The iPhone 11 is about to become the longest supported device (in terms of new iOS versions, for all types of updates this achievment goes to the iPhone 5s) ever made by apple!
- It got 7 major OS updates. iOS 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 26 and now 27! (Excluding 13, because it launched with iOS 13, but if we count that as an update, 8 major OS updates). 8 Years of support for major iOS updates, and probably 10+ years of support for security updates.
The rivals at the time (2019 - 2022) when the iPhone 11 was still being produced and sold as new have already reached the end of support for the major OS updates. Those rivals are the Samsung S10, S20, S21, S22.
All rumours of iPhone 11 being dropped in iOS 27 where completly wrong. Apple is letting people with less oportunities get one more update and save more money to upgrade they're phone. And with that, in my understating, this means, probably all iPhones will get an extra year of new iOS versions, so the iPhone 12 was supposed to end in iOS 27, now it will end in iOS 28, iPhone 13 is a diferent case, both the 13's and 14 base model are literally the same phone, so probably iOS 29/30 will be they're last version.
iOS 26 was a disaster, the only thign that "saved" was its new design (that for some people it made harder to read parts of the system that i agree, liquid glass is not that good in iOS 26, but now in iOS 27 with the new transperancy adjust you can make more Transperant, or more iOS 18 style) and the new features, the rest was pure chaos (in my opinion), to the point that iOS 18 was signed for more time so they fixed all the iOS 26 features and people who didn't want could go back to iOS 18 until the problems we're fixed. All iPhones we're somehow struggling to run it with no problems. So they decided to make the iOS 12 update again but with a new name. iOS 27!
iOS 12 was a perfomance update that supported all iOS 11 devices. Nowadays, iOS 27 is also a perfomance update with many new features that supports all iOS 26 devices!
Now for security updates/other updates lifespan of a phone, no company beats apple.
- iPhone 5s is a phone 13 years old already, and still getting updates, it got the iOS 12.5.8 (an update that extends its activation tickets to work past january of 2027) in january of 2026, no company is still dropping updates for a 9+ phone, only apple. This means they care about people with less oportunities and want to make phone last, as long as possible.
When i had my Xiaomi, it only lasted 2 years of support, only 3 Major OS updates, and then no security updates nor major.
Samsung is killing major OS support for the S23 (a 2023 phone!) next major OS update, after that only security updates. Apple is still supporting a 2019 phone with major iOS updates, and incredibly optimized in iOS 27, as i have one in the dev beta 3 and i have no bad opinions about it, its smooth and works very well.