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Before you buy an older iPhone, make sure that it will work on your cell phone provider's network. On some networks, the iPhone 4 will not work and the iPhone 5 is hit or miss. The other problem with older phones is that the Apple operating system (Apple iOS) eventually reaches an endpoint where Apple no longer provides updates. For example, while the iPhone 4 still performs its functions perfectly well, the latest iOS available to it is iOS 7.1.2, which severely limits which apps are available to it. The latest OS upgrade for the iPhone 5 is iOS 10.3.3, which can also be an issue for some apps.