As someone who takes pictures for fun, has no clue about camera specs, and frankly does not care about cameras all that much I do not see any reason to update on a yearly basis. I’ve just switched to a iPhone 13 after 4,5 years of using an iPhone 7. The old phone still worked great, but unfortunately the screen was cracked and I could not justify replacement cost for such an old phone.
I expect I will be using the current phone for as long as Apple allows me to update iOS.
I am also on iP11 but am thinking of trading it for a iP13 Mini. My AW3 died so upgraded to AW6 which was a great upgrade.
Since we have the largest number of iPhone users it is likely we also have the largest number of accidents caused by drivers using those phones. Maybe the new crash detection feature will also save some of the innocent victims.
(Please pardon my rant.)
You are 100% correct.
I’m likely moving to a 4 year cycle. Which means i’m buying a Pro spec iPhone with enough storage.
My wife is still using my old iPhone 7 Plus. Every few months I ask her if she’s interested in upgrading–she says no, not really.
I find this amazing.
OTOH, the reason I upgraded from the iPhone 7 Plus to the XS was because I came to dislike the huge size. If I had been comfortable with the size, I might still be using that iPhone 7 Plus myself.
Congrats on still having 100% battery health on your 11 Pro. My 11 dropped from 93% to 85% in the past 2 weeks with no change in usage.
It kind of scares me that we need to ask this question 
I’ve had the 6s and now the 2020 SE - planning to stick with the SE until it is no longer supported by the newest iOS and/or I run out of storage.
How do you check battery health?
Settings / battery / battery health
Thank you! I’m 82% on my refurbished phone. No too bad, I suppose.
Below 80% is Apple’s criteria for battery replacement under AppleCare. Mine was in the high 70s and the battery life was pretty bad.
It seems that a lot of people formed their habits based around the previous 2-year carrier upgrade cycle. Kind of like leasing a car - get used to the fact that a car costs you X dollars per month to lease, and then just keep swapping back to the dealer. 
Oh, good to know.
I’ll keep it anyway, not going away in the desert any time soon, so I’ll just charge it as needed.
I have a X. There’s nothing about 14 that would entice me to spend close to a grand, and none of the iOS 16 features that require something newer than a X catch my fancy. I’ll stick with the X.
Katie
I am on a 4 to as long as 6 year refresh. As long as the phone can be upgraded, I will usually stick with it.
Yes, and both ways, too! It’s also much nicer to be able to upgrade every year, get a good price for the old one and enjoy cheap phone service the whole time. If only cars had low transaction costs and non-dysfunctional depreciation curves…
My shortest was 2 years. My history is:
iPhone 4s 18 October 2011
iPhone 5s 17 December 2013
iPhone 8 9 December 2017
iPhone 13 Pro 17 September 2021
I see no need for anything newer. I mainly got it for the camera. My old iPhone 8 went to a friend who upgraded from a very old flip phone.
Just for the hell of it last night, I checked on the cost of upgrading to an iPhone 14 Pro through Verizon, my carrier.
$8+/mo. for 36 months.
My first thought was, “That can’t be right.”
My second thought, “Maybe it is right. After all, they get to lock you in to 36 months of service, and maybe that makes them think the steep discount is worth it.”
I thought, “How can I afford to NOT upgrade, given that low price?”
Then I looked at the delivery date: Friday, September 16. I thought, “I do NOT want to spend hours that day upgrading my phone, and I don’t want to do it that weekend either.”
So I said, “Nah.”
I find this amazing. Throughout the late 2000s and much of the 2010s I was positively slavering at every incremental upgrade. Quite a change in my outlook!
I expect I will set aside some time Monday to upgrade to iOS 16 … but only if I get a couple of projects done between now and then.
Hours? It’s 10-15 minutes to switch phones. Most of the time you do something else at your desk while it works. (I will let you all have the last word on this.)
You are assuming a greater degree of self-control than I actually have. Instead of doing something on my desk while it works, I try to do something and instead stare at the phone screen watching it do nothing interesting.
Even assuming the upgrade is nearly instant, I’m still left thinking that Verizon price is too-good-to-be-true, and lacking motivation to invest the time in investigating it.
I’m just marveling here about how drastically my own attitudes toward technology upgrades have changed. I think part of it is that the technology itself has matured–my iPhone XS is a great phone.
And part of the reason that I’m so much less motivated to upgrade is that I’ve become jaded.
If Apple comes out with its rumored augmented reality googles next year, I will be ALL OVER that. I’m tempted to buy the Lenovo model sooner.
Upgrading from what?