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[Ulfarr]

1) I did a quick search in the forum but I couldn't find any thread specifically about smartphones, so I thought I'd start one.
2) The "generic computer" thread is on Life advice too so, I guess this is the correct board.
3) I personaly have a specific question, but I think the thread could eventually serve as a generic one.


My phone is an iphone 5s. Yes, it's getting old but it's still fuctional in what I want it for, namely phonecalls, sms, messages in general (viber/facebook) and a bit of browsing. I 'm not playing any games on it and I don't plan to either. Due to the numerous reports about performance issues with iOS11, I had decided against updating it so it's still running iOS 9.3.1, the version it had when I got it (second hand, about a year ago).

Now that iOS12 has been out for a while, the question wheter to update is up in the air again. Looking around in the web, I found some articles that claimed that the new update "breathed new life in their old devices" but pretty much all of them seem to be based on the results of the same test, which compared phones running on iOS 10.3.3/ 11.0/ 11.4.1/ 12.0 GM while focusing mostly on the 11.4.1 vs 12 part so it's not really comperable with my case. Any info/advice you might have will be appreciated.

Edit (30/1/2019): For anyone that might find it useful, I went ahead and did the update last night. The phone works fine so far, there seems to be a very slight lag sometimes but it’s pretty insignificant. Also I haven’t noticed any change regarding the battery life but it still pretty early.

edit (12/2/19): Battery problems are here. It seems like the battery indicator doesn't report the charge level correctly anymore, searching the internet I found two probable causes : 1) battery is failing 2)
                       the software can't "read" the charge level correctly. Seeing how reseting the battery (complete drain -. full charge) hasn't fixed it, it seems like a new battery is in order.

[MantisMan]

I'm not really sure what you're asking here.

If it's about smartphone usage and when to upgrade, here's what I've been doing:

I used an android phone that was "a good value for the money". Not all that great, but I was able to load a lot of music and video stuff on it to peruse during my commute. I ended up using it as a general personal computer for things like texting, e-mail, web browsing to find bus plans, etc. That was back when Android only let you run one program at a time. Then I got an update that made me run multiple programs at once, which sucked up all the RAM on the thing and slowly introduced more problems in it. I performed 2 software resets, and opened it up at least twice to fix screwed up stuff, including replacing the screen once. I used that thing until it was practically falling apart.

Now, my new android phone is also a "good value for the money" phone. It might actually be better all around than the last one in terms of specs (though only has one speaker instead of the 2 from last time). I'm using it largely like before; as a calendar app, an e-mail aggregator, personal alarm/timer, texting device, youtube/video machine, ebook reader, weather checker, bank payment maker, music player, and bus schedule checker. This is fine for me, and I don't see much of a need to get any of the phones with huge amounts of processing ability or RAM. Sure, I could run fancy games on it, but I honestly didn't game on my last phone much, so I'd probably never use those functions.

That said, my aunt gifted me an old apple device. It's old enough that I can't even access youtube, nor am I able to update or install the app, since it requires a newer version of the OS. I have no idea what I can use it for.

[ChairmanPoo]

That said, my aunt gifted me an old apple device. It's old enough that I can't even access youtube, nor am I able to update or install the app, since it requires a newer version of the OS. I have no idea what I can use it for.

I have a suggestion
Install android and use it as a more personal-content-friendly device for purposes of playing music/reading/watching videos/browsing the web. Depending on screen size and performance. Worst case scenario you can use it as a music player in a pinch.

[wierd]

Apple devices tend to have locked boot loaders, and typically do not play friendly with installing android.

However if the device has enough space, you CAN dual boot.
https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/iphone/how-install-android-on-iphone-3658273/


Personally, I look for devices that have open boot loaders, and which are supported by LineageOS.  LineageOS continues to provide security and system OS level update for the supported handsets long after the carrier or handset maker drops them.

https://lineageos.org/
https://download.lineageos.org/ (See the pane at the left. Downloads are broken up by handset maker, and then by model. A very large number of devices are supported.)

Once set up, it runs like any other android deployment, just without any of the added cruft the carrier insisted on, and without the gapps package.  If you want the gapps, you need to grab it and install it the same time you install lineageos.  You can get various flavors of the gapps package from opengapps.org

https://opengapps.org/

You can in-line whatever android root pack you want with LineageOS; they don't make any attempt to stop you. 

For older, but otherwise fully servicable handsets (like my galaxy S5), LineageOS is a boon. 

[Ulfarr]

I'm not really sure what you're asking here.

Basically I was asking whether someone has been using an iphone 5s for the past couple of years and what is their experience with the software updates throughout its usage.

My previous phone (a low end android) has almost reached the point where the up to date versions of some apps (chrome, youtube) stop running properly due to the increased hardware requirements. I was unsure whether to update the OS of my current phone or not because I didn't want to end up with a non functional device because of the added bells and whistles that are ultimately irrelevant to the way I use that device.

iOS 11 did that to many old devices (including iphone 5s) so the test where they compared one with iOS11 and one with iOS12 isn't really reliable to draw conclusions. Any OS that works would give better performance compared to one that doesn't work.