment, I'm not a photographer and I have never felt the need to have such an incredible camera at my disposal (except that my eyes are failing so using the zoom to see the distance has been nice... twice).

I've been thinking of dumping the phone entirely, except I have my cards on there (yes, cards are smaller) and, crucially, my online banking.

I thought about going to a 5SE, which isn't supported but would still kinda work, but my own one is bricked somehow and Apple doesn't allow it to be restored via Finder anymore. :(

Bear in mind, I still have an iPhone 17 for work, and a 15 Pro for home...

I hate this duopoly.

	▲	drivers99 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I got one of those MagSafe PopSockets and now I can set the phone on its back and it will be horizontal and doesn't have the camera being on the table.

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wat10000 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

2025 and 2024 look identical for the top five spots, just with each number +1, so it's not any sort of one-off thing.