Almost all phone makers, including Apple, Samsung and Google, refresh their products every year. This is now a problem with the standard product cycle and it needs to be turned off. Production and shipping of new phones – Not to mention the settlement of old handsets – this is a significant environmental drain, and I believe that the phones are a major reason for feeling fixed and annoying. By switching to two or three -year long update cycles, the phones can become exciting again and technology companies can give the planet a necessary break. Let me explain.
The technology industry runs like clockwork, especially when the phone launch comes. We know that Apple will release the new iPhone in September, Samsung launched the new Galaxy S-Series phone in January or February and Google will debut on its new pixels at the end of the summer. This estimated cycle means that you are upgrading from a five -year -old handset or you are always in your pocket to make sure that you are refreshing every year, there is always a sloping new product to buy you.
This is a money -making practice, which is designed to wish you the next best thing and both the phone manufacturers and cellular network suppliers you are most likely to give you more cash to both the cellular network suppliers you are buying.
The biggest problem with these fast update cycles is that they are environmental drains. The electronics industry is a dirty. The excavation and factories and manufacturing lines of rare minerals are hugely enormous effects on your phone until the product is shipping. Although most companies now use recycling materials on their phone and use recycling packaging, the most effective way to reduce environmental impact is to release new models less frequently for technology companies.
If you take good care of your phone, you can reasonably expect it to last several years. Manufacturers like Google and Samsung have increased the support periods for their phones seven years or more, which means that the phone you have purchased today will be safe to use in the 2030s. The phones are less frequently published by people to keep their devices more, keep devices out of the ground and less resources for new phones and shipping every year.
When you need this long support period, buying old phones in the used market makes it more possible, knowing that last year’s phones may still have many years in front of them.
But the problem I have faced is that I guess and boldly say, boring phones are nowadays. Large screens, high-resolution cameras and more powerful processors seem to have left the title feature and authentic innovation year after year for the box-ticking incremental upgrade. Galaxy S 25 Ultra is a great phone, but it is not wild before the Galaxy S24 Ultra, before that, S23 Ultra or before S22 Ultra. The iPhone 16 is not different from the Pro 15 Pro, but rather beyond adding a strange and logically unnecessary camera button. I hoped that foldable phones could spread some tension in the industry, but almost all the big phone players have not yet happened even after receiving significantly similar in their flexible display.
Then there is a generator AI on the phone, which seems to be the largest sales center in most models right now – especially Pixel 9. However, a few months after examining the Pixel 9 Pro, I can’t really say that I found something more than a forgotten fancy. Peer Mobile expert Lisa Idiciko agrees, when a CNET survey confirmed that people considering the biggest reasons when choosing the phone, the quality of the camera, storage and battery life.
Galaxy Z Fold 5 is not a huge upgrade above last year’s Z Fold 4.
With two or three -year update cycles, companies can hold those new features for a long time, the final introduction of a new model looks like a larger deal, with more valuable upgrades. I sat in Samsung’s unpacked event last year where the Galaxy Z Fold 6 was unveiled. It was somewhat upgrade above the Z fold 5, but when I compared it to the original fold introduced in 2019, the difference is huge.
Phone companies can accept similar models of games console or camera industry. Sony PS4 took seven years to replace PS5 fully, when Canon replaced its 2016 5d Mark IV with EOS R5 in 2020 and offered both PS5 and Canon R5 Great By upgrading their predecessors, dramatically we change ways to use them and justify the cost of upgrading. After it was launched I spent a thousand by buying my cannon and 5. I wouldn’t have done it if I knew it would only be replaced next year.
Update cycles between new Games consoles are usually at least a few years.
Some of us replace our TVs or our cars or our laptops every year, instead that new technology is when electric power in your car or 8K HDR on your TV – we will really see an advantage. These are the items that we can keep at least five years before upgrading and it should be true for our phones as well.
Publishing new flagship phones every two or three years will not only reduce the environmental footprints of the industry, but hold and refine those products, the launches will be more exciting. And I’m missing the excitement.