Having been on the tick cycle since my first iPhone (the 4), this is the year I’d normally be looking to upgrade. After a couple of years, I’d usually be complaining about the battery life in my two-year-old phone by now: to begin with.

But the battery life in my 6 Plus is fine, really. It lasts all day, most days, and it has never been an issue.

Still, there’s a new iPhone with a swanky new camera and clever cores that run those low-level background tasks on reduced power. The camera looks good. So it’s not really “telephoto” but it is a 56mm equivalent lens, so now you have the two main lenses that every photographer should have: a wide angle and a portrait lens.

So I might want it, but do I need it? Of course not. And this time around, I’m less inclined to get it anyway. I’ve had several moments recently when I was tempted to commit iPhone suicide and just get rid of it altogether. Imagine the lightness you’d feel not having that seductive device calling from your pocket all the time; imagine the money you’d not be spending on a data plan.

When I consider my phone usage it comes down to five things:

• Twitter
• Podcasts
• Google Maps
• Music
• Dots (my perennial mindless time-killing game)

Now, four of those five things are fairly important to me, but none of them really require the processing power of most-powerful-iphone-we’ve-ever-made, do they? And only three of them require the use of the screen.

What about photographs? Well, I do take a lot of photos, but only at certain times of the year. And a lot of my photos are taken on my Panasonic system camera, so while I’m impressed by the new camera technology, I’m not hankering for it right now.

My kid is hankering for my phone, however, so there is pressure coming from below in the iPhone food chain. She would kill to have the 64GB I have instead of the the 16GB she makes do with.

Can I afford a new phone? No. But then I never can, really, which hasn’t stopped me in the past.

Something cheaper than an iPhone would be a new Apple Watch. And for a while, I was telling myself I might buy the Watch (Series 2) instead of a phone this year. But I don’t need one. I wouldn’t even take advantage of the GPS to take it cycling without my phone: I always take my phone with me on bike rides in case of accident/puncture/throwing a spoke etc.

So it comes to this. There is no need, and there is not currently enough want to make me take the plunge. So I might wait until next year, who knows? The danger time is actually November (I never buy early in case there are bugs or manufacturing problems). So if I can get past the end of this year without succumbing to temptation, I might skip it this time.