My weird way to make iPhones useful...

Invincible Sugar · September 8, 2023

Hi! I have a bunch of phones, my carrier allows stacking free phones with free lines of service, and multiple free phones per line, so long as you are willing to sign up for a 2 year contract... I have so many free lines and promos on my service, paying a fraction of what normal people would, so I know I'm not leaving any time soon.

Given that situation, I might as well get all the free phones I can right? I can't sell them for 2 years and I usually trade them in for new free phones every year or two anyways, so they'll always be around, mine to use, but not to sell or gift away really. Why let them sit around doing nothing when I can make them do something? c:

So I set up these things around the house, a magsafe charger + iPhone 12/13/14 for each, set to never sleep, with the Weather app open. Is this the best possible use for them? No. Is it better than sitting in a drawer until trade in time? I think so!

So... I guess this is mostly just a, look at me, I'm proud that I did something cool, but any suggestions or feedback is welcome c:

And who knows, maybe someone out there will copy this idea if they are also weird enough to accept dozens of free phones just because they can. It's not impossible.

johnt · September 8, 2023

It's your life so you do what you want, but this DESTROYS battery longevity. Maybe you don't care bc your current method is to upgrade them, but if the companies stop offering the incentives then you might be stuck with dead weight.

We do this with our iPhone 5c for my kid's noise maker... man after 15 minutes the battery life is 30% gone.

Invincible Sugar · September 8, 2023

19 minutes ago, johnt said:

It's your life so you do what you want, but this DESTROYS battery longevity. Maybe you don't care bc your current method is to upgrade them, but if the companies stop offering the incentives then you might be stuck with dead weight.

We do this with our iPhone 5c for my kid's noise maker... man after 15 minutes the battery life is 30% gone.

This is a good point, along with OLED burn in. Neither impacts trade in value with my carrier, but for sure, if that program changes I will need to rethink this.