There’s no compelling reason to upgrade. Recent "innovations" like emoji avatars and Apple Intelligence feel superficial - Siri is still as underwhelming as it was a decade ago.

Meanwhile, HomeKit is stagnant, iWork remains irrelevant, and new iPhones offer little meaningful improvement over older ones. Most users are hanging onto their devices until they physically break - and that’s a serious problem for Apple’s bottom line.

Not, it wasn't clear at all. In fact, gadget freaks aside most people don't care, and update after when the device is all battered and battery has had too many cycles, or in some 2 year schedule or so, based on what funding they get from their carrier.

What's more, iPhones hold their resale second hand value just fine (better than any Android phone), which means lots of people also buy older models, and don't see the "latest and greatest" as a necessity.