Without a doubt my single most favourite piece of technology of the last 10 years has been my original iPhone 4. It’s lived by my side, every day for 4 years straight and been with me as I’ve transitions from bacholor, to husband, to father. I created Corgan and Alfie on there as well. It’s travelled with me to Lebanon, England, Malaysia, Qatar and Greece.

However these last 6 months have been pretty rough. My home button stopped functioning very well (sporadically at best) and as was going to happen eventually, the apps became more optomised for newer hardware which effectively slowed them down on the older hardware.

Having said all that I still use the phone very single day for the following tasks:

• Alarm Clock
• Podcasts (using Overcast) every morning before heading off to work. My phone connects to my car via bluetooth of course
• Reeder for when I’m waiting for something
• Whatstapp and Messages
• Receiving and making phonecalls (I know shocker), both the stock app and on Viber and Skype
• Safari
• Checking my emails (currently using mail.app)
• Checking photos of the boy
• Sound Sleeper to put the boy to bed
• And I’ll even throw in a game or 3 (rediscovering the classic Radiant recently)

Not bad for a 4 year old phone. However sometime after the 9th of September that’s going to change, following the release of the new iPhone. It honestly could not have come sooner.

The truth is, that while I’m still using my phone consistently every day, I’ve stopped enjoying using it and one fundamental aspect I have stopped using entirely, that of taking photos. 4 years on, it’s really showing it’s age in this respect. The camera interface takes a good long time to load and even when it does the pictures are just not that great when compared to my wife’s iPhone 5c and certainly not my Sony NEX-F3.

So while the phone has served me incredibly well and for a great long period of time (more than any phone I have ever owned), it’s time to say it’s swang song and be relegated for the newest and greatest from the minds of Jony Ive and the fine folks a Apple.