Ask HN: What do you do with your old iPhone when you buy a new one? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your old iPhone when you buy a new one?

#21

Post by apricot13 » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 9:30 AM UTC

I keep them in a drawer with the intention of putting them in a frame in an office when I have one. It will be nice to see the evolution of them over time...and that way I dont have to part with them!

I dont upgrade every single time so i only have a 3G and a 4, will probably get the 6S but am quite enjoying my moto e atm!

I also keep them all charged, so the batteries don't get all bloaty. (and I still use the 4 as a camera!)

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your old iPhone when you buy a new one?

#22

Post by lazylizard » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 9:31 AM UTC

funnily enough at my old workplace, the wives get the newest phones and pass them off to my colleagues when they're done..

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your old iPhone when you buy a new one?

#23

Post by chrisBob » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 12:20 PM UTC

I just got my first iPhone (5s) and I still use my android phone every day: as my alarm clock. There isn't a good way to turn off the vibrate part of the alarm on the iPhone, and my wife can sleep through the alarm sound, but not the vibration noise, so it doesn't work for us.

If it wasn't for that I would recycle it.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your old iPhone when you buy a new one?

#24

Post by dennybritz » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 1:07 PM UTC

Travel back in time to replace IBMs datacenters of 1995.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your old iPhone when you buy a new one?

#25

Post by skilesare » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 1:37 PM UTC

I have a personal assistant in Mexico. I tried to ship him my old iPhone 5 so he could do some iOS app debugging for me. FedEx wouldn't ship it and told me that Mexico customs would confiscate it. Way to go Mexico!

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your old iPhone when you buy a new one?

#26

Post by joezydeco » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 1:54 PM UTC

They turn into wifi-only devices for their kids to use.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your old iPhone when you buy a new one?

#27

Post by Aldo_MX » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 2:07 PM UTC

skilesare wrote: post #25

I have a personal assistant in Mexico. I tried to ship him my old iPhone 5 so he could do some iOS app debugging for me. FedEx wouldn't ship it and told me that Mexico customs would confiscate it. Way to go Mexico!

Strange, I'm from Mexico and I have ordered some phones without issues. But they got shipped via USPS and UPS.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your old iPhone when you buy a new one?

#28

Post by mrsteveman1 » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 2:17 PM UTC

Gazelle [1], because I upgrade every 2 years, and they pay me enough for a 2 year old iPhone to cover almost 90% of the cost to upgrade.

Sure Gazelle likely turns around and sells it for 1.5-2.0x what they pay me, but they're very fast, reliable, they send real bank checks for the full amount rather than AT&T or Amazon store cards or prepaid debit cards, I don't have to deal with anyone else (individual buyers on Amazon marketplace or eBay, or worse: locally), and most importantly I don't have to spend more than a few minutes on the whole thing, which is more valuable to me than the minor additional money I could get selling it myself.

[1] https://www.gazelle.com

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your old iPhone when you buy a new one?

#29

Post by pulkitpulkit » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 2:39 PM UTC

Give it to my mum normally

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your old iPhone when you buy a new one?

#30

Post by jgeorge » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 3:03 PM UTC

Unlock 'em and put them on Ebay. If you assume some risk of shipping them overseas to countries that don't have easy access to them, you'll get bidders who are willing to pay a premium for previous-generation devices. I sold an unlocked iPhone 4 to someone in a remote South Pacific island for nearly the price I paid for the new iPhone 5 that replaced it.