The Tech Upgrade Trickle-Down Effect
December 06, 2011, By Michael Sheehan 0 comments
When there is a head of technology in your family, everybody else benefits. It's not simply because technology in general gets upgraded, but there is also a trickle-down effect that takes place when you do pursue that upgrade path. Think of it as trickle-down gadget economics if you will. I hope the head of technology in your family carefully evaluates the gadgets at hand before taking a plunge to bring a new device into the household. If not, it may cause some imbalance in the art of family gadgetry.
There are quite a few household gadgets that get updated over time: game consoles, TVs and connected devices, and cell phones, just to name a few. These devices are not cheap, and if chosen properly should last a few years (depending on the device). And the resulting "upgrade trickle-down effect" that these upgrades bring can be internal to the family or span multiple families. But I recommend that when you do decide to go that route, you check around to be sure that others will be able to benefit in the process. I speak from experience here.
Here's my first example—cell phone upgrades. I recently received a new iPhone 4S, and this started the in-house tsunami upgrade. My wife received my 32 GB iPhone 4, my oldest daughter received my wife's 16 GB iPhone 4, replacing her iPhone 3GS. We now have a spare 3GS available for my youngest daughter. A few weeks ago, I decided to activate my middle daughter's iPhone 3GS (which used to be my old one). My youngest daughter had been using my original iPhone, but we decided to let her use an iPod Touch that we had since my wife about a year ago was upgraded to an iPhone from a Blackberry.
Whew! Lots of technology ripples there! And what happened to all of the non-iOS devices out there? They have become play toys for my kids. So yes, everyone is a winner!
NEXT: TV Migration
