the three iphones you won't be able to update soon - including 2019's bestseller

Goodbye friends (Picture: AP)

October 2018. Lady Gaga,Calvin Harris and Nicki Minaj were in the charts,Theresa May was prime minister,and Apple’s iPhone XR was about to debut.

It doesn’t feel that long ago,but prepare for time to hit like a rogue wave… that iPhone will become nearly obsolete this week.

You may have sent all your millennial gifs in capital letters on it,swiped your way through Tinder with it,or perhaps you still use it today.

But it won’t be able to download the latest software update when iOS 26 is released on September 15,just before the newly released iPhone 17 and iPhone Air hit shelves.

That means that,while you can still use it and get critical security patches,it won’t get the latest features,and app developers will gradually stop catering to it.

So it will slowly phase out of your life,until you trade it in for,I don’t know,a brick,or a different model that folds up like a creaseless piece of paper.

To put it in perspective,the iPhone XR was the bestselling phone of 2019. That’s only six years ago,so there are no doubt lots of them in our pockets still.

A dangerous amount of waste

This is why there are now warnings about mounds of e-waste that could be generated as people feel pressured to upgrade.

Over 150 million units of the XR series had been sold by 2020,and a waste company has now estimated that there could still be over 75 million of them still active,given that roughly 50% of iPhones survive to six years.