Apple Admits to Slowing Down Older iPhones

The idea of planned obsolescence is not hidden or new and we all know that newer updates tend to make old phones slower. Only now has such a theory been confirmed by Apple.

The company admits that it slows down older versions of the iPhones, by throttling their processors, as their battery starts to lose its capacity. Apple for its part claims that it does that only to prevent unexpected shutdowns.

Slowdown After Every Update

The occurrence was first observed by Geekbench developer John Poole, who mapped the performance of the iPhone 6s as it got updated. He noticed that with each update, the single-core performance kept hitting declining peaks.

Other Reddit and Twitter users have started to come up with scores that show declining figures; one such user noted his phone to have a factory processor clock of 1400 MHz, though, by now it is only 600 MHz, which is a big decrease.

The issue is said to affect users on the iPhone 6 till 7, with the newer phones not been tested yet.

The iPhone battery is said to retain 80% of capacity after 500 charge-discharge cycles, charging $79 for a replacement battery. By throttling performance, Apple seems to give users no choice but upgrade their phones sooner.

Apple’s Statement

Apple said in a statement to BuzzFeed:

Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices. Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.

Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We’ve now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future.