How to Make Your Phone Last Forever: 6 Simple Tips

THE MARS rover Opportunity, launched in 2004, was only designed to complete a 90-day mission. But thanks to the efforts of many engineers and scientists, it wasn’t until 2019, 15 years later, that it finally stopped sending updates to NASA.

The more these scientists worked on the device, the more connected they felt to it, says Janet Vertesi, a sociologist of science and technology at Princeton University whose research included NASA’s rover programs. After all, she said, “you don’t just go to the Genius bar and get another one.”

Her reference to Apple’s Genius bar is telling: No matter how connected we get to our phones, most people accept that they’ll soon seem obsolete. The average phone in America is only used for around 2½ years, according to data published by intelligence platform Statista.

But a smartphone can last much longer. I should know. I used a Pixel 2, which came out in October 2017, as my primary phone until this summer. I loved how well the small phone fit in my hand, was happy enough with the photos it took and appreciated the speedy Android apps. My friends occasionally teased me for using the “dated” gadget (“Aren’t you a tech journalist?”). Unfortunately, it stopped receiving software updates this fall. It was time to shop for a new phone.

I ended up getting the third-generation iPhone SE from 2022. I like its smaller size, and that Apple promises it will get software updates for at least five years. To try to keep it for longer, I reached out to experts for advice.

Save Your Phone’s Life: Easy-to-Follow Tips to Keep It Going

Tip 1: Check for updates.

Your phone stores info about every aspect of your life. Without security updates, it’s all at risk, says Thorin Klosowski, a security and privacy activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy organisation. Apple offers software upgrades for at least five years and security updates for longer. This year’s Google Pixel eight will get updates through 2030. Samsung promises security updates for four years minimum.

Tip 2: Put a case on it.

Every expert I spoke with said that getting a case and a screen protector are the most important steps to maintaining a phone’s life economically. Investing in this combo rarely exceeds $50, while repairing your screen can top $200.

Tip 3: Clean your filthy, disgusting charge port.

If you’ve ever had trouble getting your phone to charge, even with endless cord fiddling, you might have thought it kaput. But the port itself, whether Lightning or USB-C, might not be broken. Try gently inserting a straightened-out paper clip along its sides to see if it’s full of pocket lint and random dust. (A can of compressed air works too.) Then, use a lint plug, a removable piece of rubber that can sit in your port, to prevent more buildup.

Tip 4: Monitor your battery health.

“Many problems that appear to be defects in [a] phone are really problems with dying batteries,” said Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of the Repair Association, a New York-based trade group that advocates for right-to-repair laws. You can check your battery’s health in the settings menu on both Apple or Android phones. If your iPhone says your battery’s “Maximum Capacity” is 80% or less under “Battery Health,” it’s probably time to replace it.

Tip 5: Know your repair options.

If you do need to replace a battery or screen, don’t accidentally overpay to fix it. Apple has a tool on its website that will quickly estimate the cost of common repairs for your specific phone. (It says it will cost $69 to repair the battery on my new SE.) You can maybe get things fixed cheaper at local shops, but there might be quirks. After a non-Apple repair person replaces an iPhone battery, for example, your phone might send a warning it’s “unable to verify” whether it has a “genuine Apple battery.”

Tip 6: If all else fails, repurpose.

When your phone’s maker declares it obsolete, and stops sending software and security updates, don’t just accept the death sentence. Compromise on some of its capabilities. Start, Klosowski says, with a factory reset, and update your OS as much as you can. Then, you can download apps that will let your phone replace or augment your primary devices. It can be a dedicated alarm clock, smart home hub, remote control, digital picture frame, or even an extra camera for your home security system.

Wall Street’s hottest trade has gone ice cold.

For years, it paid off to buy stocks that were rising in price—and bet against struggling shares. The momentum trade was especially profitable this year, as investors piled into hot stocks including Micron Technology, Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and other artificial-intelligence darlings while wagering against those likely to be hurt by the embrace of AI.

The S&P 500 Momentum Index soared 44% in the second quarter, its best quarterly performance on record, and it surged 133% over the past five years, nearly double the broad market’s performance.

Mega funds and rookie investors alike piled into the trade, some using leverage and options contracts in an effort to amplify their returns, propelling the underlying shares higher.

“It is a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Matthew Tym, managing director at Cantor Fitzgerald, of the trade.

Suddenly, the trade is a loser. The momentum index has tumbled more than 9% since July 1, lagging behind the S&P 500’s 2.8% gain. The index—which tracks stocks in the S&P 500 based on a “momentum score”—is on track for the biggest quarterly underperformance in 25 years. July was the second-worst month for the momentum trade in around 40 years, according to Bank of America estimates; the only month worse was April 2009, in the teeth of the global financial crisis.

Hedge funds that bought momentum shares while shorting low-momentum stocks suffered even more. At the same time, a basket of the most popular stocks held by hedge funds tracked by Goldman Sachs recorded its biggest one-month underperformance in July relative to the S&P 500 in more than 20 years, according to the bank’s analysts.

Momentum trading is based on a rather simple observation: Investments that go up tend to keep outperforming; those that underperform often remain laggards. This kind of trading might seem too simple a stock-picking strategy to work. Yet it often has.

“For decades, it didn’t take a lot of sophistication to run a momentum strategy and make a decent living at it,” says Agustin Lebron, senior researcher at EquiLibre, a trading firm.

Part of the reason: It takes a while for corporate and other information to spread to various investors, so they slowly build positions, producing buying momentum.

“A huge pension fund can’t flip around its positions in a day,” says Lebron. “Behavioral biases also account for some of the effect, as well—people tend to sell their winners too early and hold losers too long.”

Fans of the strategy point to the human tendency to extrapolate from past results—and chase investment returns—noting that momentum patterns have been evident in markets for decades, even centuries. They also say that some of the worst months for momentum strategies are during longer periods of outperformance.

Some have been doing the trade by buying the strongest investments in a sector while shorting the weakest; others lean in to rising markets or asset classes. Still others use a quantitative approach or turn to banks or others who sell ways to make distinct wagers on momentum as a “tradable factor” or a “thematic basket.”

The fans remain believers. “Any strategy has disappointing periods,” says Antti Ilmanen, global co-head of the portfolio solutions group at AQR Capital Management.

The surge in Moderna and other biotech stocks helped crush the momentum trade. These shares were among the most heavily shorted in recent years, but positive news on a cancer vaccine from Moderna and Merck sent those stocks flying, crushing some quant and other hedge funds. Moderna is up around 150% so far this month.

These traders had an especially rough day on Aug. 19, which Goldman Sachs told its clients was the worst day for “systematic long-short managers” in more than two years. About half of the losses were because of momentum trades, the bank said.

Some traders have begun to short, or bet against, the very stocks that propelled the momentum trade earlier this year. Net short positions in futures tied to the Nasdaq-100 index among speculators recently climbed to some of the highest levels of the past two decades, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The about-face is a sign of how markets have become more treacherous for investors, even as indexes keep climbing. Part of the issue: the recent meltdown of Situational Awareness, a hedge fund that had piled into some of the most popular momentum shares, including chip stocks. After a period of market tumult, Nvidia shares rocketed almost 9% after its earnings, showing how quickly sentiment can shift.

Some investors say the run-up in share prices driving tech stocks higher reminds them at times of the dot-com frenzy decades ago.

Mike Ogborne, the founder of San Francisco-based Ogborne Capital Management, said he has grown more cautious on technology stocks and is keeping more of his portfolio in cash than he typically does.

And he is nervous about the surge in spending by technology giants and quarterly capital expenditures that keep rising.

“It is a little bit like Cinderella and the clock striking midnight. You don’t know when midnight is going to come around,” Ogborne said. “They don’t send a memo around telling you when the capex cycle is over.”