There were already plenty of good reasons to consider buying a used iPhone instead of constantly upgrading. It’s both more environmentally friendly and more cost-effective, an increasing rarity these days. But a few recent developments have converged that suddenly make buying used even more appealing.

Starting this fall, older iPhones will last longer than ever. Some Apple products will be more expensive. And while buying used—or holding onto your own device an extra year or two—means you may miss out on certain features, for many people it’s simply the best option.

“Buying used has never made more sense,” says Kyle Wiens, CEO of the repair advocate service iFixit. “The phones from the last few years are really good.”

The economic uncertainty also comes after a year of wildly fluctuating markets in the wake of the Trump administration’s tariff implementation and ongoing conflict with Iran. Getting the stuff to make your new iPhone is just going to get harder, and Apple and every other company is bound to pass those costs along to their customers.

Apple has already been preparing for this. At Apple's WWDC keynote in early June, the company detailed upcoming changes to its iOS 27 that aim to help iPhones last longer by improving its CPU scheduler—which manages software resources on the device—in a way that will apparently even keep the iPhone 11 humming.