Each year, when the new iPhone is released, I feel the same emotions that I experienced the year before. The iPhone takes up a weird position in my life where I both want it and don’t want it at the same time. Unfortunately, I can’t open a box and remove the device from its unknown position.

I first observed this with the iPhone 12, but the new iPhone 14 pro has taken this to a whole new level. The shiny new device that landed at my house on Friday is beautiful and really nice to use, but also ultimately pointless and offers me very little exchange for the outlay. This is the problem, it’s so impressive and shiny and new that I want to pick it up and use it, but also don’t want to use my phone all the time. I don’t have anything  to do on it anyway.

I am not motivated nor excited by gadgets any more. Perhaps because I am getting old, or perhaps iPhones are getting boring now. My phone is a tool, a tool I try to use as little as possible, but have accepted that it must exist in my life. The iPhone 14 pro is so good at its job that I can rely on it to do more things than ever before. I can read, and write, and take outstanding photos. I can also doom scroll social media and miss the world around me.

I realise all of this is no fault of Apple or the iPhone, it’s me. I want to put these barriers in place so that I enjoy my life more, yet I miss the times that iPhone delivery day was one of the best times of the year. The new iPhone didn’t cost me much due to selling my old one, and there was only one version to choose from. Now my comparison is against the £1200 I spent buying my shiny new toy and the value it gives me back.

As for right now, I’m typing this out on my iPhone 13 mini. Trying to express my feelings as if writing in a journal to myself. Can I afford the new iPhone, sure. Do I really want to spend this money, not really. This one does just fine, and probably will for a while. It’s just the desire for the shiny new things I can’t switch off. That’s what marketing does to you, I guess.