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Apple has been accused of slowing down old iPhones by tying performance to battery condition. This could cause some users to upgrade to a newer model rather than get the battery replaced:
Apple may be slowing down older iPhones in order to counteract problems with decreased battery capacity, according to Primate Labs founder John Poole. The news could add fuel to the conversation around planned obsolescence—the idea that tech companies purposely slow down older devices to encourage users to buy new models. Claims of planned obsolescence have hit almost all the big firms, and have reached the status of a major conspiracy theory in many tech circles.
In a recent blog post, Poole, whose company created the Geekbench benchmarking system, set out to detail the data behind a particular Reddit post claiming that Apple was slowing down iPhones with low-capacity batteries. The user was getting lower-than-expected scores on Geekbench, which improved after they replaced the battery in their iPhone 6S.
[...] Of course, part of the battery issues have to do with the changes that came with iOS 10.2.1, Poole wrote. Apple introduced the update to combat a bug causing the sudden shutdown of iPhone 6 and 6S models. "I believe (as do others) that Apple introduced a change to limit performance when battery condition decreases past a certain point," Poole wrote in the post.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:17PM
Two years is pretty much the *minimum* expected lifespan of a phone. I know plenty of people (myself included!) using Android devices that are 4+ years old with no complaints. And if the battery starts to go, I can easily replace that myself, no disassembly required...and that would cost around $30 compared to $600+ for a new phone.
If it was a *feature*, it would stop running slowly when you plugged it in. If it was a feature it would stop running slowly when you disabled power saving mode. If it was a feature it would tell you what the problem was. The fact that it doesn't appear to do any of that means that it's not a feature, it's a trick. Designed to encourage people to buy new phones every year or two. Mobile processors are finally getting "fast enough" for most casual usage, so they're looking for new ways to force people to upgrade. First is was the non-removable battery, but it's still possible to get those replaced, so now they're trying to directly degrade the user experience so people won't even know what the problem is or how to fix it, other than buying a new one.