Why is iPhone Still So Popular?

Our household exchanges phones—one generation replaces the next.

My wife got a new iPhone 17.
She gave me her iPhone 16.
I gave my iPhone 15 to my dad.
My dad gave his iPhone 14 to my mom.
My mom gave her iPhone 13 to my uncle.
My uncle gave his iPhone 12 to my cousin.
My cousin gave his iPhone 11 to my niece.
Finally, I took back the iPhone X from my niece
and gave it to our Burmese housekeeper.

Two days after using it,
she quietly packed up the Xiaomi phone she had just bought last year for around 2000 yuan
and shipped it back to her parents in Myanmar.

There's your answer.

It's not that iPhone is perfect.
It's that its product lifecycle is long enough—
long enough to pass through seven or eight hands and still run smoothly,
long enough to meet the needs of consumers at different price points.

Premium users chase the latest. Mid-tier users seek stability. Budget users get what they need.
One device captures the entire market.

You're buying a phone.
Apple is selling an ecosystem, resale value, and time.