I got my first iPhone during Chinese New Year in early 2012. It wasn't anything I'd aspired to own. I was not particularly techie, nor could I afford the brand as a graduate with a starting salary.

But at a dinner with an old friend of my father's, the friend gave me, along with other knick-knacks, an iPhone 4. My gift came with a caveat, however: It was not the sought-after 4S that had caused a frenzy around the country after its release in January. Mine was a simple iPhone 4 - released in 2010, and by then considered already past its prime as a formal gift.