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Your phone has a death date
ChatGPT
Your phone is dying as you’re reading this. Many people don’t realize that, like milk, condoms or your favorite hot sauce that’s been in the fridge since 2018, your phone has an expiration date.
Here are the average lifespans for some of today’s most popular phone brands and makes:
- Apple iPhone: 4 to 8 years; iPhones often get 6+ years of iOS updates.
- Samsung: 3 to 6 years. Flagships get 5 years of updates, but budget models tend to peak around 3 years.
- Google Pixel: 3 to 5 years. Pixels now promise up to 7 years of updates (starting with Pixel 8).
To be clear: These are averages. Like dog years or Tinder bios, your mileage may vary.
What’s your number?
Here’s the juicy bit: Your phone’s expiration countdown starts when it’s manufactured, not when you bought it, so knowing when it was built is super important. Here are ways to find out:
- Look around: The manufacture date is often listed on the package. If you tossed it, check the “About” section in your phone’s settings for a date or serial number.
- Serial number: Many manufacturers encode the manufacturing date within these numbers. The site SNDeep.info can help you decode yours.
- Dial secret codes: Special codes and menus can reveal manufacturing information. Dialing *#06# might or might not show your phone’s serial number.
Yeah, I know. This looks like way too much work.
Hallelujah, an easier way
Instead of taking the steps above, head to endoflife.date. This handy site lists the end-of-life (EOL) dates for devices, software programs and others. Some quick links for you to check your phone’s EOL:
The links below aren’t for phones, but I thought you might want to check the EOL for your other tech:
Digital self-destruction for fun and paranoia
ChatGPT
How to make any USB drive self-destruct
“Kim, I’m paranoid about losing my USB drive. Is there any way to make it so if someone steals it, they can’t see or open anything?” — Dave in Denver
Cluckin’ wild
The Minecraft movie is meh, but Jack Black’s unhinged chicken ballad, “Steve’s Lava Chicken,” shot up to # 78 on Billboard’s Hot 100. It’s now the shortest song ever to hit the famed list, clocking in at 34 seconds, making it both a record and maybe a cry for help for our attention spans. Listen here, you have been warned.
1 hour
The weekly amount of weight training needed to gain muscle. One study found just two 30-minute sessions a week helped participants get noticeably stronger and more jacked (paywall link), no five-day grind or bro science required. One set per exercise. Nine moves. That’s it. I hear you: “Instead of calling my bathroom the John, I call it the Jim. That way I can tell people I go to the Jim every morning.”
🚁 End of an era: DJI is grounding its iconic Phantom drone series. Starting June 1, 2025, support for the Phantom 4 Pro and Phantom 4 Advanced will fly off into the sunset. These drones helped kick off the quadcopter craze in 2013. DJI is shifting its focus to newer birds like the Inspire, Mavic, Air, Mini and the beginner-friendly Flip line.
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Cash dive: It’s happening across the country. The NY Times spotlighted how UNC is turning its diving team into influencers with sponsorships, style guides and TikTok training. It’s all part of the school’s push to make every athlete a content creator. Imagine getting cut from the team for poor engagement and bot followers.
🐭 Ex-Disney worker headed to prison: After getting fired, Michael hacked company servers and messed with restaurant menus. He changed prices, added curse words, locked employees out of their accounts and, the kiss of death, even marked peanut items as “peanut-free.” The penalty? Three years in prison, definitely not the happiest place on Earth.
Lost Social Security card? Starting this summer, the Social Security Administration will let people with “my Social Security” accounts see their full Social Security number online. It keeps your physical card safe from theft, but might open a can of worms courtesy of hackers. Don’t forget to secure it with two-factor authentication!
⛪ Pope picks: Sacrilegious TikTokers made a “Fantasy Pope League” because of course they did. The league got over 2,000 sign-ups on its first day. Here, you can draft cardinals fantasy football style and get points based on the progress of your cardinal on their pursuit of the big hat.
🚨 iPhone alert: Apple sent out a major warning that mercenary spyware is on the loose. This kind of attack targets specific people based on what they do, like journalists or government officials. For the rest of us, it’s a good reminder to update to iOS 18.4.1 for the latest security fixes. Go to Settings > General > Software Update.
Robot strawberries: In Virginia, a vertical farm is growing 4 million pounds of strawberries a year indoors, on two-story towers, with no soil, no bees and a whole lot of AI. The system analyzes 10 million+ data points a day. It’s less “Old MacDonald,” more “Black Mirror: Produce Edition.” Can’t wait for my future salad to come with bug patch notes.
23%
That’s how many HTML attachments are malicious. They usually show up in your inbox with names like “invoice.html,” and when you click, they redirect you to phishing websites. That’s where scammers steal your info or drop malware on your device. Moral of the story? Stay sharp and use real-time protection. My pick is TotalAV, just $19 a year.
📵 Phones down, eyes up: That’s the YMCA’s new water safety campaign for parents this summer. Why? Drowning is the number one cause of death for kids ages 1 to 4, and it often happens within 25 yards of a distracted parent. It’s usually silent, with no splashes, and can happen in 30 seconds or less. I know there’s someone you need to share this with.
Third Neuralink implant is in: This time, it’s a dad with ALS who’s fully paralyzed, and he’s also the first nonverbal patient to get the chip. Brad posted on X, using only his brain to type a message thanking Elon Musk. And get this: He even edited a video with his mind and used AI to bring back his old voice. Amazing.
🎭 Deepfakes just got sneakier: It’s getting harder to figure out if that person is real or not. A good way to spot them used to be skin color changes that matched a heartbeat. Bad news: New AI can mimic those. How can you tell? The person’s facial features are too perfect, or they worked at CGI Fridays.
💀 DIY neck crack: Chiropractic neck “adjustments” are all over TikTok. So are reports of strokes, nerve damage and ruptured arteries. The internet’s favorite crack (not that one) could basically snap your brain off. So before you adjust yourself straight into the void based on something you saw online, heed my words: Please don’t.
AI eats its own: Prompt engineer was tech’s hot new job title in 2023, featuring $300K salaries, fully remote work and bragging rights in Discord. Fast-forward to 2025: AI doesn’t need prompt engineers anymore. It writes its own prompts. Imagine training your replacement that never takes lunch breaks and doesn’t need caffeine. Congrats, prompt engineers, you played yourself, in natural language.
$10 million
How much revenue TikTok creators are collectively pulling in daily. New data also shows it’s now the second most-watched livestreaming platform on the net. So far in Q1: Twitch has 4.85 billion hours, TikTok Live 8.03 billion and YouTube leads with 14.98 billion hours. Dang, that’s crazy.