 It's new iPhone season again everyone, but is it a good time to upgrade? And here's the thing, I'm not even asking whether you think that the newest iPhone is worth switching to. I'm talking specifically about this time of year. Is it a good time to upgrade? Think about it for a second. New iPhones get released at the same time every year, which means that there is a certain seasonality to the pricing of the latest, the last gen, and even second-hand iPhones. And the crazy thing is this topic goes deeper than that. Because even if you hate iPhones, you're gonna want to stay tuned. Because as it turns out, computer processors are affected in a similar manner, and Apple's September event can also affect the pricing of certain components for things like gaming PCs. So we're gonna tell you what to look out for right after this message from our sponsor Pulseway. Pulseway lets you remotely monitor, manage, and control all your Windows, Mac, and Linux machines from one app. Create your free account today at the link in the video description. A new iPhone has been announced on the second week of September every year since the iPhone 5 launch in 2020. A new iPhone has been announced on the second week of September every year since the iPhone 5 launch in 2012, with availability about 10 days later, give or take. So for years, you could count on the latest iPhone costing $649 unsubsidized, with the plus-size model selling for $100 more. That is, until Apple snuck an extra $50 onto the price tag of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, and then quite literally turned it up to $11 the following year. What hasn't changed is the discount on last-gen phones. Every time a new iPhone launches, the devices from the previous year are dropped $100. This is notable because historically, it's been the only time that Apple has directly adjusted the iPhone's unsubsidized price. Even their Black Friday sales are just free Apple gift cards offered alongside regularly priced devices. So an iPhone will typically get discounted twice before it gets discontinued, with the exception of the iPhone 5 and the 10, which were both discontinued after just one year, when the subsequent generation's budget offering made them redundant. Just because a model is discontinued, however, doesn't mean that it is not supported. Over time, Apple has actually increased the number of years of support that they offer to new iPhones. But there's something to watch out for here. When you hear that an iPhone gets five years of updates, take that, Android loser, that means five years from the phone's launch, not five years after you walk to a store and buy it. So if you think about it then, a last-gen iPhone isn't discounted much, if at all, when you factor in that Apple is going to kill its software updates that much sooner, reducing its expected lifespan. So our recommendation then is, if you're planning to buy an iPhone off contract, buy it within the September launch period. Like, do it right away! The reason is that your purchase price of the phone isn't going to go down over the course of the rest of the year anyway, but the resale value of your current phone could, dropping 10 to 15% per month after the new generation's launch. So like, if you're gonna spend the money, you might as well get max enjoyment out of it. By the way guys, yes, I will be reviewing the new iPhones, subscribe now so that you don't miss it. Now to change gears a little bit. I mentioned before that even if you have no intention of ever buying an iPhone, it's still a good idea to be mindful of their launch window when you're upgrading your other electronics. Let's talk about how the demand for iPhones can actually impact the price of the commodity chips that you'd find on your next SSD or maybe even system memory upgrade. Apple is the third largest manufacturer of smartphones globally, behind Samsung and Huawei. But unlike Samsung, who launches their Galaxy S and Note phones five months apart with other models sprinkled in between, Apple's new iPhone lineup usually all launches at the same time or very close to it. This puts a huge demand on manufacturers of integrated circuits like DRAM and NAND flash that are found not just in phones, but in tablets, servers, and yes of course, your gaming PC. So smartphones use up 35% of the world's NAND flash memory. That's more than any other segment. So phone production during the summer to stock up for a big launch can actually eat up a lot of the global supply, resulting in more expensive SSDs during the holiday season. A problem that ends up getting amplified whenever Apple increases the storage capacity of their base model phones. Something that at the time of filming is rumored to happen this year, including even on their budget model. So that phone, the 11R, 10R II, YS, I don't know, whatever it ends up being called, could potentially impact RAM prices too. The iPhone XR has been the best-selling iPhone since it launched, accounting for nearly half of all iPhone sales in the third quarter of this year. And its successor is predicted to feature 33% more RAM. That's 4 gigs up from just 3 on the 10R. However, when it comes to RAM, there are many other factors that affect the supply. Everything from transitions to new process nodes and waiting for fabs to fire up, to international trade spats, to fires ripping through factories, quite literally. So IMHO, it's not likely to be the new iPhones that end up raising DRAM prices. And that seems especially unlikely given that smartphone manufacturers have been missing their sales forecasts for the latest and greatest smartphones due to falling sales in recent years. This has caused oversupply and the current climate of very, very low memory prices. There's also the fact that there are some single devices already being shipped in volume that pack more RAM than Apple's entire flagship lineup combined. So yeah, there's that too. Another industry that launches products like clockwork, pun definitely intended, is desktop computer processors. On the surface, there might not appear to be much of a pattern to Intel CPU launch schedule over the last nine years, ever since they separated their Enthusiast and their mainstream product lineups. But there are a couple of key takeaways here. One is that Intel typically launches Enthusiast flagship processors at any of three times per year, during CES in early January, during Computex in early summer, or right before the holiday shopping season in early autumn. After the launch, a couple of things will happen. Depending on the strength of the new product compared to last gen, the pricing for the older parts will either hold pretty steady while the stock trickles off the shelves, or it'll plummet, and there will be deals on motherboards. One of Intel's rather annoying habits is their tendency to drop a new motherboard chipset on the consumers, even if it isn't strictly needed for compatibility, and or doesn't even offer a tangible performance improvement. So that is actually where some of the best deals can be found. Lightly discounted CPUs and clearance motherboards bundled together. And this can be true of AMD as well. Third gen Ryzen chips paired with B450 motherboards are currently one heck of a killer value combo. But another consideration that didn't used to be a big deal when it came to computer processors is support. As CPUs have gotten more complex, timely patches for security vulnerabilities like Spectre and Meltdown have become more and more of a factor. And some users were very disappointed to discover that their still very functional 900 series Core i7 processor would not be getting a patch for Spectre or Meltdown. The main lesson here for computer enthusiasts then is that CPUs, and actually graphics cards for that matter, have a seasonality to them as well. So in conclusion, I'd say go ahead and upgrade your PC RAM whenever you want this year. And if you're unsure how much you need, maybe check out our guide right over here. Just maybe keep a close eye on SSD prices, especially if you're targeting the lower capacity parts. And if you start to see things creep up, maybe pull the trigger sooner rather than later. 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