[Dr. Sivana]

The life cycle of a phone is two years why would you expect to run the latest and greatest software on outdated hardware?

The contract term of a phone is two years. When the phone is worth about $700, I want more than two years out of it. Much of the new software (including new versions of the old, which often gets pulled) will not run on the older OSes, forcing updates.

[itsahoot]

When the phone is worth about $700, I want more than two years out of it.

If you take care of you iPhone it will pay for the upgrade via trade in value. My wife and kids all got iPhone 6s by trading in their iPhone 5. No cost to them except a $30.00 activation fee.