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iPhone 13 Pro Max How to make my iPhone 13 Pro Max last four years or more
- Thread starter Marswarrior462
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Simply don’t upgrade on .0 GM releases. On every Apple new OS releases, wait until a .2 release to upgrade.
Although that what Apple really wants, Apple cannot enforce that to the masses, and Apple is smart enough to know it. They’re still pushing security patches to iOS 12 and 15. That means Apple indirectly recognize those versions as a sort-of “LTS” releases, each covering a wide range of older iPhones that many people and enterprise still use.
As I mentioned previously, the A14, A15 and A16 SoCs are so powerful that it is unlikely that Apple will be able to produce an iOS capable of taxing those chipsets within the next 6-7 years. I am willing to bet that the 12, 13 and 14 series are going reach their iOS limit with perfect performance along with a battery deterioration of around 20-30%.
The SE and 6S can both run iOS 15 relatively well however I sense that iOS 16 would likely have meted out a significant performance hit.
You have to remember that, unless Apple do something revolutionary with iOS, there will be so much headroom that these chips aren’t going to be challenged by any software (other than games) for years to come.
I mean, here are some screenshots of Alien Isolation taken from my 13. The game is direct port from the PC, PS4, XboxONE versions and is running at native resolution with all the lightning and particle effects turned on and it performs incredibly well with no stuttering or frame dips. These devices are basically handheld supercomputers.
You should not be concerned about any deterioration, other than battery life reduction, from updated firmware for the foreseeable future.
These devices are far too powerful for Apple to inhibit their performance with mere firmware updates.
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At this point, I think Apple would simply drop phones from support without much reasons. I mean we can see how the 7+ dropped from iOS 16, while other devices with older chipset and less RAM did not. Apple will still be Apple, and even if the A15 or A16 are still capable, Apple will drop them when they want to. We can already see Apple software locking out features. Example, action mode on the iphone 14. There's no reason the 13 Pro with the same exact SoC cannot do it other than software lockout.
Absolutely true. Apple will promise around 6-7 years of iOS support for any given device prior to locking it out regardless of its capabilities. Older phones would naturally hit their ceiling and be unable to run the latest firmware due to hardware limitations. We are way past that now with with these modern chipsets. Even the 8, which came out in 2017, is likely going to be locked out from iOS 17. It performs extremely well on iOS 16 with zero stuttering, slowdown or choppy frames. Unless iOS 17 does something revolutionary, the 8 should have access to it. I speculate that Apple will just class the 8 as a legacy device and end all support for it later this year as they possess the right to drop support for a device for any reason. That reason, unfortunately, will have nothing to do with its capabilities and everything to do with its age.
I truly hope you’re right. I hope that these devices work well enough so that even those who update can have all-day battery life like they have now and great performance like they have now, and like you showed. At least, even if battery life won’t be perfect, let it be good enough for a full heavy day like it is now, unlike pretty much every device so far.
I still think that Apple can find a way to destroy devices like they’ve been doing though, but let’s hope that at some point they’re powerful enough for any hardware improvements to be minimal enough so as to avoid that being the case.
That game looks good, I looked it up and funnily enough it supports all iPad Pros except for the 9.7-inch iPad Pro (It supports the 1st-gen, 12.9-inch iPad Pro). I guess it has to do with the 2GB of RAM. People spoke at length about this back then. It’s the only iPad Pro with 2GB of RAM. I will never understand why Apple did that. They always skimped on RAM back then, but that was pointless. Not that I could run it, anyway, but still.
Well, as we’ve discussed previously, Apple aren’t likely trying to destroy older devices by reducing battery life or performance. They are just indifferent to optimising older phones on newer iOS versions. Now that phones do not really suffer from performance drops on newer iOS versions, as the hardware can brute force the software, we are simply seeing Apple withdraw iOS support on perfectly good devices, such as the iPhone 7.
Yes, I reckon Alien Isolation is the best looking game available on iOS with no close second. Although the game is supported on various chipsets, the A12 is probably the lowest SoC I would try to run it on as the performance is considerably below the buttery smooth experience of the A15. I did complete the game on my iPad Mini 5 and the performance definitely wasn’t bad, it was just noticeably worse than on A14 and A15. I had it on the 12 Mini too and it ran very well.
I do think that the iPhone 6s and 7 were not supported (while iPads with the A9 - the 5th Gen iPad - and the A10 - the 6th-gen iPad - were) solely due to battery life. Battery life is already very poor on those devices, and I reckon iOS 16 would’ve made them completely unusable even with new batteries. History has shown what happens when Apple stops too late.
A friend had an updated iPhone 7 and that which I constantly warn of happened: they lived with a charger onboard. They unplugged it at 7 am? By noon it was gone. The battery likely wasn’t new, but as we’ve showed, replacing it doesn’t make it spectacular either. If that happens on iOS 15, iOS 16 would’ve likely been too much. Performance may be decent, like you said, but battery life definitely wouldn’t be. Complaints of battery life on those iPads abound. iPhones with those small batteries? Intolerable, even by Apple’s seemingly abhorrent standards. Because even if with a replaced battery they improve to something a little less than mediocre (like you’ve shown with the SE, which is probably about 4 hours below iOS 9, or about a 40% decrease, but it may be usable), batteries will deplete quickly if updated. And we are back to what I mentioned once: you either replace a battery every five minutes or the phone is unusable as a main device. You said your iPhone 8 got 2 hours of SOT, and I can confirm that it is far better with a battery with the exact same health both on iOS 12 and 14. Yeah, if you replace it, it might give you four hours… For how long if you use it as a main iPhone and if you are a heavy user? A year? Then we are back at square one. It‘s what I mentioned once: users replacing the battery on a 6s, five, six, seven times until they get utterly tired and upgrade. It’s not a good solution. You can’t give a device an OS with so much power draw that it requires full battery capacity to be half-decent. Meanwhile, my 6s strolls along on iOS 10, over 7 years after its launch, and over 6.5 years after its purchase date, with an original battery. I think that battery life with a degraded battery is important too, and there’s no contest for updated devices.
Yeah, I’d likely prefer a newer chipset too, nobody likes playing a game for the device only to barely power through it. The fact that it runs fine on the A12 isn’t a coincidence I think: it’s Apple’s cutoff for many features on iOS 16, IIRC. The A12 is a great SoC. The OP’s 13 Pro Max (and your 13) both have great prospects for the future in terms of both performance and battery life, which is something older devices couldn’t ascertain.
I'm not old but anytime someone writes a novel ( like the OP ) I just refuse to read it, r even though I'd like to..
Just super annoying!
Anyway, got the jist of the post and I'd say just replace the battery when needed and, like someone else mentioned, be wary of upgrading to the latest iOS release.. Planned obsolescence IS very much a 'thing'!!
I plan to get my 8’s battery replaced and run some tests. The A11 is a powerful chip and it doesn’t drain the battery as quickly as the A10. I think, with a new battery, the 8 could possibly get at least as much SoT as my SE making it usable as a daily driver. Like you said, this would only last around one year before I would have to look into another battery replacement otherwise I would have to change my behaviour and not use the phone in the morning to watch a show on Netflix or Disney+, which is what I normally do with my phones.
Your friend’s 7 has a depleted battery which is in need of replacement. I don’t know how well the 7 performs on iOS 15 but I would suggest battery life would be marginally better than the 6S as the chip is more powerful resulting in less battery draw. The 7 should theoretically obtain as good or better SoT than my SE with a new OEM battery installed. As I have previously proved, an SE on its iOS limit with a newly installed battery is a suitable daily driver for most people. I am a relatively heavy user and it still lasted from morning until night, albeit with under 10% charge by the end of the day. The SE is capable of almost 5 hours of constant media streaming on LTE which can be stretched to around 7ish hours if used sensibly. Most people do not spend a full 7 hours glued to their phone over the duration of a single day. I know Gen-Z people do but I am talking about the average person.
I agree that the A12 is probably the first Apple SoC that is truly ‘future proof’ as my Mini 5 runs like a champ on iPadOS 16. I really cannot detect a difference in performance between my Mini 5 and 13 on daily tasks. The only time I have detected a clear and visible difference in performance is when playing Alien Isolation which is likely the most demanding game on the AppStore. This means that the XS/XR will likely hit their speculated iOS limit of iOS 17 having maintained perfect performance throughout their entire lifecycle. I would be interested in seeing how much battery life is lost when these devices reach their iOS limit. It could be a lot less than A9 iPhones.
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It is possible that the 8 is a little better than the 7 in terms of battery life when upgraded. I understand that I have a particular (and rare) view on this, but I find it completely unacceptable that devices require near-constant battery replacements when updated, and are largely unusable otherwise, like you stated with your iPhone 8. I think it is completely wrong that I can run my 6s for 6-7 hours of LTE with a 63% health, nearly 7-year-old battery on iOS 10 due to sheer OS efficiency and many iPhones and many devices need new batteries within a year to remain usable. That is wrong. Because while we have agreed that devices with new batteries retain a non-absolutely-abhorrent runtime (around 40% worse than that of an original iOS version in some cases), I do think, like I said, that we have to factor in that batteries aren’t perfect for very long, and “batteries have a one-year lifespan in terms of usability” isn’t acceptable to me. I’ve never replaced a battery, and my 9-year-old iPhone 5c is decent, my 6s is great, my 9.7-inch iPad Pro is 25% worse on iOS 12 after Apple forced it out of iOS 9, but is still great (and I have no reason to believe it will get any worse, after 3.5 years running iOS 12, unless Apple were to force it out again, in which case I’ll probably set it on fire). Also, battery life on iOS 12 today is exactly the same it was back when Apple initially forced it out, like I said, 3.5 years ago.
I incorrectly disputed it earlier, and I do not anymore, it is guaranteed for that iPhone 7 and your iPhone 8 to see a significant improvement in terms of battery life after replacement, enough to make it usable for a little while. While I don’t think that it is a good solution (because like I said earlier, it isn’t acceptable for a device to require a new battery to be 40% worse than a 7-year-old iPhone 6s with an original battery on iOS 10), it improves. You’ve proved that.
I find the iPads’ case interesting in terms of longevity. Apple does not replace iPads’ batteries, they replace the whole device. Which brings an interesting point, like I said: iPad batteries aren’t replaceable, there is a huge risk of breaking everything, because everything is glued together. And even though the first iPads had massive batteries and their final iOS versions were good (just like my iPhone 5c, like I said), more modern iPads have the same issues their iPhone counterparts have: performance is better, battery life is abhorrent with degraded batteries. I found this video:
iPads as content consumption devices are extremely long-lasting: you can use an older iPad to read books and watch movies and tv shows with extremely old iOS versions. iOS 10 might be unusable on my iPhone 6s as a complete smartphone experience, but on an iPad? It is brand new as a content consumption software version. It supports many streaming apps like Netflix, it can read books and PDFs just fine, it can watch YouTube without hiccups. Many users use their iPads for that. My point with this is, for this extremely common iPad case scenario, iOS updates are both not needed, and massively counterproductive. All iPads’ longevity for that is outstanding. An iPad Air 2 can do that just as fine as the latest iPad Air 5 can, regardless of whether the device is on iOS 8. Web browsing would suffer, but the rest? It’s perfect.
Apple stops servicing iPads eventually (the iPad Air 2 is no longer serviced as far as I’ve read, although I might be mistaken, vintage service depends on availability), which means that whatever battery you have in there is permanent. This isn’t an issue for the older iPads, for two reasons: batteries were larger, and iOS versions were more efficient. People use 11-year old iPad 2 and iPad Mini 1 and battery life remains decent, because iOS 9 is a good, efficient version in terms of battery life (performance is different but this isn’t the point). People have reported even 10 hours of usage, 10 years later.
Look at those screenshots from the 10.5-inch iPad Pro. As far as software goes, it should remain usable as a content consumption device for a very, very long time... yet, battery life, if fully updated, probably won’t let it, because you will not even be able to replace a battery on that device at some point, and I definitely wouldn’t call a one-hour SOT battery usable. iOS updates killed that device.
Makes me look at my half-full glass even more: iOS 12 might be significantly worse than iOS 9 on my 9.7-inch iPad Pro, but at least it is decent, oftentimes getting to 10-11 hours even as a nearly 7-year-old device.
Agreed, the A12 is probably far more futureproof, at least in terms of performance. And I also agree: some hiccups on a game designed for newer models isn’t indicative of poor performance. I hope Apple manages to leave all A12 devices (which are many, and which are not only great, but also quite iconic, in many ways) in a good standing performance-wise, at least. One step at a time. We’ll take what we can get, at this point.
On battery life, it is already significantly worse, so I am not hopeful. Maybe A15 and M1 processors on iPhones and iPads, respectively? We’ll see.
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Battery may need fixing after year 4 but it should certainly last
my wife plans to keep her 14 pro for at least 5 years
my wife plans to keep her 14 pro for at least 5 years
If you have AppleCare+ and the battery degrades below 80% in the battery health section of the battery section in the settings app, Apple will replace it for free.
I went from an iPhone 6s 64Gb to a 12 Pro Max. Only the last year of using the 6s was truly painful. I had it up to date on iOS and I had the battery replaced 2x over that 4 years and the last few months even with the battery being fresh, battery life was not great. Honestly in 90% of scenarios the photos still looked good and I still think videos I took on the 6s hold up very well. So, 4 years with a top-spec phone should be pretty doable IMO. My 12 Pro Max still seems very new to me and I’ve not come across a scenario where it feels slow.
Honestly the A14 chip in 12 Pro Max along with A15 and A16 don’t differ that much, in fact I believe the A16 is literally an A15 with some tweaks, so you should be good with your 12 Pro Max for years to come. Covid 19 kind of helped these last few generations of iPhones as the improvement have not been huge in the chips.
I think maybe devices on A11 Bionic may begin to suffer a little in iOS 17, I know someone who still uses a iPhone X that seems to still be doing well on iOS 16 and just needs a battery replacement as it’s at around 86% health now.
It’s generally accepted on this forum that the average user will have to replace their phone’s battery every 2-2.5 years. Most people update within 2 years anyway so it doesn’t affect the vast majority of users. I now wish to keep using my devices for longer so I have undergone battery replacements on various iPhones although, up until fairly recently, I had been upgrading every 2 years. My intentions are to keep this 13 in pristine condition and keep it for 4-6 years. By doing this I understand that I will have to replace the battery 1-2 times.
Due to the additional battery capacity over my previous phones such as the 6S, SE, 8 and 12 Mini, I should still have ‘all day battery’ despite keeping my iOS version up to date. If, for some unforeseen reason, I do not have enough battery to last me the entire day, I will use my MagSafe battery pack anyway which will tide me over. The battery pack is not a large inconvenience as it is attached to the phone when the phone is around 30-40% and will charge the device by 50% within 2 hours prior to being removed again. This is one such way to have your cake and eat it too in relation to upgrading iOS version & maintaining battery life.
I watched the video you provided and I do not understand why the iPad possesses only 1 hour and 20 minutes of SoT. I have an iPad Mini 4 which was purchased back in September 2015 and has been used ever since. My Mini 4 is upgraded to iPadOS 15.7.3 and has a surprisingly long battery life. I do not know the exact numbers but I can run 1 hour YouTube videos or videos on other streaming services and only take a small hit to the battery. The battery life is still very usable to this day and I have no complaints. The iPad in your video is clearly an aberration as a device with an A10 should not drain the battery as quickly as shown.
I disagree with your thoughts that iPadOS 10 is usable. I spent a considerable time, probably 3 years, on iPadOS 10 on my Mini 4 and was forced to update in early 2022 because the web browsing experience became dire. Safari needed an update due to compatibility problems and after updating to iPadOS 15, those problems were resolved. Netflix did work, however the actual YouTube app did not. No other streaming service is usable on iPadOS 10 either.
I agree with older iPads posting a far superior battery life. The Mini 1 I have on iPadOS 9 is close to useless as a device, although I did get Netflix working, but the battery life is still immense. The device can steam music via the Apple Music service, run the Netflix app and steam videos and works fairly well on iMessage and FaceTime. I have also successfully streamed Podcasts on the device too. It is all horribly slow though so I choose not to use the device even though it still has some functionality a decade after purchase.
I reckon the M1 processors on iPads may impact the battery less than the A class chips after updating iPadOS as the M class processors are considerably more powerful than even the A15.
All in all, the battery discussion is kind of moot as these devices all have a shelf life and are designed to be retired or recycled after 6+ years of use. It is a miracle that my 10 year old iPad Mini still has some basic functionality today however, like yourself, I have multiple iPads and a handful of iPhones. I have no need to maintain perfect battery life for each device as there are only so many hours in the day. My 13’s battery capacity is so good that I usually end the day with 35% remaining which means I can definitely take a hit when updating iOS versions in the future without any negative effects. Even then, in the unlikely event I decide to keep the device as my daily driver for 6+ years, I can use a MagSafe battery pack to provide a further 50% of charge with almost no drawbacks. The sheer power of these modern phones pretty much ensures there will be no performance drop either.
It doesn’t make sense not to update if you ask me.
The positives of updating iOS far outweigh the negatives and it’s not even close.
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Usability as you mentioned above is a sliding scale, which is why the discussion can go around in circles. To me ios 10 or ipados 10 would be usable if it functioned as intended in 2023. But that is not the case -- so therefore it isn't usable. One has to be able to accept a crippled operating system and deem it usable.
Life is too short to worry about if an ios update affects battery life -- as battery life is the easiest thing to mitigate in 2023.
Yep. iOS 10 is not usable even on the iPad unless you have a very limited use case which doesn’t even include web-browsing. I wouldn’t put myself through that ordeal as it defeats the purpose of technology as these devices are supposed to make our lives easier, not harder. Trying to keep old tech alive well beyond its years is counter-intuitive and not something I would ever get involved in as a casual tech enthusiast.
The most dated technology that is usable without too many strings attached is anything A9 based and updated to iOS 15. If anyone goes below that, or refuses to update iOS, they will be met with big compromises and life is too short for those kind of headaches.
That is why I am happy to use my 13 until it becomes a hinderance. I don’t have the time nor patience to not update and use some apps on one device, and other apps on another device which is what FeliApple seems to do which is his choice but not a choice I’ve seen anyone else on this forum make. Things just have to work for me otherwise I move on. It’s as simple as that.
The battery discussion is interesting and I do agree with him especially on the diminishing battery life on older phones.
These problems seem to be mitigated now, as you say, with newer technology due to improved SoCs, larger batteries and accessories such as MagSafe.
Perhaps even FeliApple will see that the benefits FAR outweigh the negatives in updating his newer devices.
In my experience, these things have helped device longevity if that's what you're after;
- Use Low Power Mode permanently
- Keep it charged between 20 and 80%
- Turn off EVERYTHING you don't need (less battery load = less wear).
- Use Low Power Mode permanently
- Keep it charged between 20 and 80%
- Turn off EVERYTHING you don't need (less battery load = less wear).
Some fair points on a related topic article — though I don’t agree with them all:
www.makeuseof.com
In other words, devices, gadgets, tools, etc will need to be replaced eventually. So, don’t put a lot/excessive effort into fighting the inevitable.
I say this following a lot of (attempted) “future proofing."
5 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Future-Proof Your PC
Is future-proofing your PC ever a good idea? Here are several reasons why you might want to reconsider.
In other words, devices, gadgets, tools, etc will need to be replaced eventually. So, don’t put a lot/excessive effort into fighting the inevitable.
I say this following a lot of (attempted) “future proofing."
Especially after Apple included battery health data on iPhones, the general public’s battery health awareness skyrocketed, ever since... iOS 11.3 I think it was? That coincided with quite an interesting fact: the end of 32-bit updates. Like you stated, while performance is largely unusable for anyone with half-decent expectations, battery life is not. iOS 11 was a battery life fiasco, and the coincidence was too obvious to ignore: 64-bit devices were destined to suffer the battery life impact of iOS updates far more than their 32-bit devices did. Time proved this theory to be correct, and people started to see that replacing batteries helped, so they incorrectly started to blame that. This is because of what you said: everyone updates, so they do not know that an original iOS version device works flawlessly for years even with the original battery.
Your iPhone 13 should be far better based on sheer SOT numbers on iOS 15. Hopefully you don’t even need a battery replacement until many years have passed, but time will tell. And it is highly likely that what you said proves to be correct: sheer battery capacity will enable you to carry your MagSafe battery pack, and restore the all-day battery life every user since the iPhone 6 Plus should have. Unless Apple obliterates battery life like they obliterated that 10.5-inch iPad Pro, and unless they fix this once and for all, you may experience a severe SOT degradation which will not preclude you - with MagSafe’s aid - from having all-day battery life. I hope that we are right about this.
I reckon that iPad’s battery life is due to iPadOS 16. The fact that Apple prevented iPhones with the A9 and the A10 processors from getting iOS 16 makes me think (with a solid argument, even though it is pure speculation at its core) that Apple did not allow A9 and A10-based iPhones to have iOS 16 solely due to battery life. It doesn’t make sense otherwise. Due to this, and maybe because Apple thinks that iPads are more of an indoor device (again, sheer speculation), they might think that battery life isn’t as needed as software support, so they allowed iPads to update... in abhorrent detriment to their battery life. It is likely that that’s why your Mini 4 is good: iPadOS 16 is too demanding. iPadOS 15 is far more decent. That has happened before. It is possible that they did not learn from their mistakes and they went one update too far for A9 and A10-based iPads. Sheer “SoC firepower” on both the A9 and the A10 probably allowed for decent performance, unlike 32-bit devices, but it might’ve been too much for power consumption, especially with degraded batteries. Kind of like A9-based iPhones on iOS 15 with moderately used batteries. Good performance, abhorrent battery life. Like I said, the fact that iPads’ batteries aren’t easily replaceable (and fully noting that I insist that replacing batteries every five minutes is NOT an acceptable solution) only adds fuel to the fire. 1 hour 15 minutes of SoT with YouTube as the most used app isn’t acceptable regardless of battery capacity. I have shown that degraded batteries work if the iOS version is early enough. This is unacceptable.
I have complained a lot about Apple forcing my 9.7-inch iPad Pro to iOS 12. After reading everyone’s experience with that range of iPads (iPads released around that time, which would include the 5th and 6th-gen iPads, and the 1st and 2nd-gen iPad Pros), I can’t help but be grateful about the fact that at least I managed to keep it on iOS 12. Yes, battery life isn’t perfect. But it is completely, absolutely usable. I use it indoors, which means I can charge it whenever I want. But it works. I can charge it, unplug it, and use it for quite a while. It doesn’t run out of battery within two hours or less like the example I posted earlier. It gives me 10-11 hours of light use. It gave me 14 on iOS 9, like I said. But looking at the larger picture... if updated devices with my battery health get maybe 2-3 hours, perhaps 4, I cannot complain. Performance is nearly flawless too, unlike on iPadOS 16, which iPad users with 2GB of RAM have complained about. It is perfectly usable on iOS 12, with good web browsing capabilities, access to streaming apps (including sports streaming apps), and everything I need works just fine, including battery life. It is my favourite iPad ever (maybe my favourite device ever), and I would not like to see it be reduced to uselessness in any category. Let time make it lose usability, not avoidable iOS updates. I thought this iPad was gone as soon as I inevitably hit that update button. 3.5 years later, I can say that it is still my favourite iPad ever.
iOS 10 is unusable for web browsing, I agree, I have an iPhone on iOS 10, and it isn’t good. That said, YouTube should work flawlessly, and I can confirm Netflix works. I don’t know if other streaming apps work, but with an iPad on iOS 10 you can read books, you can play many basic games, you can watch YouTube and TV Shows (YouTube should work, I don’t know why it didn’t work for you), and many other content consumption-related activities, without a single hiccup. If it works for that... why not leave what is the final home-button iPad Pro (and with a headphone jack) on iOS 10 as a content consumption device and buy a cheap half-decent iPad for the rest? If the alternative is: either you struggle with one hour of SoT or you leave it as a quite decent content-consumption device on anything below iPadOS 13 and buy a cheaper iPad and update that second iPad as far as it goes to ensure the full app suite compatibility, I’d definitely choose the latter. I can confirm iOS 12 is half-decent in terms of battery life, and fully usable as a content-consumption iOS version, even web browsing is good still.
32-bit devices have been rendered obsolete due to performance, and here I agree with both of you, @I7guy too. It is unacceptable for me, it is inconvenient for older, non-MagSafe devices, but you have a way, as inconvenient as it is, to mitigate the battery life problem. You can carry a battery pack. It exists. I can disagree with me requiring this, but the way is there. There is no way, inconvenient or otherwise, to solve the performance problem on iOS 9 and 10 on 32-bit devices. These iOS versions are as good as an Apple-installed kill switch. What Apple did to millions of these devices is unforgivable.
I agree, like we stated earlier, it is extremely unfortunate that regardless of what we do, iOS devices are rendered obsolete either way. They either work too poorly on their last iOS versions to be acceptably usable (like 32-bit devices in terms of performance or newer iPads and iPhones in terms of battery life), or sheer incompatibility forces them out (like my iPhone 6s on iOS 10, now unusable as a main phone). This is the reality of the situation. Arguably, iPads on older iOS versions are far better (barring web browsing like we stated), and for sheer content consumption they will remain usable for a very, very long time.
As a fun exercise: With full honesty, and as much as it would bother me to state this, if somebody were to ask me this: “I want to use an iPhone and iPad combo with the same SoC for as long as it will go, either until it breaks or until it is rendered unusable, what are your recommendations to ensure longevity? I will use the iPad solely for content consumption” I would have to say: “Do not update your iPad, ever. You will struggle with web browsing eventually. Find a way around it. Do not update your iPhone for as long as you can. When web browsing and/or the apps you need force you out, you will have no choice. Buy a battery pack and keep going”.
Like you said, should you want to use an iPhone for the longest possible time as a main iPhone, and assuming you do not want it as a mere basic with phone, messages, and music, there is no alternative. With some hope, what you said at the end remains true: sheer battery capacity coupled with sheer SoC power allows fully updated iPhone 13 (even the Xʀ! @I7guy has said that battery life remains usable on iOS 16. While I don’t doubt it’s far worse than mine, I don’t doubt that it is usable either. Even 60% of my battery life would be usable, and performance-wise? It should be great too. iPads with the A12X are widely praised) to be usable on its latest iOS version. Hopefully A12 iPhones onwards can fulfill that requirement. Usable battery life, great performance, even fully updated.
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