When I got my new iPhone XS, I handed my iPhone 7 down to my Mom. In return, she gave me back my old iPhone 5 that she got from me several years ago. I’m pondering what I might want to do with it. Gazelle will only give me $10 for it, so if I can find anything even slightly compelling to do with it it might be worth keeping.
It won’t run anything more recent than iOS 10, so it’s pretty limited. It looks like I could download the Apple TV app and the Sonos app, so I could use it as a remote control for audio/video.
Women’s shelters are always looking for operational phones. It’s my understanding they can be used to call 911 even if they don’t have an account. I’m sure one in your area would be pleased to get it.
If you shoot video, you could use it to capture the audio track for the voice (or ambient) and get the microphone much closer to the source than the camera position. Could improve your production significantly.
It could shoot B-roll too, stuck on a tripod.
Of course - giving it away to a charitable cause will probably provide the highest value overall…
I use an old iPhone as a camera for the Cloud Baby Monitor app. Our daughter is 6 and afraid of almost everything, so if we’re downstairs at night watching even a remotely frightening or violent movie, we can use it to see if she wakes up and comes out of her room.
I use mine (which has a shattered screen) to play music while I record video while I practice gymnastics since most video apps are terrible at doing both at once.
I also use it to do browser/device testing for my job (UX designer/UI developer).
FYI three years ago I sold my iPhone 5 (for a $115 Amazon gift card IIRC), when I got my 6S Plus. If I still had it today, I’d keep it and use it as an iPod Touch, filled with music and apps and connected to the internet solely via WiFi.
The march of technology and price drops on old gear underscores the usefulness of regularly updating ones hardware. Not only do you get the latest, fastest, most capable technology, under warranty, you also maximize the resale value of the replaced item, thus reducing the cost of the new unit. It’s because of price drops like this that I usually recommend that people sell their Macs and iPads after the Applecare+ warranty expires, and apply the money towards something new. There’s something to be said about owning a computer (especially a portable one that’s easily broken) always being under warranty.
Up until a few months ago my father was using an iPhone 4! and he loved it so for some people it may be the perfect phone. My experience with using older devices not currently supported by iOS is that they are somewhat slow especially old iPads and if you have anything higher than iPhone 6S not worth the bother due to their unresponsiveness.
Use it as your home phone
The remote use case is interesting, sadly would get annoying over dedicates multi function remote
Music players in kids room (if you have kids)
Make it your exercise device, they are nice and small, but can track and also play music (assuming no Apple Watch mind you)
Pass along to someone in need is probably the best thing to do.
I use my “returned hand-me-down” phones as a “Lawn Pod”…basically the device I use around the house when mowing the lawn, and other household chores. Perfect for streaming podcasts, like MPU, and music. Also gets messages, texts, email, and phone calls (assuming you are close enough to the main phone). All without putting the new fancy (and mostly unpaid) device out of harms way.
It is also great to have an “extra” phone kicking around as an emergency swap…for example when your daughter fumbles her iPhone6 and drops it in the deep end of the pool…why the phone was even near the pool I am not completely sure!!. But when her phone died, I was able to use my lawn pod (iPhone5s) as her replacement until I could get a real replacement. The SIMs for the phones should all work from iPhone 5 and up. ** A really old nanosim may not support NFC, however, but a newer sim would work fine in the iPhone 5.