The iPhone resale market has always been surprisingly robust.
Apple devices hold their value better than most electronics, making trade-ins and second-hand sales a viable way to offset the cost of upgrading.
People have been trading in their old iPhones to get a decent amount of cash if they're hoping to grab the new iPhone 17 Pro or iPhone Air. Meanwhile, an investigation by The Wall Street Journal investigated the afterlife of traded-in phones, showing the journey of used phones before they land in the hands of a new owner. In 2022 alone, 73.5 million used and refurbished phones were shipped throughout North America.
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But in the world of collectibles, sometimes it's not the newest or best-functioning device that fetches top dollar, it's the unusual ones. Even iPhones with specific serial numbers or unusual packaging variations attract collectors willing to pay far above market value.
Now, one iPhone owner stumbled across a glitch on their device that might earn them some serious money.
On Reddit, the user wrote: "Something really weird just happened. I’m running iOS 26.1 on my iPhone 13, and I was using it while fast-charging. As expected, it started getting pretty warm and laggy."
The user noticed that their Safari icon had turned circular.
"Eventually, the lag got so bad that the screen completely froze. That’s when I noticed the Safari icon on my dock - it turned perfectly circular! It looks exactly like those old "iOS Liquid Glass" concept rumors we used to see."
The user explained that they couldn't take a screenshot because 'the UI was unresponsive,' so they took a photo with another phone.
"After a hard restart, it went back to normal, but I've never seen this specific glitch before," they added before asking if anyone else had encountered similar behaviour.
Some users replied thinking the new look was quite refreshing, writing: "That actually looks cool WTH" and "that looks better actually. They should allow the icons to go borderless instead of adding the artificial padding to everything imo."
Another commentator responded: "No, but ngl it looks cool".
However, one individual responded by suggesting the owner could sell it for a whopping amount of cash.
"Sell it for $10,000 on eBay," the user replied.
It's crazy how accidental circumstances can sometimes create value. Whether the device would actually sell for that much, though, is another story.