Why I’m ready to give up my iPhone (for the right price)

Welcome to our Apple Breakfast column, which includes all of the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.

Deal or no deal?

The last person you should ask for money advice, I would have thought, is a billionaire. Sure, they have a proven track record of acquiring and holding on to loads of money, but I have my doubts about their ability to grasp its value to the rest of us. I’m not convinced they understand the stakes.

Such were my thoughts this week, while reading the news that Warren Buffett (at one point reportedly the wealthiest human on the planet, but now languishing down around fifth place) reckons the average iPhone user would refuse to switch to Android even if offered $10,000. A point of view which gets a chinny reckon so big it can be seen from space.

“If you’re an Apple user,” he told Becky Quick on CNBC’s Squawk Box this week, “and somebody offers you $10,000, and the only proviso is that they’ll take away your iPhone and you’ll never be able to buy another, you’re not going to take it.”

Warren Buffett, of course, doesn’t need the $10,000 and may find it difficult to put himself in the shoes of someone who does. I would say there are probably quite a few people out there still hanging on to a battered iPhone 6s who’d jump at the chance to cash it in for that kind of money, and happily spend the first chunk on one of several top-end Android handsets. But the money isn’t exactly Buffet’s point. Rather, as a tech user, are you willing to venture outside your comfort zone? And at what point does loyalty become a fault?

Full disclosure time, and get ready for a shock: I’m an iPhone user. I’m currently running an iPhone 14 Pro that Macworld got in for review last fall, and I had a 13 Pro and a 12 Pro before that. I don’t always get the flagship models (I spent a very happy year with the 8 Plus after the iPhone X came out) but it’s fair to say that I’m an unusually privileged Apple user who nearly always gets access to extremely recent and high-end iPhone models. If anyone should have a rose-tinted view of the iPhone ecosystem, it’s me.

And you know what? I’d totally take that deal. I’d negotiate, of course: I reckon I could squeeze Buffett for six figures. But if he played hardball I’d still walk out of the room with the 10 grand and a smile on my face.

Here’s the thing. iPhones are nicely designed, generally well-specced and exceptionally user-friendly smartphones, but that’s all they are. They’re not a lifestyle, they’re not a religion, they’re not your “team.” They’re one specific flavor of a product that didn’t even exist 30 years ago, and may very well fade into commoditized irrelevance within the next 15.

Now, I’m not here to argue that we don’t need smartphones at all, as manifestly true as I suspect that is. I grudgingly accept that most of us have grown to rely on their convenience and seductive distractions. But even if you need a smartphone, you don’t need an iPhone, which is simply the version of that device that I (and many others) enjoy using the most. Of course there is an emotional component to these choices, as there is to all human activities, but we should be guided by our feelings, not constrained by loyalty to a corporation that doesn’t know we exist. Assign a dollar value X to the degree of convenience and happiness that owning a high-end iPhone adds to your life. If Warren Buffett offers you a sum of money that exceeds X, you should take the deal.

Would I enjoy learning to use Android, a platform I last seriously tackled the best part of a decade ago? Probably not. But between Warren Buffett’s money and Macworld’s advice on the best Android phone for iPhone users, I reckon I’d get by.

Trending: Top stories

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The Apple Store has gone from a blessing to a black eye, reckons the Macalope.

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Apple PR legend Katie Cotton, who worked closely with Steve Jobs, has died.

The rumor mill

The 15-inch MacBook Air is reportedly ready to launch.

‘Technical issues’ have forced Apple to scrap one of the iPhone 15 Pro’s key features, according to the analyst who first touted the change.

The iPhone SE 4 that came back to life is now dead again.

‘Backend code’ suggests the Apple Card Savings account is nearing launch.

A new report claims the M3 MacBook Air and iPad Pro will use an ‘enhanced’ chip process.

Renders won’t give us a full picture of the iPhone 15 Pro until we can see it.

Podcast of the week

With WWDC a few weeks away, the chatter about the company’s headset is getting louder. But the reality is, Apple has other products in the pipeline–products that are more exciting. We talk about these products in this episode of the Macworld Podcast!

You can catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.

Software updates, bugs & problems

A huge iOS 17 leak has revealed extensive–if somewhat vague–details about the next iPhone OS.

watchOS 10 could be the biggest upgrade at WWDC this year, with Apple reportedly planning ‘notable changes to the user interface.’

Uh-oh! Two major Apple security warnings affect a decade of Macs, iPads, and iPhones.

The FBI’s public charging station warning is scary, but your iPhone has your back.

If iOS 16.4.1 is causing CarPlay problems, here’s how to fix it.

iOS 16.4 and macOS Ventura 13.3 broke a lot of things. We round up everything that’s fixed in Apple’s emergency iOS 16.4.1 and macOS 13.3.1 updates.

And with that, we’re done for this week. If you’d like to get regular roundups, sign up for our newsletters. You can also follow us on Twitter or on Facebook for discussion of breaking Apple news stories. See you next Saturday, enjoy the rest of your weekend, and stay Appley.