How to Get Two More Years Out of the iPhone You Already Own

How to get two more years out of the iPhone you already own

Most of the devices that arrive at our counter are not broken. They no longer last the day, they feel slow, or the storage is full. Those are three complaints with three causes, and all three can be sorted for a fraction of the price of a new device. Below they are listed in the order in which they make a difference.

Start with the battery, not with the device

Have a look under Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging. Two things are shown there: the remaining capacity compared with new, and whether the device can still run at full performance. A device that suddenly shuts off at around thirty per cent, that gets warm for no reason, or that gives up while you are out in cold weather, almost always has a worn battery rather than a worn processor.

A new battery undoes that. Not partly, but back to the way the device behaved a few years ago, because the battery is precisely the part that wears out. It is the cheapest fix with the biggest effect, and it is also the reason why every device we sell has at least 85 per cent capacity or gets a new battery: below that you are buying a complaint instead of a phone.

Charging habits that really do something

• Leave Optimised Battery Charging switched on. The device learns your rhythm and holds back the last few per cent until shortly before you get up, because sitting at full is exactly what ages a battery.
• If you have the setting that limits charging to eighty per cent, use it if you can top up every day anyway.
• Heat is more damaging than charge cycles. Do not charge under a pillow or on the dashboard in the sun, and take a thick case off if the device gets warm while charging.
• Fast charging now and then is no problem. Fast charging combined with heat, every day, is.
• Do not use damaged cables or adapters of unknown make. An adapter without decent protection sometimes costs more than it ever saved.

What you do not need to do: run the battery all the way down to calibrate it. That is a habit from another era. Topping up briefly does no harm; a lithium battery counts in cycles, not in the number of times you touch the cable.

Storage is the quietest cause of slowness

A device that is almost full can no longer write temporary files. The result: photos that hang, apps that close, updates that fail, backups that get skipped. Have a look under Settings > General > iPhone Storage. There you can see what each app takes up. The biggest gains are usually in video, in attachments to messages, and in downloaded podcasts and films that nobody is going to watch again. Empty the Photos app bin properly as well, because it holds on to images for thirty days. Keep about a tenth of the storage free and you will notice the difference in speed straight away.

Keeping software up to date

Install updates, including the small ones with only security improvements. A device on a very old version of iOS gradually loses apps: banking, identification and payment are the first to drop out. The fear that an update will make your device slow dates from the period when performance was scaled back without anyone being able to see why. That mechanism is tied to battery health, and you can now check and solve that yourself. If your model no longer gets a new major version, security updates for the last version it does support sometimes still appear.

Small repairs that make a big difference

• Charging port. Most devices that no longer charge have pocket lint in the port. Remove it carefully with a wooden toothpick, never with a needle or a paperclip. If that does not help, replacing the port is a small job.
• Loudspeaker and earpiece. Quiet sound during calls is usually dust in the grille, not a faulty speaker.
• Buttons. A volume button or side button that sticks will not get better and eventually makes the device unusable.
• Camera glass. Scratched camera glass gives haze and light flare on every photo. That is the glass, not the camera, and it is a cheaper part.
• A hairline crack in the screen. It will not stay small, and it undoes the seal around the display in that spot.

With a screen, the quality of the part matters. A non-original display can mean that True Tone and automatic brightness stop working, that colour reproduction is off, and that a message about an unknown part stays in the settings. It also ends up in the device's parts history, and you will see that again later in the value.

Water resistance ages along with the device

The seal of a device is made of adhesive and rubber, and those age. A device that is four years old is no longer what it was when you bought it, and after a repair it depends on the workmanship. So treat an older device as splash resistant and no more than that. Liquid damage is not covered by any warranty anywhere, by the way, not even at Apple.

Protection that is not silly

A case with a raised lip around the glass and a tempered glass screen protector that you replace as soon as it is deeply scratched. That is it. Replacing a protector costs a fraction of a display, and the lip around the glass is what decides a fall onto a tiled floor. Whatever else you do is a matter of taste.

When replacing is the honest answer

If the bill for three repairs together comes close to the value of the device, or if you want more storage anyway, then selling it on is more sensible than carrying on repairing. The device is still worth something at that point, and that is exactly the moment to let it go, not two years later out of a drawer. Our trade-in price is fixed for 14 days, so you can compare it calmly with a repair price, and once you approve it the money is in your account within two working days. How that works is explained under sell your device.

A fault that can no longer be repaired anywhere else does not automatically mean the end here, by the way: in the workshop in Zarren we also work at board level with microsoldering, and that is often the difference between a repair and a write-off.

A simple schedule

1. Check the battery health once a year and have the battery replaced as soon as it no longer lasts your day.
2. Keep a tenth of the storage free.
3. Install updates within the month.
4. Replace the screen protector when it is deeply scratched.
5. Clean the charging port before you assume it is broken.
6. Make sure a backup is running, so that a fault costs you money and not years of photos.

Together that is half an hour of work a year, and the difference between a three-year-old device you get rid of and a five-year-old device that still just works.