Celebrities are a lot like us, especially when it comes to technology.
Captain America star Chris Evans said the silent parts (opens in a new tab) out loud this week as he lamented why his seven-year-old iPhone 6S wouldn't keep working.
Instead of singing the praises of his powerful new iPhone 13 Pro, Evans, who stars in the new Netflix movie The Gray Man, told Collider that his new phone was too heavy and didn't have a home button.
Never has a movie star been so accessible. It says everything my wife and friends told me when I told them it's probably time to upgrade their current device. And while no one would call Evan a tech whiz, he does bring up some interesting and hard truths about current smartphone trends.
Is the iPhone 13 Pro heavier than the iPhone 6S? At 7,19 ounces, the former weighs 2,15 ounces more than the latter. Considering that the iPhone 13 Pro is nothing like the 6S: it has a bigger screen, a battery, more and bigger cameras, all this is understandable.
I was slightly tickled by Evan's description of the stress his new iPhone puts on his little finger…his superhero little finger. I know. Evans is not Captain America. He's just an actor, but if you've seen the behind-the-scenes footage (opens in new tab) of that iconic one-armed helicopter capture scene from Captain America: Civil War, then you know he's not weak either. In the interview, his Gray Man co-star Ana de Armas complains about a mark left by her iPhone on the little finger holding the smartphone.
Why did Evans give up his beloved iPhone 6S (opens in a new tab) if he didn't want the extra weight, didn't seem interested in the new features he could get from an iPhone 13 Pro (those cameras!), and is still pining ? because of the lost home button? Maybe it was because the thing barely had a charge or...
Maybe we can blame iOS 16.
Although Apple's next mobile operating system is months away from its full release, it's already in public beta and there's some very big news from Chris Evans regarding the update: iOS 16 won't be compatible with iPhone 6S. In fact, the rather fancy update won't support any iPhones prior to iPhone 8.
This means that in addition to the now-classic iPhone 8, 8Plus, and iPhone SE styling, Apple will drop support for most iPhones with the iPhone 6s design. It's Apple taking its first big step away from the home button that Evans loved. Although we have a new iPhone SE (2022 Edition), the writing is on the wall. There probably won't be another with this design or with a physical home button.
Evan's wish, "I want something from before to work until it doesn't," is a common wish and seems fair on the face of it. Certainly other product categories, from cars to vacuum cleaners to mattresses, work this way. A 1930s car is just as likely to drive today as it did a century ago if the engine is still running and you can afford gas. No one redesigns bed frames so your old mattress won't fit.
Can the super serum get you out of change?
However, the technology is different. Its history of obsolescence of old products and even entire categories is as long as it is painful. There's never a guarantee that the product you love this year will be compatible with third-party software, adapters, or even the company that made it next year. Time and technology move forward and expect you to walk alongside them.
Yet here's someone who can clearly afford yearly device upgrades, and yet has been holding on to their old iPhone 6S for over half a dozen years. It worked for him. He clearly loved her and can't help losing her in the morning.
Chris Evans is not wrong. Perhaps it's time the technology was supported for as long as it can reasonably function. What if the iPhone 6s is not compatible with the latest operating system? If it still works, that should be enough.
To be fair, Apple doesn't remotely turn off older iPhones when they're no longer compatible with the current OS, but over time they feel more and more like ostracized parents, finding themselves shut out of more and more activity, until , as with the classic iPhone 3GS, they can't even access the Internet.
Evans could have had about a year more with his iPhone 6s, though I'm sure he needed a new battery, if he could still get his hands on it. However, the culmination of his gadget hero movie was always predetermined: Eventually someone would snap their fingers and that iPhone 6S and his beloved home button would be gone.
Image Credit: Composite Shutterstock and Ryan Li (Captain America | Photo of Captain America in Hong Kong. … | Flickr)