Confirming iPhone owners’ suspicions that Apple purposefully slows the operation of older phones, Apple says that it does just that — and that slowing down processors makes it easier for old batteries to perform after they’ve begun to lose capacity.
Apple is responding to owners of older phones who have increasingly said they notice slower performance after they upgrade their device’s software. The difference was highlighted in a recent Reddit post — and it was quantified in a blog post at Geekbench, the processor benchmarking company.
Older phones operate more quickly if they’re using older versions of Apple’s iOS operating system, Geekbench found.
The slowdown affects a range of Apple phones, including the iPhone 7 and iPhone 6S, models that came out in 2016 and 2015, respectively. The company says it plans to apply the same strategy to “other products in the future.”
Smartphones’ lithium-ion batteries lose their pep as they age, but their processors remain hungry for quick bursts of power. So, Apple used software to throttle the demand — effectively governing the speed at which the phones can operate.
The situation is prickly: More than 10 years after Apple introduced its first iPhone, the company says it’s trying to deliver the “best experience” to customers by preventing unexpected power-related shutdowns. In addition to aging batteries, the company said it tries to “smooth out” power demand in phones that are operating in cold conditions, or that have a low battery charge.
But some customers say the company’s strategy of dealing with the power demand pushes them to replace their older iPhones with newer models.
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